1060 - Present Tense (Suspense) (Vincent Price)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
A dirney in the rail of the strain, and tell of.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
By I hope you will enjoy the chapel, that it
will trill you a little and kill you a little.
So settle back, get a good grip on your nerves.
Where are we going?

Speaker 1 (00:22):
You will find out when we get there.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Suspense and the producer of radios, outstanding theater of thrills,
the master of mystery and adventure, William and Robeson.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
It is a principle of law that a man cannot
be charged, convicted, and sentenced twice for the same crime.
There is no law in the books that says a
man cannot murder his wife over and over again in
his fantasy. For a man of sufficient imagination, repetitive sauricide
can indeed become a pleasant way of bringing time to

(01:06):
a stop. Husbands and Price accomplishes it in present tense,
a tail well calculated to keep you in.

Speaker 5 (01:15):
Suspense through the dim pain, the cold, dark.

Speaker 6 (01:50):
Land wheels away, and the hills beyond below the scars
are black, sharp, dead hills, dark sky steel below my feet.
Cold is the face of the officer at my side.
Cold is the cuffs which link my arm to his,
which join us on this journey to the prison where

(02:11):
I die.

Speaker 7 (02:12):
Or a cigarette?

Speaker 8 (02:13):
No I want to take one.

Speaker 6 (02:15):
No, I don't smoke cigarettes. Okay, has this happened to
you before?

Speaker 4 (02:19):
What?

Speaker 6 (02:20):
Being handcuffed to a murderer? Has it happened to you before?

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Sure?

Speaker 6 (02:23):
Plenty times to an axe murderer.

Speaker 8 (02:26):
Yep, you're not the special brother.

Speaker 9 (02:29):
Lots of guys act their wives, lots of them.

Speaker 6 (02:32):
I could have escaped after I killed her, but I didn't.
Now it's too late, late late, never too late, never too.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Late, too late, too late. Escape escape.

Speaker 6 (02:47):
The train would be wrecked if the detective were to
be killed late. The sweet escape, the light, escape, the crash.

Speaker 7 (02:57):
Escape, no oh, no oh, the darkness.

Speaker 6 (03:12):
Where am I with the cars? Mus have gone down
the college? No light, Those people in pain. This thing
fastened into my wrist. We must have gone halfway through
the glass doorm Keep back, keep back from his blood.
I don't seem to be hurt. No broken bones. Escape

(03:35):
now the key in his pocket, in his bloody pocket,
and the cuffs are off, he's gone, and the watt
his face, his face is gone.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
His own mother would know him.

Speaker 6 (03:53):
I'm free, wire, you loyal. I must get away here
now my ring unto his finger, and that complete US
number sixty three from Bakersfield now arriving. Please plan your
luggage at the curve. Fourteen actually makes it. Yes, why

(04:21):
Beverly Glen above sunset, I'll show you where. Actually, hey,
you read about a big plain rag. Yeah, I understand.
Almost a hundred were killed.

Speaker 1 (04:37):
My hop it looks so small, so shabby. No one
took care of it during the trial.

Speaker 6 (04:44):
No one cared, no one.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
No one cares now. But that's good. I like that.

Speaker 6 (04:49):
I'll be alone and I won't let the neighbors see me,
and I'll sleep to get out where I go next
the lights are on, someone is there. Just like that,
the whole thing went joice. You will always be the

(05:11):
brain for both of it, won't you, honey, huh?

Speaker 10 (05:14):
Always?

Speaker 1 (05:15):
You know we can't be she's dead. If I know
she's dead, I killed him.

Speaker 6 (05:20):
A bottle of beer, honey, huh.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Yes, it's very cold.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Honey, but I'm not.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
He's in a mouthful.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
That husband of mine would never even make.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
Me feel like it.

Speaker 7 (05:38):
Take a man, baby.

Speaker 6 (05:40):
All she would do would sit around and write those poems.

Speaker 10 (05:43):
All the time.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
We framed it so good that even thought he killed you.

Speaker 6 (05:50):
What was that?

Speaker 1 (05:51):
I heard a noise?

