Strange Wills: Black Interlude

Strange Wheels. Stories of Strange Wheels made by Strange People, starring the distinguished Hollywood actor Warren William, and featuring Marvin Miller and Lorraine Tuttle with Howard Culver, and the original music of Del Castillo. I devise and bequeathe to my heirs the seven deadly sins.

Despair, anger, jealousy, revenge, lust, and hate. And here is Warren William. These are the stories of strange wills gathered from probate courts the world over. Many of them written on death beds or under highly emotional circumstances clearly show that the writers of the will who use this last chance of self-expression to vindicate within their own hearts the flagrant sins of omission and

remission made during their lifetimes. Names, places, and times have all been changed in order that no reflection may fall on any person or person's living or dead. When the dusty vaults of the probate court, we bring you documentary proof of the old adage that man is the strangest of all creatures. You'll presently see what I mean. But first, I'd

like to have you listen to a few words from your announcer. Now back to Warren William as John Francis O'Connell in black interlude.

Of all the sins that live within the human heart, none is so deadly, so lasting as hate. Unchecked it bears the bitter fruit of mental and spiritual annihilation, nor does it always end with death.

Its vibrations reach out of the grave like the tentacles of an octopus in a last effort to win the final victory of a bitter revenge. Why did Francis X Blair hate his only son Paul?

With a hatred as intense and boundless as the elements. The reason is as old as Eve. Francis X Blair rich handsome under widower and his son Paul were both in love with the same girl.

Francis X Blair had been my client for nearly ten years. He was dominant, relentless and headstrong. The kind of a man who took what he wanted no matter what they hurt. It was like his dead mother, shy, sensitive.

His talents ran to the literary. How he ever managed to take the lovely and beautiful Phyllis Lamar away from his father I'll never know. But insiders told me that it was just a case of love at first sight.

Everyone who knew about it was anxiously waiting to hear whom her final choice would be, father or son. And then one cold November night, Francis X. Blair, invited me over to his penthouse apartment discuss his will. I knew that something extraordinary was about to happen.

Telling me to be a good loser, John, may be the conventional thing to say, but unfortunately I have never lived in the conventional manner. Oh, why can't you forget and forgive them both, Francis? After all, Phyllis has made her choice, and why will she may prefer Paul as a husband? You can still have her as a daughter.

I'm sorry that I can't agree with you. I consider my son in the light of a thief. A love thief, if you like, but the fact remains that he deliberately took away from me the one thing in my life that I cherished most highly. I would have preferred it if he had robbed my safe. It would have been more honorable. He's got to pay for his sin and she will pay

for her folly. Why don't you sleep over it for a few days, Francis? I'm sure that with sober... It's what's unnecessary. I have made my final decision. From this day on, my son is disinherited.

I want you to redraft my will, cutting him off with one dollar. But surely you aren't serious. Paul is just out of school a few years. He isn't a quid. Let him starve then, and the girl with him.

She'll come crawling back to me on her knees, one of these fine days, begging my forgiveness. Francis, I beg you not to be hasty. I'm sorry, but it's too late. I hate Paul Blair as I've never hated another soul, living or dead.

I want him to suffer, just as he has made me suffer. I'll hate him until my dying breath. And if I can, I'll go on hating him from my grave. And this is the last time I will ever mention his name again.

as long as I live. Nor did the next two years bring a change of heart. Francis' ex-player grew more bitter day by day as such a thing was possible. His will was prepared and executed according to his wishes.

But I still hope that before he died, he would relent and repent. Paul and Phyllis meanwhile were quietly married and were living in a small furnished apartment on the outskirts of town. On the night of their first wedding anniversary, They invited me to dinner.

And I want to offer my congratulations on this the first year of your happiness together. And don't think we haven't been happy, Mr O'Connell. Paul has been wonderful. Well, I had a make-up in some way for all the millions she lost by not marrying Dad.

