Episode 1: The House in Cypress Canyon

[00:00:16] Speaker A: The mysterious Old Radio Listening Society podcast Welcome to the mysterious Old Time Radio Listening Society, a podcast dedicated to suspense and horror stories from the golden Age of Radio. I'm Eric. [00:00:35] Speaker B: I'm Tim. [00:00:35] Speaker C: I'm Joshua. [00:00:37] Speaker A: We love scary old time radio stories. There's nothing quite like a disembodied voice telling a genuinely disturbing tale. But maybe that's just us. Maybe these stories don't actually hold up after all this time. So we're revisiting these old shows to put terror on trial. Do they still work in the 21st century, or are we being deceived by nostalgia? Are these stories blood chilling or butt numbing? [00:01:01] Speaker C: For tonight's episode, I've chosen the House in Cypress Canyon from radio's outstanding theater of thrills. Suspense. Widely regarded as one of the great shows, the Golden Age of Radio, suspense was an anthology program featuring tales well calculated to keep you in, wait for it, suspense. The show was known for its sophisticated scripts, intense musical scores, and a list Hollywood actors. Orson Wells, Jimmy Stewart, Kerry Grant, Lana Turner, Humphrey Bogart, Agnes Moorhead, Charles Lawton, Alan Ladd, Peter Lori. The list goes on and on. Basically, if you were famous and alive between 1942 and 1962, you starred in your very own episode of Suspense. [00:01:44] Speaker B: We could spend all night sharing nerdy facts about suspense. For example, the pilot episode the Lodger was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The notorious Orson Wells story the Hitchhiker was adapted nearly 20 years later by Rod Sterling for an episode of the Twilight Zone. And the final broadcast of Suspense on September 30, 1962, is generally considered the end of Radio's golden age, but we'll. [00:02:07] Speaker C: Be visiting suspense a lot on this podcast. So for now, let's focus on tonight's story, the House in Cypress Canyon. Originally aired December 5, 1946, the House in Cypress Canyon was written by frequent suspense contributor Robert L. Richards, who also wrote a number of notable screenplays, including the classic Jimmy Stewart Western Winchester 73 and starred Robert Taylor, who in 1946 could also be seen on the silver screen alongside Catherine Hepburn in the film noir classic undercurrent. The house in Cypress Canyon is known not only for being one of the scariest episode suspense ever produced, but for being one of only a handful of suspense stories that dealt with unexplained supernatural powers. It also features a sneaky cameo from a famous literary character who at the time was also a very famous radio character. See if you can recognize him. So now it's time to listen to the house in Cypress Canyon. [00:03:04] Speaker A: Forget the petty distractions around you. Forget what you think you know, forget everything but what you hear, right now, it's late at night, and a chill has set in. You're alone, and the only light you see is coming from an antique radio. Listen to the sounds coming from the speaker. Listen to the music and listen to the voices. [00:03:25] Speaker D: Suspense. Tonight, Roma wines bring you Robert Taylor in the house in Cypress Canyon. A suspense play produced, edited and directed for Roma wines by William Spear. Suspense radio's outstanding theater of thrills is presented for your enjoyment by Roma wines. That's R-O-M-A Roma wines. Those better tasting California wines enjoyed by more Americans than any other wine. Yes, right now a glassful would be very pleasant. As Roma wines bring you Robert Taylor in a remarkable tale of suspense. [00:04:18] Speaker E: Merry Christmas, Jerry. [00:04:20] Speaker F: How's the real estate business? [00:04:22] Speaker D: Kind of early with your greeting, aren't you, Sam? [00:04:24] Speaker F: Well, I gotta get him in sometime. I may not see you again until next Christmas. [00:04:27] Speaker D: This real estate racket gets any crazy, I'll be dead by next Christmas. I'm glad you could get up here, though, Sam. [00:04:34] Speaker F: What's on your mind, Jerry? [00:04:36] Speaker D: You'll probably shoot me when you hear it, Sam, because I'm probably nuts. But doggone it, you're a detective and you're my pal, and I just had to tell somebody. [00:04:44] Speaker F: You sound like it's serious. [00:04:46] Speaker D: That's just it. I don't know what it is, Sam, but now, listen. You know, we're agents for a group of houses up in Cypress Canyon. Those places that were started before the war never got finished. [00:04:56] Speaker F: Oh, yeah. [00:04:57] Speaker D: All they got in were the foundations. Just concrete and a couple of beams. Well, they've been finished now. In fact, I'm putting up the four rent on the last of them today. [00:05:05] Speaker F: What do you want? Police protection from the mob? [00:05:08] Speaker D: Listen, Sam, this house that I'm talking about, it's got a number now of 22, 56. But before, when the men went back to work on it, about three months ago. Well, they just started when the foreman on the job brought me a shoebox that he'd found up on a beam. And this box had. What do you call it, a manuscript in it. A story, kind of all written out. Well, he gave me the thing. I read it. I didn't think much about it. I put it in my desk. But the other day and I happened to drive by there. I saw the number on the house and what the house looked like. I thought of this manuscript. Well, I don't like it, that's all. There's