Suspense

About Suspense

Suspense is the CBS old time radio thriller that ran from 1942 to 1962, and many fans call it the finest dramatic series of radio's golden age. You can listen to it free online here or as a podcast. It billed itself as radio's outstanding theater of thrills, and every half hour was built to do one thing: put an ordinary person in danger and keep you on edge until the end. Its signature line promised tales well calculated to keep you in... Suspense.

Its trademark was the star cast against type. Hollywood names known for comedy and romance played killers and victims here, among them Cary Grant, James Stewart, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra, while Orson Welles appeared in the early years and Agnes Moorehead returned again and again. A shadowy Man in Black introduced the early stories. Producer-directors over the years included William Spier, Anton M. Leader, Elliott Lewis, Norman Macdonnell and Antony Ellis, and the stories ranged from murder plots to wartime spy dramas and tales of the uncanny.

Suspense's last broadcast, on September 30, 1962, the same day as the last Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, is often taken as the end of American radio drama's golden age. The episodes play right on this page in the order they first aired, a new one reaches the podcast every day, and Suspense is also part of The Midnight Exchange, Stupid Potato's live 24/7 channel of suspense, mystery and the macabre from old time radio.

What you’ll hear

• Hollywood stars in unexpected roles: Cary Grant, James Stewart, Lucille Ball, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra.
• Agnes Moorehead and Orson Welles, two of radio's greatest voices.
• Murder plots, wrong-man stories, spies and the occasional ghost.
• The Man in Black, the show's early host.
• Twenty years of radio drama, from the war years to 1962.

Where to start

• Start at the first episode and follow the show as it grows, or pick any title; every story stands alone.
• Great for a commute: one episode fits a half-hour drive.
• Follow the free podcast for a new episode every day, or, as a Potato Plus member, play every episode now.

Where the recordings come from

The Suspense recordings here come from the Old Time Radio Researchers' Suspense Singles set (910 episodes), hosted by the Internet Archive. Our thanks to the Old Time Radio Researchers, the volunteers who found, dated and assembled the set, and to the Archive and the collectors whose uploads it rests on. The sound is our remaster of those files (rumble, hiss and hum cleaned out, levelled to steady broadcast loudness); the recordings themselves are theirs. About our sources.

Every Suspense episode: the full list, with air dates and stories

More to listen to

• The Whistler
• Escape
• Inner Sanctum Mysteries
• Weird Circle
• Molle Mystery Theatre
• Christmas on old-time radio
• New Year's Eve on old-time radio

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