Oh, I should suggest talking nonsense. No, how is Dad, Mr O'Connell? You know, I haven't seen her hurt from him in almost two years. Tell me, has he softened any? I'm afraid not Paul. In fact, he's more bitter than ever.

Of course, there's always a chance, always the possibility, maybe. We don't want any chances, do we, Paul? We have our own plans now, our own dreams, too. I think good comes out of everything, Mr. O'Connell.

If Paul hadn't been disinherited, do you think you would ever have taken a job as a reporter? That's where he learned to write. And I agree with you, Phyllis. I think Paul has a brilliant future as a writer.

One day, with you behind him, you know. Oh, everything would be fine if Dad would only forgive me. I know it sounds foolish to you, Mr. O'Connell, but his continual hatred for me is praying on my mind.

You see, I've never hated and the thought of someone hating me. Well... I'm sure you feel badly about it, Paul. But you see, you wounded your father's ego. That's a dangerous thing to do to anybody.

I've told Phyllis this before and she laughed at me, but I want to tell you too, Mr. O'Connell. Sometimes I... Well, I imagine I hear my father laughing at me. Laughing as though he expected something to happen to me, something...

Oh, please, Paul, get that thought out of your mind. Nothing that your father can say or do will change anything. Our lives are our own, we're the masters of our own destinies. Voodoo, witchcraft, and superstitions are obsolete.

When next you see Francis X Blair and Mr. O'Connell, please ask him to stay out of Paul's dreams. He may not know it, but I'm getting a problem child in my hands. But I never saw Francis X Blair again, that is alive.

He died in his sleep just two days after my visit with Paul and Phyllis, and he had neither forgiven nor forgot. I attended the funeral and sat with Paul and Phyllis. Paul looked disconsulate, discouraged, that the hatred in his father's heart was being carried to his grave.

When a dink got close, some lipoutains dares. It patter, it filios. It's spirit of sultus. They create scotting prasé. Amen. As the little funeral procession walks slowly out of the church, I wondered if this was to be the end of hate.

Surely death would be the great healer. Had not the late Francis X player done enough hurt to more than compensate for his lost love? Well, I thought so. But early one evening several months later...

Yes? Still kind of? Yes! On the coast. For good! What's happened? Oh, it's... Tell us, I want you to keep in touch with me.

I'll help you, both of you, all that I can. Maybe it's best... Hello? Hello? Hello? Oh, never mind, operator. So this was it. The hatred of father for son was really living on, coming up like some shrouded ghost from the tomb to encompass and destroy. I recalled the old familiar proverb, Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn. I wondered why they

stopped with a woman. What about a man? What about the dead? Where did fury end? I wondered. A few months later I received my first letter from Phyllis. The change had done Paul good. He turned to freelance writing and was concentrating on radio scripts.

They were building their lives anew. Yes, it was a long way from the grave of Francis X Blair to the west coast. Long enough I hoped. I felt happy about Paul and Phyllis for the first time in months.

But one night quite unexpectedly I received a telegram. It was from Phyllis. She told me the very thing that I'd been fearing. Paul had been committed. Committed to an institution for the insane. She begged me to come at once and I saw there was no time to be lost.

How to fight against a man dead these many months was a problem that offered no immediate solution. But there had to be an answer of that I was sure and I meant to find it.

I left that night by plane to enlist my services in the fight against hate. And its vicious allies, the seven deadly sins. Oh, Mr. O'Connell, I'm so glad you've come. I'm so glad that you're in a nightmare.

And I'm glad to be here too, young lady. I intend to see this thing through, no matter how long it takes. Oh, thank you so much. Just take hold of yourself now until we have this thing licked.

First, I want you to tell me everything that happened to Paul since the day you came. Then I hope I'll know what to do. Well, as I told you in my letter, Paul went into radio.

his training on the newspaper was excellent and he turned out several very good scripts. One show in particular he calls Happy Valley was seriously considered by several agencies. Paul had written over thirty chapters. You see it's a daily serial about a disabled war veteran who comes home and the story he tells about his readjustment into a normal society.