something funny about it. [00:05:46] Speaker F: What's funny about it? [00:05:47] Speaker D: Well, mind you, this thing was found in an unfinished house in Canyon, a house that was only just started building. Well, listen, Sam, I want to read it to you if you got the time, and you'll see what I mean. Now, here's how it begins. To whom it may concern, my reasons for setting down on paper. What follows here will be abundantly, will. [00:06:10] Speaker E: Be abundantly clear to anyone into whose possession it may fall. First, let me say that I'm a very ordinary person. My name is James a. Woods. I'm 35 years old by profession, a chemical engineer. My wife Ellen, was a schoolteacher when I met and married her in Indiana seven years ago. There's nothing in the past life of either one of us to suggest remotely any cause or reason for the dreadful thing that has invaded our lives. Our married life has been in no way different from that of millions of other average, reasonably happy and continual families. Three months ago, I was ordered by my firm to take charge of a rather minor project in Los Angeles. Hollywood, to be exact. The order was a sudden one. There'd been no time to secure accommodations and conditions being what they are, the inevitable result was that until day before yesterday, we'd been living in the cramped quarters of one of those characteristic California motels. Needless to say, most of our spare time had been devoted to a search for something more permanent and comfortable. But the fruits of these efforts had been financially and in every other way, a geometrical progression of discouragement. Until last Saturday afternoon, only four days before Christmas. We were driving into town on our way to a movie when Ellen saw it. [00:07:27] Speaker D: Jim, look. [00:07:28] Speaker E: What? [00:07:29] Speaker G: That sign in front of that real estate office. Oh, don't you see what it says? For rent. Furnished, two bedroom house, close in immediate occupancy. [00:07:36] Speaker E: Yeah. [00:07:37] Speaker G: Aren't you going to stop? [00:07:38] Speaker E: Oh, Ellen, you know a sign like that, it mean right out in plain sight in front of a real estate office. They want $600 a month. [00:07:45] Speaker G: Never know until we ask if it's. [00:07:46] Speaker E: Any good at all. There are probably 50 people fighting for it right back there. [00:07:49] Speaker G: Now, honey, there's no harm in trying, now, is there? [00:07:51] Speaker E: You really want to go back? [00:07:53] Speaker G: It's probably foolish, but what can we lose? Okay, darling, come on, cheer up. How do you know? Maybe our lucky change. Maybe fate's going to give us a nice new house for a Christmas presentation. [00:08:20] Speaker E: Oh, we're sorry to bother you, but we just happened to see that parent sign outside. [00:08:24] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, I hung it outside just this minute. [00:08:27] Speaker G: Is the house? [00:08:29] Speaker D: Why, sure it is. [00:08:32] Speaker E: Let me introduce myself. My name is James a. Woods, and this is my wife, Ellen. [00:08:38] Speaker D: How you doing? Wow. Looks like it's fixing to rain. [00:08:45] Speaker E: Yes, so it does, doesn't it? Well, it was one of those things. A real estate agent had just been authorized to rent the place by mail that morning, and he'd hardly had time to look at it himself and put up his sign. When we drove up, it was just an ordinary little California house about halfway up Cypress Canyon, number 22 56. Just an ordinary, undistinguished little house. The agent didn't know much about it. Construction on it had been stopped by the war, and it had just been completed and furnished, lately been vacant while somebody's estate was being settled. And now it is owned by a bank in Sacramento. Of course, we didn't. [00:09:30] Speaker D: We didn't care about key in the. [00:09:31] Speaker E: Mail, along with the authorization to rent. [00:09:33] Speaker D: Only one there is, of course, you can have duplicates, mate. Seems to stick a no no there. It. [00:09:44] Speaker G: Doesn'T sound as though that door had ever been opened. [00:09:46] Speaker D: Well, a little oil on the hinges. [00:09:48] Speaker E: Will fix that all right. [00:09:49] Speaker G: Sure. [00:09:49] Speaker E: Now, here's your living room. [00:09:51] Speaker D: Furniture's little dusty. [00:09:52] Speaker E: Of course, you got to expect that. [00:09:54] Speaker D: It's good furniture, though. You say, Benson brothers? [00:09:56] Speaker G: Yes. [00:09:57] Speaker D: Now, over here is a little den panel, you see? Radio, fireplace. Really a very attractive little room, particularly for a man. Now, the bedrooms off the living room, everything's all on one floor, you understand. It's quite nice. I say. Yes, you can see, you get the morning sun here. There's a view of the canyon through this bottom window. [00:10:21] Speaker E: That's about all there was to it. Wasn't the best place in the world. It was small and badly built. But what would you have done? We took it with as little inspection as that. It was the Saturday before Christmas and the very same evening. We were struggling up the steps from the road with suitcases and boxes and arm loads of clothes and all the endless brick, a brack that people collect and never know they have until they move. Ellen began unpacking, and I began moving things around and taking the worst of the pictures off the wall, doing all the little things that everybody does when they move into