Speaker 7 (05:53):
Mice.

Speaker 10 (05:55):
You're funny, you know that, real funny.

Speaker 6 (05:58):
Open the kitchen door so quietly and walk softly here
on the wall, by the stone the cleaver.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
I hear something. I am nervous, eh, relacious a little
bit more. I see them now it is she? How
did he do it?

Speaker 6 (06:20):
How did they trick me into imagining the murder? I
am innocents, That is what you are, sweetness, love a
man pig in his dirty undershirt, soft, weak white neck,
fat on his arms, pink quits the cleaver and walk

(06:40):
like a feather.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
He shall be the first soft white neck. Honestly, I
hear them was the matter of sweet mates?

Speaker 6 (06:55):
You kill him? Yes?

Speaker 1 (06:58):
And now you yeah.

Speaker 6 (07:02):
I was innocent, and I thought myself guilty, and now
I am truly guilty. Never in my life have I
felt so innocent, like a dream, like a nightmare, the confession,

(07:31):
the conviction, the sentence, and now once more, dark night,
cold steel, the sound of wheels, just as I lived
it before. Why even the cold face of the silent
officer at my side, hard cold face, so much like.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
That other face. Want a cigarette?

Speaker 6 (07:50):
No, go on, now, I don't use them Okay, does
this happened to you before?

Speaker 1 (07:57):
What? Being handcuffed to a murderer?

Speaker 6 (08:00):
Has it happened to you before? Oh?

Speaker 8 (08:01):
Sure, plenty of times to an X murderer.

Speaker 6 (08:04):
Yeah you're not the special brother.

Speaker 8 (08:06):
Lots of guys asked their wives, lots of them.

Speaker 6 (08:09):
But were you ever cuffed to an AX murderer who
killed two people? Two people at once? My sin, my crime?
What I did? I killed them both?

Speaker 7 (08:17):
Then?

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Oh, take it easy, brother, You only killed your wife,
just one. That's all.

Speaker 6 (08:29):
In a moment.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
We continue with William and Robeson's production of Spise. We
continue the present tense starring mister Vincent Twice, a tale

(08:50):
well calculated to keep you in suspense.

Speaker 6 (09:03):
It had been raining for some days now, and beyond
the barred window, the leaden sky bleeds sorrow on the
barren land, the lonely land, the land beyond the prison wall.

Speaker 1 (09:17):
The sky was blue when first I came here, blue
so blue.

Speaker 6 (09:23):
And now it has become as the walls of my cell,
of all our cells, dark, cheerless cells, these lifeless cells,
these cells of men who wait to die. That wet sky,
gray sky, cheerless sky.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
But it is beautiful.

Speaker 6 (09:42):
I have twelve hours left of life, twelve hours left
to live, beautiful sky, beautiful, beautiful, wet and fresh and alive.
Or rather, would I spend eternity at the bottom of
a well with but one patcher that to gaze upon?
Then leave this life, then leave this, then leave this scarf?

(10:09):
But believe it I must.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
The God told me no man has ever escaped sand,
step robe.

Speaker 6 (10:17):
Blocks and bars, gods and guns lie between me and
the world the yon Noah, escape not from here. But
wouldn't it be nobler to gamble my life in bold
attempt then lay it down in reckless resignation.

Speaker 7 (10:33):
Eh?

Speaker 6 (10:34):
Oh, Now to get out of this super guarded area?
Oh oh, oh God, God, Oh hey.

Speaker 7 (10:49):
What's the matter with you?

Speaker 6 (10:50):
God?

Speaker 7 (10:51):
I got here, it's dealing.

Speaker 8 (10:59):
As I'm red.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
You tell me where everywhere?

Speaker 6 (11:03):
Docket Yo, all over? Down here there go touch that
place again though all the ambulance.

Speaker 8 (11:11):
This man's got a pendicitis and.

Speaker 7 (11:16):
Oh do something?

Speaker 6 (11:19):
Hey, Hey, what do I do?

Speaker 8 (11:21):
Why don't they send somebody with you?