What happened to it, Phillips? He had a meeting two weeks ago at the agency. As I understand it, several people were present, directors, actors, and the man who was assigned Paul to a contract, and Mr. Henley, the agency's producer. He took Paul into his private office.

Everything was going along nicely. They were about to come for the agreement. I've gone over your steps very carefully. You've got a fine show here, Mr. Blair, but the staff really didn't. They all liked it. Well, thank you very much.

Very much, Mr. Henley. You don't know how I appreciate all this. No, don't thank me. I'm a business man. I'm not doing this out of sympathy. You've come up with something we like and it's a deal. I'll have my secretary draw up the contracts. Five shows a week, 52 weeks with an option for renewal and you'll receive $100 a show. That's the minimum scale I know,

but still a lot of money. That sounds good to me, Mr. Henley. I'm ready to sign. No, excuse me. Surely. Henley. What? Called off. Why does he have to get a sore I thought when he's singing for us, tell him I'll fly east today.

Tell him to meet me at the airport. Yes, I'll leave here in about an hour. He can't do that to me. And Blair, I can't sign your contract today. I've got the rush east. Come back next week.

I'll have my secretary get in touch with you. See you later. I'm sorry, Mr. Blair, but it just can't be helped. And so, Mr. O'Conan, I thought I ended. Paul didn't say anything when he came home.

He retired early. And sometime during the night. What's that? Who's there? Phyllis, do you hear it? Paul, what is it? You're Paul. It's my father.

He's laughing. Laughing from his grave. Oh, Paul, nonsense. I don't hear anything. He's laughing at us, Phyllis. He's responsible for everything going wrong with me. Paul, please. I never should have married. I never should have married.

Paul, stop. Stop. You don't know what you're saying. Oh yes I do. I know I'm through with everything. I can't stop my father from hating or from destroying me. It's no use, no use. I'm through. I'm through. I tell you I'm through.

Part two of Black Interlude follows in just a moment. How back to Black Interlude and Warren William. Next day, Phyllis and I mooted out to the mental institution where Paul had been taken.

The late Francis X Blair had a fight on his hands whether he knew it or not. For a while, Mr O'Connell, we thought he was going to recover rapidly, but then he got worse. We've been giving him shock treatments, therapy, and the usual correctives for his type of illness, but unfortunately...

We appreciate everything that's been done for in Doctor, but I do have some rather interesting facts which I hope may be of benefit in treating him. You see, Doctor, I represented his father legally. For the next hour I told the doctor what I knew about the strange case of Paul Blair.

I told him of a plan I had that might possibly help to restore the young man's reason. It was a gamble I knew, but it was time to put our cards on the table. It was now or never.

After hearing me out, the doctor agreed to my plan. We left without seeing Paul, but in a happier frame of mind. Later that afternoon, I called upon a friend of mine, a radio broadcasting executive.

I told him the story. What you're asking me to do may cost my job, John, but it's worth the chance. I'd see. I've got a spot tomorrow afternoon, three o'clock. We're changing programs. I'll send with your show in.

But only for one day, mind you. Believe me, Joe, I appreciate that one day. But if my switchboard is clogged with an angry mob calling for my neck, you know what you'd better do, don't you?

Yes, I do. I'll start running. At a quarter of three the next day, everything was unwritten for the experiment. A radio had been slipped into Paul's room. Phyllis the doctor and I stood outside his partly open door waiting for the moment that was to lift him from his black interlude or to plunge him forever into the half-world

of fantasy. Dejectedly Paul sat in his chair, easing off into nowhere, you look for long despondent. Our plan was to shorten the dark, but we were all praying for it to hit the mark, and then at three o'clock...

Do you see him? Look, look he's heard he's looking at the radio.

Oh, pray, Mr. O'Connell, pray. Serve his country. He's walking over to the radio. He's smiling.

Paul was listening intently now, almost eagerly. Hands in the pockets of his dressing robe, he was facing the floor excitedly.