a new place and try to give it something in their own. [00:10:58] Speaker G: You know, it's a roof over our heads for Christmas. That's more than we ever thought we'd get, isn't it? Now, what in the world are we going to do with those two pictures? [00:11:07] Speaker E: Why don't we just leave them where they are? [00:11:08] Speaker G: Jim, we can't. They're too awful. [00:11:11] Speaker E: All right, put them in the closet, then. [00:11:12] Speaker G: I can't. Both the closets are damn full. [00:11:14] Speaker E: No, I mean the other one in the little alcove off the den. At least there's a door there. I suppose it's a closet. [00:11:20] Speaker G: That isn't a commentary on the housing problem. A woman moving into a house without even knowing where all the closets are. Take the pictures down, will you, honey? Bring them in here. [00:11:28] Speaker E: Okay. [00:11:30] Speaker G: Guess you'll have to help me with this door. I can't get it open. [00:11:33] Speaker E: Let me see. Of course you can't, silly. It's locked. Where are those keys we found in the desk? Not this one. Sure, this one won't work. Feels like an awful solid door for a closet. [00:11:52] Speaker G: That's one solid door in the house. [00:11:54] Speaker E: This one won't do it, either. Well, we'll just have to get a locksmith up here on Monday. I'll put the pictures behind the desk, okay? [00:12:00] Speaker G: Yeah, all right. Jim, if you could just help me move this armchair. [00:12:04] Speaker E: Well, then, will you let it go until tomorrow? You know what time it is. [00:12:07] Speaker G: But, honey, I'd like to get the place looking just a little. [00:12:09] Speaker E: It's almost midnight. In fact, it's exactly. [00:12:13] Speaker G: What was that? [00:12:16] Speaker E: Tomcat, I guess, on the Bryce somewhere. [00:12:18] Speaker G: Sounded near. Hope that doesn't go on all night. [00:12:23] Speaker E: There's much we can do about it. Come on, Ellen. I'm dead tired. [00:12:27] Speaker G: All right. [00:12:27] Speaker E: Jim, where'd you put the toothpaste on it? [00:12:31] Speaker G: Right in the medicine cabinet. [00:12:33] Speaker E: Oh, yeah. [00:12:34] Speaker G: Jim, we ought to get some firewood tomorrow. You know, a fire in that living room would make all the difference in the world. [00:12:40] Speaker E: Sunday? [00:12:41] Speaker G: Well, Monday, then. Jim, I think red curtains are what we need. Don't know, just. At least for the living room anyway. The ones in there now have just got to come down. [00:12:52] Speaker E: Yeah, I suppose they do. [00:12:54] Speaker G: What do you think of red? [00:12:55] Speaker E: Well, I guess it's. [00:12:58] Speaker G: Jim. [00:13:00] Speaker E: That's some tomcat. [00:13:03] Speaker G: Jim, it sounded in the house. [00:13:07] Speaker E: How could it be in the house? Ellen, we've been over every inch of. [00:13:10] Speaker G: The house except that closet. [00:13:13] Speaker E: Now, how could a cat or anything else be in the closet that's been locked up for over a year? [00:13:18] Speaker G: I don't know. [00:13:19] Speaker E: Probably under the house. A wildcat or mountain lion or something. I hear they have them in California. [00:13:23] Speaker G: Jim, I don't like. [00:13:24] Speaker E: Well, neither do I like it, but there's nothing we can do about it tonight. [00:13:27] Speaker G: Maybe we ought to call somebody. The police or some neighbor. [00:13:30] Speaker E: Silly yelling. You act like a kid. Come on, let's go to. [00:13:35] Speaker G: Right. I suppose it is silly. Jimmy, did you lock the. [00:13:40] Speaker E: Yeah, yeah. Can I turn off the lights. [00:13:42] Speaker G: Now. Yeah. All right. [00:13:45] Speaker E: Good night, Ellen. Sleep time. [00:13:47] Speaker G: Good night, Jim. [00:13:53] Speaker E: I don't know what time it was. Perhaps an hour, perhaps only a half hour later, my mind was in that hazy borderland between sleep and a dream that's still part of consciousness. Then I was awake. Ellen, are you all right? [00:14:09] Speaker G: Yes. [00:14:11] Speaker E: Nightmare or something? [00:14:12] Speaker G: No, I heard it, too. [00:14:15] Speaker E: Well, that didn't sound like any cat. [00:14:17] Speaker G: Put on the light. Yeah, it seemed to be out there, Jim. In the house somewhere. [00:14:23] Speaker E: I'm going to look into this. [00:14:24] Speaker G: Jim, you be careful. [00:14:25] Speaker E: Come on. Where's my shotgun? [00:14:28] Speaker G: In the den, I think. Jim. [00:14:30] Speaker E: What? [00:14:33] Speaker G: There's something wet. [00:14:36] Speaker E: What? Wet? [00:14:38] Speaker G: Running from under the closet door. Sticky. [00:14:42] Speaker E: Ellen, don't. Don't touch it. [00:14:45] Speaker G: I had to, Jim. It's blood. [00:15:00] Speaker D: For suspense. Roma wines are bringing you Robert Taylor in the house in Cypress Canyon. Roma wines presentation tonight in radio's outstanding theater of thrills suspense. And now, Roma wines bring back to our Hollywood soundstage, Robert Taylor as James a. Woods, with Kathy Lewis as his wife, Ellen, in the house in Cypress Canyon. A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense. [00:15:47] Speaker E: It cannot be too difficult to understand from the foregoing why I've taken the pains to sit down in writing the events related here. To find in one's newly rented house a closet which cannot be opened is in itself certainly no great cause for alarm. But to be awakened in the stillness of the night by unearthly cries within that house to find