Speaker 6 (11:22):
Ali? In turns were all kind up shot today. Look,
he's actually kind of crazy. Let's get him over to
the hospital in a hurry. I can't drive any faster
than my windshiel steam. So my wife, you got a rag?

Speaker 7 (11:33):
Here, you can use my handkerchief.

Speaker 6 (11:37):
Hey, what's going on back there? Your car's out cold,
and I've got his gun now, so keep right on
driving at the top of your head comes off. You
won't get away with this.

Speaker 1 (11:49):
I will.

Speaker 6 (11:50):
I'm betting my life that I will. I'm far back
to the prison, about oh fifteen miles. Listener, Okay, pull over, Okay,
I'm taking it from here, and you I want your

(12:11):
money and your clothes, and then you can take your
power back and explain about me. I won't find that
ambulance for days, not at the bottom of that canyon.
And now I crossed the border on foot and into Mexico,

(12:34):
a little card bought in the back room, with no
questions asked, and I became a tourist four days growth
of beard, and I became poor, an empty suit case
with a butterfly net strapped to its outside, and I
became a source of merriment to a funny, dumb gringo,
and who looks for suspicion on the funny dumb gringo

(12:54):
tourist who is poor because the city is beautiful but
not when you're hungry, not when you are an American
who is hungry. Americans aren't supposed to be hungry.

Speaker 1 (13:08):
But what can I do?

Speaker 6 (13:09):
All I know is writing, the writing of poetry. And
there is one place I might sell some poets Parllen
his magazine prints some English stuff. Perhaps, Well, well, why not?
I have three pesels left, Buy some paper, a pencils,
sit in the park, right and storm the bastions.

Speaker 10 (13:35):
Yeah good, they're good.

Speaker 6 (13:39):
Do you do you like the mister Poler?

Speaker 10 (13:41):
Well, excuse me, Rusita, I have some poems here. Let
me see the river dubbled dreaming, drop this first feel
of my soul?

Speaker 6 (14:00):
Need to we need?

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah? Yeah, just what I thought? Are you too kind?
His own words?

Speaker 6 (14:10):
Well that drips sweet droplets, passion goblets, faith bid.

Speaker 10 (14:24):
You'll see the likes your stuff A rare woman, And
I like what you'll see the likes, she says, we
do a book of your stuff. Oh so yes, an
advance too much? Take it when the book thirty days?

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Right?

Speaker 10 (14:37):
Got the words?

Speaker 6 (14:38):
How your name is smith?

Speaker 1 (14:40):
No good?

Speaker 10 (14:41):
Two dolls so true. I'll make a new one, please do,
and so good day, and I'll be back in thirty
days with the poems America miles below, the bleak brown mountains,
the desert, yellow and red, my own misty glad my
advanced money went for new clothing and a round trip

(15:04):
plane to get to Los Angeles.

Speaker 6 (15:06):
And my new lease on life. In a small file
under the eaves of the little house in Beverly, Glenn,
there are poems, more than a thousand of them, poems
which no one has ever seen. Poems written in the
evenings after work on Sundays. And now with the beard
and the hack and the glasses, no one will recognize
me a cane if I ought to carry a cane

(15:29):
to get the poems? Does someone live there in the
house as someone bought it? No matter, get the poems
and then get back to Mexico City. Someone is living here.

(15:53):
Wonder who The hedge is trimmed, and my hammock, somebody's
put a new canvas cover on it. Greg, you're the
door's show, maybe your favor Oh.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
All right, yes, no, no, it can't be.

Speaker 10 (16:12):
Well, what do you want?

Speaker 1 (16:13):
It's Mary? But I.

Speaker 6 (16:16):
Thought I killed her? What is it, mister?

Speaker 10 (16:20):
What do you want here?

Speaker 1 (16:22):
Are you the lady of the house?

Speaker 10 (16:26):
Some creep with a beard?

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Yes, I'm the lady of the house.

Speaker 6 (16:30):
But I don't want to buy nothing.

Speaker 10 (16:33):
Oh what is it?

Speaker 6 (16:34):
What do you want?

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Are you the man of the house.

