Fear Paints a Picture

This is the man in black here again to introduce Columbia's program, suspense. Our leading lady tonight is Miss Nancy Coleman, one of Hollywood's most powerful and resourceful young stars, whose performances you may have admired in King's Row, the current Warner Brothers Picture, Edge of Darkness, and other noted films.

The story called Fear Paints a Picture is tonight's tale of suspense. If you've been with us on these Tuesday nights, you will know that suspense is compounded of mystery and suspicion and dangerous adventure. In this series our tales calculated to intrigue you, stir your nerves, to offer you a precarious situation, and then withhold a solution until the last possible moment.

And so it is with fear, pain, a picture, and with Nancy Coleman's performance we again hope to keep you in... ...suspense! There is a picture hanging on a wall. You look at it casually, an extraordinary picture you will say, skillfully done.

Look at those fine brush strokes, those superb colours. But isn't the subject matter a little bizarre? It is something more than just bizarre. But let us begin from the beginning, with the death of Benjamin Powell, a rich and strange man.

There were dark rumors about the Powell's. His wife had died many years ago. No one knows how. But Benjamin Powell had a daughter, Julia, a high-strung neurotic girl. And many of us wondered about her, too.

Benjamin Powell died, and in his last will and testament he made Julia heir to all his considerable fortune, except that... but let me read you the will. I, Benjamin Powell, being of sound mind and in full possession of all my faculties, hereby request that after my death my daughter Julia live with Mr. Harvey Lyons, my lifelong friend,