oozing from under that closet door something that is unquestionably blood, that's another matter. Perhaps others might have been braver than we. Suffice it only to say that we got out of the house in something very close to a panic and only returned when we had the moral support of two stalwart Los Angeles policemen. [00:16:24] Speaker D: You just moved in here, you say? [00:16:26] Speaker E: That's right, officer. You can see we're still unpacking, and. [00:16:29] Speaker D: The place has been empty right along before that. [00:16:31] Speaker E: I don't know much about that part of it. You could check all that with the real estate agent, though. [00:16:34] Speaker D: Well, where is this closet? [00:16:36] Speaker G: Oh, it's right in here, officer. The blood is. [00:16:42] Speaker E: Where's the blood, Jim? Officer, I swear to you, there was blood on the floor less than an hour ago. I saw it. It was running out from under that door. We heard that noise and we got up and then we saw it. The door was locked. Locked? [00:16:58] Speaker D: Seems to be all right now. Hey, you folks aren't trying to be funny, are you? [00:17:05] Speaker G: Isn't there anything in it? [00:17:07] Speaker D: No, ma'am. There is not. [00:17:09] Speaker E: Look, officer, we're reputable people. You can call my firm. They'll tell you all about me. [00:17:12] Speaker D: There's nothing wrong with this. Closet walls are solid. No trap doors. [00:17:17] Speaker E: You think I'm lying? I didn't say that, Mr. Oh, you. [00:17:21] Speaker D: Probably did hear some sort of noise and you got a little panicky. [00:17:24] Speaker G: What about the blood? It got on my hand. [00:17:28] Speaker E: Isn't there now, is it? [00:17:30] Speaker G: Yes. Where I feel it. [00:17:35] Speaker D: Now, you folks just take it easy. You're liable to hear all kinds of noises up in these canyons at night. You're from the east, you say? [00:17:43] Speaker E: Yeah. I'm sorry. That's all right. [00:17:46] Speaker D: That's all right. If you have any real trouble, call on us anytime. [00:17:50] Speaker E: All right. Well, good night. Good night. [00:17:53] Speaker F: Good night. [00:17:54] Speaker D: Hey, you ought to have this door fixed. That's enough to scare you. [00:18:00] Speaker E: Yeah, we're going to have it fixed. We didn't say much about it after that. There wasn't much that could be said. The next day I went down to a lot and bought a little Christmas tree and some trimmings, and we tried to pretend we were cheerful, but there was an uneasiness between us that had never been there before. Ellen seemed tired and listless. Several times during the day I noticed her washing her hands with a brush, scrubbing the one that had touched the blood. That night we each took a sleeping pill and went to bed. Sometime after midnight when I was suddenly wide awake and staring into the darkness. In some way, I knew at once and instinctively what had awakened me. Ellen was not in her bed nor in the room. The nameless thing I feared grifted my heart until I could scarcely breathe. I opened the bedroom door and started through the house, putting on every light that I could find. There was not much to search, but I searched thoroughly. The living room, the kitchen, bathroom, day, and even the garage. And all the time the dread of looking where I knew at last I must look. For I think I knew from the very first time where I'd find her. It must have been a full minute that I stood before that closet door. Then I opened it. She stood there rigid, her arms at her sides, her fingers extended like claws. Her hair was over her face, her eyes stared out of it. Her lips were drawn back in a grin, like an animal at bay. For a moment, I was frozen with the horror of it. I stretched out my hand. Very deliberately. She turned her head and sunk her teeth until they met into the flesh of my forearm. I'd raised my hand to strike at her, but already she'd relaxed her hold and gone utterly limp. She would have fallen unless I'd caught her. I carried her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed. Strangely, at that moment, my only thought was how I might revive her, until I saw that it was not a faint, but a sleep, that she'd fallen into sleep as deep and heavy as though she'd been drugged. And so I left her. But for me, that night, there was no. Yes? Ellen. [00:20:45] Speaker G: What are you doing up so early? [00:20:47] Speaker E: Oh, I got a little restless. Went out to make some coffee. [00:20:53] Speaker G: I had the most wonderful sleep, and I feel so rested. [00:20:58] Speaker E: Do you? [00:21:01] Speaker G: Jim? [00:21:02] Speaker E: What? [00:21:03] Speaker G: What's the matter with your arm? [00:21:05] Speaker E: Oh, I just heard. [00:21:07] Speaker G: Well, honey, it's terribly swollen. Let me see. [00:21:10] Speaker E: No, it's all right, Ellen. [00:21:11] Speaker G: Oh, it isn't all right. You've got to see Dr. Wesley right away. [00:21:14] Speaker E: Sure I will. [00:21:15] Speaker G: No, now, you promised me, Jim, that you'll go the first thing this morning. How did it happen? [00:21:21] Speaker E: There was a dog. [00:21:22] Speaker G: Dog? [00:21:23] Speaker E: Yeah. I heard him trying to chew through the screen door. I went out to chase him away, and he bit me. [00:21:32] Speaker G: Is all that racket. And I didn't even wake up? [00:21:36] Speaker E: No, Ellen, you didn't even wake up. It was clear to me that Ellen knew nothing of what had transpired the night before. I went to my office that morning and