Speaker 6 (16:37):
Yeah, I'm the man of the house.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
I'll say so whatever.

Speaker 6 (16:43):
Well, I'm making a survey. I'd like to ask a
few questions. May I come in?

Speaker 7 (16:48):
I don't know?

Speaker 6 (16:49):
Oh, letty, what's the difference?

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Thank you? Well?

Speaker 6 (16:54):
First your name?

Speaker 7 (16:55):
Name?

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yes? Please? Whs need? Where's he go? Or?

Speaker 9 (17:01):
What do you want in my kitchen?

Speaker 1 (17:02):
The cleaver?

Speaker 5 (17:03):
Mary?

Speaker 6 (17:03):
Don't you know me?

Speaker 7 (17:05):
Mary?

Speaker 1 (17:06):
Hey?

Speaker 7 (17:08):
Look close?

Speaker 6 (17:09):
Mary? Oh, the clever? You know me? You the man?
You're tricked into San Quentin. Don't you killed him?

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (17:25):
Now you confession, conviction, sentence, transportation, and again again.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
The death house as before.

Speaker 6 (17:44):
When I came here, they promised I could keep the beard.
They promised I could keep the beard.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
It's gone gone, I can't remember who what? Who's coming?

Speaker 4 (18:01):
Ready?

Speaker 9 (18:03):
Ready, It's time to go, my son, time to go.
You've refused my health up to now, but perhaps you'd
like to walk with me.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
Right beside you, Padres, and beside one of these mercenaries.
My legs, the muscles quivered, not with fear, no, but
with the desire to feel themselves, moving, straining, acting, while
yet there is time. I am not afraid, but this

(18:34):
body I hate the thought of it's being killed by
these men, my beautiful body. Soon it will be dead, cold,
rotting dead, It will rot. No, no, they must not
do this to me.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
You must be brave, my son. My body.

Speaker 6 (18:55):
Years I spent with a great corporeal mast, learning my
bodily purpose, my bodily care, the use of willpower to
control my body.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
The yogi.

Speaker 6 (19:11):
Yes, yes, I should use yoga, suspend my breathing and
become invulnerable to their gas. Suspend my body functions to
the point of death and full that up of course,
Oh yes, the greatest escape of them all. This time
I must succeed. Right here we are, room is so

(19:33):
small summer I had imagined it would be larger. Here
is the chair, yes, the straps, hood, and over there
glass small pane with the dark faces seemed dimly for
the witnesses. The whole room is like some strange sort

(19:55):
of time machine machine for launching a man into another.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
To mention, so true, I'd best begin to prepare myself. Relax.
Must won't be easy. Have you any last words, my.

Speaker 6 (20:16):
Son, Yes, yes, one request do not allow my beautiful
body to be dissected or embalmed. But on the third
day after my death cremated.

Speaker 9 (20:26):
That will be arranged as you desire. Thank you and
God be with you, my son. Remember what Jesus Christ
to the two criminals in this day, shalt thou be
written and had.

Speaker 8 (20:40):
Flowered a little while I pull the hood down there
Now when you hear the pellets drop out of the ascid,
don't try any tricks.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Just breathe deeply, see the fumes. Don't hurt you. See.

Speaker 7 (20:51):
Cooperate with us.

Speaker 6 (20:52):
Make it easier on yourself.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
Kid, you know what I mean. So dark here under
the hood. Now the last breath is the yogi tot me.

Speaker 6 (21:09):
And the lungs holding body, limp all muscles, tendons, joints.

Speaker 1 (21:14):
Relax all slow the bloodstream.

Speaker 6 (21:16):
Lock the breath, hold, hold slow, slow, hold, suspend all
bodily functions.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Hold.

Speaker 6 (21:26):
Fix the eye in suspended animation. Gently fix the mind
on time. He's the beating of my hot time as
a picture, and the screen of my mind slower, slower.
My perception is slower. The time seems to spin by.

(21:48):
Now go slow, my heart, and the lads go on
clearing the air of the poisonous fumes. The doctor will
come with his stethoscope. I will my limbs to stiffness,
my flesh to coldness.

