Crossing Paris: Suspense (June 2, 1957)

“Crossing Paris” is an episode of Suspense, the old-time radio show, first broadcast June 2, 1957. Listen free on Stupid Potato.

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What happens

During the Nazi occupation of Paris, a butcher's courier narrator agrees to carry black-market pork across the city at night with a huge, rough man called Gangeel. The narrator works for an employer named Jean-Dier and must deliver the meat to a shop by two in the morning. Their journey through frozen, blacked-out streets is complicated by Gangeel's drunkenness, greed and violent temper, as he demands more money and pushes the narrator to take risks. The transcript covers the start of their night's work and their journey as far as a cafe encounter, before the story's later turns.

Paris during the Nazi occupation, a winter night in a blacked-out city

Characters: Narrator (courier), Gangeel, Jean-Dier, Pierre

Listen for: The tense exchanges between the courier and Gangeel as they carry the black-market pork across Paris

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.