made a pretense of going over routine business only to restore my mind to some semblance of calm by the sight and sound of common, familiar things. Pain in my arm had become a persistent, dull throbbing. I made a late appointment with Dr. Wesley. He treated my arm with something of an arched eyebrow, and he said, well, I've never seen anything quite like it before. That is such a rapid onset of infection. [00:22:18] Speaker G: Um. [00:22:23] Speaker E: It was dark when I left his office. I hadn't realized it was so late. Driving home, my car seemed sluggish, until I saw the needle on the dashboard and realized that I was pushing it to the utmost of its speed. I was racing home to prevent. Prevent something before it was too late, before the darkness conspired against me. For somehow I already knew with certainty that it was the darkness and the night that I had fear. The curves of the canyon seemed endless. And then the cold fear leaked up inside me. My house, too, was dark. I went slowly up the stone steps from the road, looking, praying for some sign of light or light. There was none. The house was empty. Ellen was gone. I looked with the same self torturing thoroughness. And in that closet, first of all, knowing as I did so, there was hopeless, so alone in that empty house I waited, powerless and helpless now deadened in thought and will, empty as the house itself save only for the overwhelming sense of a terrible foreboding. For some time in the early hours of the morning, I snapped on the radio. Short wave. Why? Surely a minor question. Now I only know that I did. And then I heard it. [00:23:44] Speaker D: Car 58, car 58, go to Laurel Canyon, the 4000 block. Report that a man has been injured or attacked. Condition thought to be critical. Ambulance will follow. That is all. [00:23:56] Speaker E: I was there almost before the police. Edging my way through the little crowd staring down at the man lying there in his white uniform under the streetlight. [00:24:03] Speaker D: Yeah, the milkman. Poor guy. I heard him scream. But when I got here, he was just like this. Stand back. Stand back, please. Stand back. Well, you again. [00:24:13] Speaker E: I heard it on the radio. I lived just down the road. Yeah, I remember what happened. Well, take a look. [00:24:20] Speaker D: Maybe you can tell us. [00:24:23] Speaker E: He was dead and he was lying on his back and his throat had been torn out as though by the fangs of some wild animal. [00:24:39] Speaker G: It. [00:24:42] Speaker E: Is now Christmas Eve or other Christmas morning for it's a little after midnight. I've been waiting here. Here in the stillness of this empty house for nearly 24 hours waiting for the end. Already once tonight, I've heard that dreadful wailing cry somewhere in the hills. I've nailed up the closet door. But that I, I know is childish and useless. My arm is horribly swollen and turning black. But that's nothing. It's another end that I foresee as surely as other men foresee the rising of the sun. I hear the cry again. It's nearer now. I shall leave these notes in a sealed envelope and put it in a shoebox in the hope that someone will give credence to these dark and terrible events if indeed such nameless horrors can ever yield to mortal understanding. As for myself, I feel no longer any fear or even sorrow. Only a desire that the end and the thing that I must do may come soon. And it will be soon, I know. Yes, but there is someone. [00:26:11] Speaker D: At the door. What do you make of it, Sam? [00:26:16] Speaker F: Quite a yarn. [00:26:17] Speaker E: But what of it? [00:26:18] Speaker D: That's what I thought. Now, listen. That's not quite all of it. Clip to. It's a newspaper, Cliff. Listen. Hollywood, December the 26th. Police reported what was apparently a case of murder and suicide in Cypress Canyon sometime in the early hours of the morning. The victims were James A. Woods, the chemical engineer, and his wife, Ellen. Preliminary investigation indicates that Mrs. Woods was killed by the blast of a shotgun in the hands of her husband, who then turned the weapon upon himself. That she fought desperately for her life, however, was evidenced by the disorder of the room and the severe lacerations inflicted upon her husband about the neck and arms. This is the second tragedy to be reported in Cypress Canyon within 24 hours, the other being the unexplained death of Frank Polanski, a milkman. [00:27:11] Speaker F: Well, no such murders, or whatever they were, ever occurred, if that's what's worrying the clipping. Have those things printed up, you know. [00:27:19] Speaker D: No, it's not that, Sam. That story was found in an unfinished house in Cypress Canyon. No number, no nothing. Just a framework. Now, that house is finished when I drove by it today. But that's what stopped me, Sam, because it all fits. Now that it's finished. It is the house in the story. The same construction, the same vines and creepers on the lawn. Even the same number. [00:27:40] Speaker F: So what? A guy who knows roughly what this house is going to be like writes a yarn and loses it or something. [00:27:45] Speaker D: Did he know the place was going to be listed for rental today, the Saturday before Christmas? [00:27:49] Speaker E: Jerry. [00:27:50] Speaker F: Coincidence. [00:27:52] Speaker E: Two bits. [00:27:52] Speaker F: You find the guy next door is a ghost story writer or something, and he's been wondering for a year what happened to that thing he wrote. [00:27:59] Speaker D: Okay. Coincidence. I'm