Would our desperate gamble work out? Get head told! Turn off the radio, please! Here, Mr. O'Connell, give me a hand.

We'll carry him over to the bid. Careful! Move that pillow, Phyllis. Oh, yes, I'm sorry. There we are. Just leave him here, please. I'll ring for the nurse and we'll attend to him immediately. Doctor, maybe we shouldn't have done this.

Well, there's nothing to worry about for the moment, but I'll have to ask both of you to leave now. I'm sorry, Mr. O'Connell, that the experiment didn't work. I'm sorry too, Doctor. Probably I let my hopes get the better of me.

I'll let you know later whether or not this afternoon's experiment had any violent reaction. I'm afraid, Doctor. Yes, Doctor. I'm afraid that I made a jumble of the whole business. Thank you again. I'll call you later.

Our return trip was a bitter one. We'd taken a chance and lost. Instead of shocking Paul out of his mental depression, my idea had caused a complete collapse. As we walked slowly into the Blair apartment.

Excuse me, Mr. O'Connell. Yes? For you, Mr. O'Connell. Thank you, Phyllis. Hello? Hey, Joe. I just this moment came back from the hospital. Well, the switchboard's been swapped all right, just as I was afraid of a lesion.

Well, I'm happy to hear it, Joe. Only... What? Only that the idea backfired, Joe. Paul Blair heard his show at the hospital and collapsed before it was half over. The shock was too severe. We fear for the very worst.

For three long never-ending days, Paul Blair lay unconscious on his bed in the sanatorium. I felt so grim and angry that I permitted myself to take such a desperate chance. I wandered through those long hours of Paul's black interlude, whether or not the evil voice of his dead father was reaching him.

Had Francis X Blair achieved his bitter revenge even from the depth of his grave? Phyllis and I waited impatiently to learn the answer. Yes, Doctor, what is it? Paul Regain, consciousness. Oh, thank you, Doctor.

Thank you. I'm so happy. I heard it, Phyllis. I heard Happy Valley. Yes, Doctor. Oh, it's wonderful. Imagine my show, my first show on the air. Yes, Paul, I know. Mr. O'Connell and I were here when you heard it.

Wasn't it wonderful? And you'll be happy to know Paul that your show is a smash hit. Service organizations everywhere behind it. It's on the air to stay. I must get well, get strong in a hurry.

Every day's precious to me now. I have new ideas, new shows. And I have you, Phyllis. I know now that our world's going to be new and beautiful. Yes, dear. and I know too that Dad finally forgave me.

You see, after I heard the show, he stopped laughing. Maybe he heard it too. Warren William will be back in just a moment to tell you what the official records say about the probate cause of the black interlude.

But first, here is a word from our sponsor. Here again is Warren William.

After a protracted hearing, the court decided that the testator Francis X Blair was of unsound mind when he made his will and his entire estate eventually went to his son Paul. He in turn gave a large part of his inheritance to a disabled veteran's clinic. Paul is now a very successful writer and author. Just recently he and Phyllis left for an extended trip through South America

to gather material for a new book he's preparing to write. And about the laugh from the grave, well, frankly, your guess is as good as mine. Did Paul actually hear it? Or was it caused from an over-sensitiveness together with a persecution complex?

Well, if it's true that love is eternal, why not hate? If the one is possible, why not the other? Yes, why not? Next week I have a story for you about a last woman, a testament that's stranger than any story you've ever read in a book. A pirate and a beautiful girl were shipwrecked on a

lonely deserted island. Unfortunately for him he was mortally hurt in getting ashore. Because he was possessed of a considerable fortune and because he felt that he must have septone for his past sins he decided to make a will. But he had no paper, no pencil or ink, and yet he made a written will that found its way back to civilization and the courts.

And how did he do it? Well, when you hear the story, the lady and the pirate, you'll understand more about it. This is Warren William inviting you to listen again next week.

Those as written by Ken Crepene and directed by Albert O'Rick. This is a tell-a-ways feature produced in Hollywood.