Boris!

 

 (YouTube)

AUTO-LITE THEATER PRESENTS "SUSPENSE" (1949)-"A NIGHT AT THE INN" by Lord Dunsany. Three mugs (Anthony Ross, Jack Manning, Barry Macollum) who stole a sacred Jewel from the head of a Hindu idol hide out at an Irish inn waiting to hear the plan their boss Toff (Boris Karloff) has for them. They decide to take the jewel by force from Toff and sell it in London. However Toffee has a plan which seems to work until something unforeseen happens….

This strange little tale is an interesting look at an early live TV production (shot in NYC) with a creepy atmosphere and Karloff giving a great performance.

 “Suspense” ran on the CBS network for 5 seasons starting in 1948. It's the offshoot of a radio show of the same name that ran for 20 years beginning in 1942. Auto-lite sponsored the show throughout it's run and the on screen narrator was Rex Marshall for many of them (around this time Marshall helped found WPIX TV in NYC. He later did many other TV announcing jobs and after that owned his own radio station in Vermont until his death in 2000). 

Like many early TV anthologies it based it's shows on stories written by well known authors (Edgar Allen Poe e.g.) and many well known stars and characters are were featured. Bela Lugosi appears in an adaptation of Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado”. Many episodes are lost but at least 90 exist. Director Robert Stevens was busy on TV through the 1960's (He directed 44 episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and the first episode of “The Twilight Zone”, “Where Is Everybody?”). He died of cardiac arrest after being beaten and robbed in his home in 1989. Screenwriter Halstead Welles also later wrote for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and much later “Night Gallery”.

Thanks for reading!