sorry I bothered you. [00:28:06] Speaker F: Don't be silly. I liked it. It's a good yarn. Is that the parent sign you were talking? [00:28:12] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm going to put it up outside now. [00:28:15] Speaker F: Well, so long, Jerry, and merry Christmas again. [00:28:18] Speaker D: Well, thanks. I guess. I was kind of zillow. [00:28:23] Speaker F: Listen, when a guy named whatever it is, woods with a wife named Ellen comes in to rent that place from you, then you can start worrying. [00:28:31] Speaker D: Yeah, well, so long, Stan. [00:28:33] Speaker F: So long, Sherry. [00:28:38] Speaker D: Come in. [00:28:43] Speaker E: Oh, we're sorry to bother you, but we just happened to see that for rent sign outside. [00:28:47] Speaker D: Yeah, I hung it out just this minute. [00:28:50] Speaker G: Is the house sure. [00:28:53] Speaker D: Sure it is. [00:28:54] Speaker E: Let me introduce myself. My name is James a. Woods, and this is my wife, Ellen. [00:29:00] Speaker D: How do? Wow. Looks like it's fixing to. [00:29:07] Speaker E: Yes, it does, doesn't it? [00:29:35] Speaker D: Presented by Roma wines. R-O-M-A. Roma wines selected for your pleasure from the world's greatest reserves of fine wines. Suspense. [00:29:48] Speaker E: This is CBS, the Columbia broadcasting System. [00:29:54] Speaker A: You are listening to the mysterious old radio listening society podcast. I'm Eric. [00:29:58] Speaker B: I'm Tim. [00:29:59] Speaker C: And I'm Joshua. [00:30:00] Speaker A: And you just heard the story, the house in Cypress Canyon, which was Joshua's selection for our inaugural podcast. And we're going to eventually here figure out between three of us if we believe this to stand the test of time as we put terror on trial on these old time radio shows and see if they still stand the test of time. But before we get to our conclusions, we have some discussion and some questions. First question, Joshua, why'd you pick this one? [00:30:29] Speaker C: I love how ambiguous the horror is in this story. It plays on this sort of lovecraftian fear of the unknown, which is sort of not typical for this era of old time radio shows. You don't know exactly what this terror is that is attacking this couple. Or more importantly, I think, why it's attacking them, because a lot of horror and suspense radio shows of this time period focused on punishment of the guilty, and this couple has done absolutely nothing. They actually make a big deal out of how everyday and your average normal american post war couple they are. And yet this horrible thing descends upon them. And I think that makes the horror really relatable. [00:31:17] Speaker B: This is not like an old victorian ghost story where it's the haunted house that everyone knows is cursed. And don't go in there under any circumstance. This is just another house. Could be any house you go into. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Right. And what year is this? Do you happen to recall at the top of your head what year this was? Because it's post war, right? [00:31:35] Speaker C: Post war is 1945 or 46. [00:31:37] Speaker A: So it's really quickly post war. [00:31:39] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:31:39] Speaker C: They even say at the beginning that the construction was suspended during the war and then the houses were finished. [00:31:46] Speaker A: So that's an interesting sociological aspect to it, as well as far as punishing the wicked. And the evil was a very popular theme, especially radio drama and in the pulp magazines, because it was easy. There was so much evil in the world and so much energy could be forced at these two. Didn't really deserve any of this. Right? [00:32:07] Speaker C: Yeah. So in that way, it feels really modern. It has this sort of anxiety about everyday american life that really started after the war. [00:32:19] Speaker A: What do we do now? [00:32:20] Speaker C: Yeah, we won the war. Everything's going to be okay. Honest. It is. As long as we don't buy a house with the closet that doesn't open. [00:32:28] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:29] Speaker C: Blood trickles out from under the door. [00:32:31] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:32:31] Speaker A: Right. Should we get to the. You had said it teased in the beginning, the literary cameo in this. Do we want to get to that yet? [00:32:40] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:32:40] Speaker A: Did you catch who it was, Mr. Uren? Tim? No. [00:32:43] Speaker B: I will confess I did not recognize it without help. [00:32:48] Speaker A: I didn't either. [00:32:49] Speaker C: Well, the cameo is the private detective at the beginning who is a friend of the real estate agent. The detective's name is Sam and it is played by Howard Duff, who also played Sam Spade. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:03] Speaker C: The adventures of Sam Spade radio show, which was running at the same time and was also produced by William Spear, who was producing suspense at the same time. So it was a little wink to. [00:33:12] Speaker A: The audience, which none of them got. [00:33:16] Speaker C: I'm sure they did at the time. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:18] Speaker B: 70 years later. [00:33:21] Speaker A: Tim, your thoughts as you were listening to this, as you're going through it. [00:33:26] Speaker B: It'S got this wonderful classic. Contrary to our praising it for being so modern structure of a story within a story, and that particular structure of I'm a person who is telling you this story that I encountered is also part of the twist and part of the horror of the particular way that this story gets told from one person to the next with, it's about to happen, and yet I somehow know it. [00:33:52] Speaker A: Right. [00:33:53] Speaker C: Yeah, it makes it really creepy. It has a dreamlike quality where it makes kind of sense, but not really, which makes it more disturbing. [00:34:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it creates that sense of not on solid footing, which is the same thing as with not knowing quite exactly what sort of monstrous thing you're facing. It leaves a very uneasy feeling, which is awesome. [00:34:17] Speaker A: We're pretty sure this is a werewolf, right? Or not? [00:34:20] Speaker B: Kind of. [00:34:21] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:34:21] Speaker A: Right. [00:34:22] Speaker B: This is werewolf where the blood disappears. [00:34:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's part of its scariness. It seems recognizable as part of a horror genre, but I think if you could categorize it, it would distance you from it. You would go, oh, this is a werewolf story, but if you're not sure what it is, again, it creeps you out a little bit more. At least it does for me. [00:34:43] Speaker A: Well, anything that howls or moans or makes noise. Correct me, what was the most description we had of it from the characters? It was not much. Right. Just nothing at all. Right. [00:34:57] Speaker C: No. Well, he finds his wife standing there, and she scratches her face, so she seems very animalistic in that moment. You combine that with the cries in the night and the blood, and it is implied that there's some sort of transformation. [00:35:12] Speaker B: Throat is torn out of the milkman, which seems wolfie. [00:35:18] Speaker C: Not to mention rude. [00:35:21] Speaker A: That's what they do. What other notes did you have on this particular episode, sir? [00:35:27] Speaker C: Well, partly I just really enjoyed the domestic side of it, again, connecting back to the post war sort of anxiety, this idea that the house had started construction and then the war interrupted it. And you get this idea of kind of these lives that were lost in the war, too, while this house was not being built. So in some ways, it has this thematic haunted house quality. All these people who died and did not occupy this house. And it's sort of the survivors trying to pick up the pieces. And so, I mean, we're maybe stretching it a little to put all these thematics on it. [00:36:07] Speaker A: Well, some of them are intended and some of them are unintentional. You write when you're a writer, some of it's very intentional and some of it's unintended. But your surroundings, what's going on in the world, social norms of the time, will still influence. So intended or not, they're there. [00:36:22] Speaker C: And when a story is this ambivalent, it sort of invites different interpretations and readings of it. And going online and looking at some reviews about this story, there's a lot of gender ideas trying to come up with the right word put onto this. Like, it's this sort of fear of women's expanded role in post war America. Because while their husbands were away fighting, they were doing jobs that usually had been men's jobs. And she goes back to the war. [00:36:55] Speaker B: You'Re a stranger to your spouse, and. [00:36:57] Speaker C: Blood comes out from under the closet. [00:37:00] Speaker A: Right. They've turned into animals. They came back from war and they were. [00:37:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:37:04] Speaker A: And those came out of the closet. [00:37:06] Speaker B: As animals to kill milkmen. [00:37:09] Speaker C: Those are the kind of readings that I think are a bit of a stretch, but I can see how the story invites those. But at the time, I can't think of somebody sitting down at their typewriter going, I'm scared of these post war women. I've got the perfect idea for a suspense radio show. [00:37:22] Speaker A: Right? No, exactly. No. Too much is read into almost anything by writers. I remember in college in literature classes, and then the teacher saying, well, they went to the dance, and the dance is a metaphor for this and this and this and this. And I remember thinking in all of these discussions of literary pieces, I bet the writer thought, I'm going to have them go to a dance. [00:37:48] Speaker B: I like to dance. [00:37:49] Speaker A: That's where he'll meet what's her name instead. There's so much put on it that who knows how much of that is intentional? Like, maybe some writers are that into it. But as personally as a writer, I don't have any metaphors going on at all, ever. I'm just trying to move the plot forward. [00:38:07] Speaker B: We're at the point in literary analysis where no one cares what the author meant or wanted. We will tell you what you wrote. [00:38:14] Speaker A: Right. [00:38:15] Speaker B: I wanted to bring up the point of view of the main character and his sort of emotional reaction to these things that happen. That's a little off from what I think a lot of horror narrators are that he's never really terrified. Kind of goes from suspicious to accepting in a weirdly disturbing way, I think. [00:38:34] Speaker C: Yeah, he has this sense of inevitable doom about him. And it's partly the performances too. They're very subdued. He just realizes, oh, my