Suspense: 02/04/52, episode 458
Brought to you by the Old Time Radio Researchers, courtesy of The Suspense Project
J. Carroll Naish stars in a William N. Robson story as the great-grandson of a legendary pirate Jose Gaspar, also known as Jose Gasparilla. He never gave his notorious ancestor much thought until he finds an old note that Gasparilla had buried a treasure of gold on a tiny island near the tip of Cape Cod. The note also had directions to find it! Needless to say he heads there and rents a house on that island, follows the directions, and finds the treasure. But two curious men find where he’s been digging and dump something into the hole… and fill it in. The next day the treasure hunter has a surprise… the hole he dug contains the body of a kidnap victim! He has the treasure of gold doubloons, but the kidnappers take it from him. A surprise storm leads to a surprise ending to the story.
Robson was attempting to navigate his Red Channels and CBS issues and used the name “Christopher Anthony” for the script. Those were the names of his two young sons. That did not satisfy Auto-Lite or CBS. There were three scripts with this name, 1951-11-12 Mission of the Betta (a missing episode), this episode, and the upcoming 1952-03-17 The Wreck of the Old ’97. That next episode would be his last for Suspense until the firing of CBS executive Daniel O’Shea and the performance of Robson’s 1955-03-08 Nobody Ever Quits script under producer Antony Ellis.
Jose Gaspar was a “real” pirate who never existed but became a legend through publicity of a hotel in Florida in 1900 and Tampa’s annual Gasparilla Pirate Festival that began in 1904. His legend never had him in any place other than the shores of Florida and definitely not Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
“Treasure Hunt” was the working title of the script when it was in development and revision.
The cast: J. CARROL NAISH (Gaspar), Anthony Barrett (Steve / Pedro), Charles Seel (Coffin), Clayton Post (Jeff), Joseph Kearns (Tris), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Tom Holland (Hap), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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