Speaker 8 (22:10):
It's clear, doctor, you can go in.

Speaker 7 (22:11):
Now.

Speaker 8 (22:13):
Well let's see now respiration has ceased, hard to stop
by the authority invested than me, by the State of California.
I pronounced this man dead.

Speaker 6 (22:26):
I will myself the consciousness in take our time. Where
am I? It's dark here, cold, so cold. Let's get
up and see you. Oh, prison mark, it worked, but

(22:51):
I'm cold. I'm so cold. What's this on my toe?

Speaker 1 (22:57):
Tag?

Speaker 6 (22:59):
To doctor lead? But I know what it says? Has
my name prison on a time of execution?

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yes?

Speaker 6 (23:06):
Now look around, because the next step must be played
just right. This should be it a coffin crate ready
for shipping, some cadaver being returned to a sentimental family.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Well, that ought to be just right.

Speaker 6 (23:27):
And with him on my slat, my tag on his toe,
and the most perfect escapeable time underway, here we go.
I will my body to return from its state of
suspended animation and to come immediately out of trance when
next this coffin shall be opened. H Hello man, Yeah,

(24:16):
funeral parlor. Huh, poor fellow must have a bad heart.

Speaker 7 (24:22):
Let's see.

Speaker 6 (24:24):
Oh it's going, and I hope he's out for a while.
It must be the workroom light hanging over the worktable.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
And there.

Speaker 6 (24:32):
A locker with a suit. Fine. And here in the desk,
might there not be some sort of Yes, here a
petty catch fox, and it's quite full. The old boy
apparently doesn't believe in banks. And now, now that Lazarus

(24:52):
has returned from the dead, this newspaper dateline. I was
executed four days ago, and now I find myself resurrected
in Indianapolis, Indiana, California, Los Angeles. You contain your mag

(25:17):
information or on the platform. I returned to my home.
A beautiful time to return home. My old hammock is.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
There, flowers. My yard house is empty. The lawyer said
he'd had.

Speaker 6 (25:39):
It cleaned up.

Speaker 1 (25:42):
My books, my pictures.

Speaker 6 (25:45):
Here, my old pipe. I haven't smoked it in years.
Mary didn't like it, But now she's gone, I don't
hate her anymore. Tobacco is still very fresh. Build the pipe.
There's that detective story I never got to finish. Now

(26:05):
I'll have time. Now, I'll have lots of time to
smoke and read and write and rest. The sun's almost down. Twilight,
wonderful time to get outside.

Speaker 1 (26:22):
Cool sweet air.

Speaker 6 (26:24):
Oneer, what kind of birds those are?

Speaker 1 (26:26):
My hammock? So nice light the pipe?

Speaker 6 (26:35):
Ah, Relax.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Wish I could remember what page I was on, But.

Speaker 6 (26:42):
No matter, I can begin again.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
I've got all the time in the world, the rest
of my life. The birds.

Speaker 6 (26:50):
The sun is slipping out of sight, death of the sun.
How red the sky?

Speaker 1 (26:54):
How soft those clouds, so lovely, so luckily that's that.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
Birds playing in the fish pond.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Look at the happy birds. That's kissing. Will The man
next door is turning on his lawn sprinkling system. Lie
here and smell the cool layer. Evening coming on this chigos, doctor.
Lie in the gathering.

Speaker 6 (27:21):
Twilight, death of the day, birth of the night, sweet
softness of the summer night coming soon the stars.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Oh, it's lovely, heavenly, just like heaven. Lie and swear
to you prone heavenly.

Speaker 8 (27:49):
While he was already invested in me by the State
of California, I pronounced.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
This man dead.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
Suspence in which mister Vincent Price starred in William N.
Robeson's production of Present Tents by James Poe.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Listen.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
Listen again next week when we return with Raymond Burr
in the Peraltum Map. Another tale well calculated to keep
you in sas Bence supporting mister Price in President Tentswell
and Morgan Hegla CenTra, Jack Krusian, DAWs Butler, Joe DeSantis,
Charles Rodlac and Sam Pearce. Original score composed and conducted

(28:46):
by Amigo Marino