What happens
Harry Lime, a gentleman adventurer in Sicily, meets Augustus Schmidt, vice president of Schmidt's Luxury Markets, a grocery heir feuding with the Hickenlooper family. Schmidt is smitten with Emily Hickenlooper, who seems more interested in romance than in him. Lime proposes a scheme involving a supposed bandit kidnapping of Emily, with a ransom to be collected from her father. The episode is part of The Mercury Theatre on the Air series, broadcast on December 28, 1951, and features Orson Welles in the role of Harry Lime from the film The Third Man.
Sicily, Italy, including a hotel in a seaside town, the hills of the interior, and a Greek temple about eighty kilometres inland from Catania.
Characters: Harry Lime, Augustus Schmidt, Emily Hickenlooper, Geraldo Lima, Pazzini, Mr. Hickenlooper, Guido, Alfredo
Listen for: Harry Lime's shifting schemes as he persuades Gus Schmidt and Emily to take part in a staged kidnapping, and the bandit Pazzini's gruff manner and interest in romance.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.