Dramatic suspense anthology (1946
- 48)
Sunrise and sunset, promise and
fulfillment, birth and death the whole drama of life
is written in the sands of time.
 Conceived and written by Lawrence Klee, this show
is a study in the manipulation of our lives by time.
In effect, each drama is a study in how something
happens, but then is changed by the passage or manipulation
of the moment. It is often very psychological, and
nearly always very suspenseful.
The introduction to each half-hour remains the same,
and is one that is remembered by those who listened
to the show after the War, and before TV. It has its
roots in thriller shows such as Suspense,
Inner Sanctum,
and Quiet Please,
but the creator of the show, Lawrence Klee, along
with Director Clark Andrews, fashioned an individual
study each week with East Coast radio actors transcribed
in New York.
In 1947, the production moved west to Hollywood,
and the able William Spier, a major director of Suspense
in the 1940's, took the director's chair. Actors included
"Mr. And Mrs. Radio, Kathy and Elliott Lewis,
Jeanette Nolan and many others who worked the Hollywood-originated
old time radio shows.
The stories were narrated by a deep-voiced "Father
Time" figure, to a ticking cadence. "In
England they call me Ben, and I have a large and extremely
showy flat in Westminster Tower but just between the
two of us, I feel much more comfortable at the end
of a chain … and there's the quiet old lady who
keeps a favored place for me in the corner of her
room to her, I'm known as Grandfather." It foreshadowed
writer Klee's suspense series The Chase, aired
six years later had a decidedly different sound, but
the themes were the same.
SOURCE:
The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio, John Dunning
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