wife bit me. The doctor says, I'm infected, time to kill her and shoot myself. But it makes it scary, too, because a big emotional response, I think would be a little cathartic as a Listener. And the fact that he just sort of shoulders this dread, right and sultries on is kind of creepy. [00:39:04] Speaker A: It's interesting way you put that soldiers on. I mean, I think about that frequently in my marriage. Like I'm so old timey and everything. I do that when there are things that come up, like I am supposed to be this person, yet I'm the one running in a circle screaming most of the time, why is this happening? Why would that happen? Why would they say that to us? [00:39:26] Speaker C: So if this happened to you, you'd freak out a little bit more. [00:39:29] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:39:29] Speaker A: But then there's always a part of me that thinks, especially since my connection to an older era of expectation, that I'm not supposed to. That I'm supposed to. And my father in law and my father and every other man in my life is when things go bad, they go, all right, get a shovel. We got to bury them. What? And then we're going to make hamburgers. So make sure you get some sleep. They're just so matter of fact. I think, though I've never seen it, that those men in my life probably go in a shed and cry. They have to. [00:40:01] Speaker C: Crying shed. [00:40:03] Speaker B: It's in the story, too, of horrible experience. There's blood on the floor. Weird, creepy sounds coming. Let's go call the cops. Cops come in. There's nothing there. Let's go to bed. Out of options now. Let's just go back to bed and deal with in the morning. [00:40:16] Speaker A: Go to bed. [00:40:18] Speaker C: But it makes sense within the story. You don't jump to the conclusion, no, you're wrong. Police officer. There's a werewolf out there, right? The cops come in, this sort of unreal circumstance suddenly seems silly. I was afraid of sounds in the night. And of course we just go to. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Bed just because we're right there right now. On my opinion, let's just get to our decision because I think this is very scary. I think it does stand the test of time. But my biggest beef with it and a lot of things, not only in horror, but in everything is I hate it when people don't react the way I think that they probably would react in real life, like that overly heroic. Let's just go to bed. Everything's going to be okay. Get a shovel. We're going to bury, my wife's dead. We're going to have to shoot her in the closet or whatever. I'd rather watch someone really freaking out. But for the most part, I write a character that's infallible, so I have nothing to stand on that I say it stands the test of time. [00:41:24] Speaker B: Tim also very much so. And I think some of the things we're talking about, about how almost mundane the circumstances are that set it up, how familiar it is, it really helps it stand the test of time that it's so immediate that anyone knows what it is to got to move, got to find a place to live, hear weird sounds in your new home and how frightening that is for anyone. Even as you tell yourself it's just. [00:41:51] Speaker A: Wind, it's just the house settling. [00:41:53] Speaker E: Yes. [00:41:55] Speaker B: And I think that the story totally still works. I keep wanting to go back and the sound, the howling and that was really unnerving. [00:42:04] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. [00:42:05] Speaker B: So, yes. [00:42:06] Speaker A: Stance. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Test time. [00:42:07] Speaker G: Yeah. [00:42:07] Speaker C: I have a hard time believing that this was written almost 70 years ago. It feels very modern part of it, the way it plays with time and the structure of the story. But also speaking to your concern with it about how they didn't react the way you would to me, again, I find it almost scarier that I can't relate to somebody coming to the conclusion that they have to kill their wife and kill themselves. That makes me go, this is some unfathomable thing. I can't even imagine getting to that point, which. So that scares me, putting myself in his place. [00:42:42] Speaker A: So his unnatural reaction is terrifying to you? Yeah, and somewhat distracting to me. Does that make sense? Why isn't he just screaming and wetting his pants? Why isn't he saying, why me? A lot? Why is this happening to me? I had a whole day planned. Now what am I going to. [00:43:07] Speaker C: I was looking forward to milk being delivered on a regular basis. [00:43:10] Speaker A: I got to clean that porch. All right. Well, there you have it. So this has been the inaugural broadcast of our new broadcast podcast. See how old I am? I use the word broadcast. [00:43:23] Speaker B: Super old. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Super old. This has been a newspaper printing. We're going to press this, the mysterious old radio listening society podcast. And I am Eric. [00:43:40] Speaker B: I'm Tim. [00:43:40] Speaker C: I'm Josh Webb. [00:43:41] Speaker A: And thank you so much for listening again. Our episode today was the house in Cypress Canyon. And thank you so much for listening. If you want more information on any of us or anything about this show, you can go to ghoulishdelights.com if you're not already there right now, listening to this ghoulishdelights.com. And thank you so much for listening. And until next time, remember, look out. Bye.