Auto Light and its 96,000 dealers present Suspense.
Tonight, Auto Light brings you The Crowd, a suspense play starring Mr. Dana Andrews.
All right, stand back. Keep moving. You got other places to go. Go to them.
Officer, somebody dies, somebody gets killed.
Yeah, yeah, now you know. So keep moving.
Lieutenant, if you, Lieutenant, I didn't see you. I didn't mean to poke you in the tummy with my billy.
What happened, officer?
Lieutenant, the way it happened, I, uh...
Officer, we got a night to know what it's all about. What's going on up there? I can't see.
Get somebody to hoist you up on their shoulders, citizen, then you'll see.
Sometimes I don't understand this kind of thing, Lieutenant.
A couple of minutes ago, this was an empty street. Now this crowd...
You still haven't told me what happened.
Well, I was directing traffic up the street. A woman screamed, and I thought it was just, well, you know.
But now it was this guy laying on the sidewalk with a knife in him. Dead, murdered.
The people running around him, this crowd.
Is he dead?
Let me look! Let me look!
Get out of my way. I want to see. I want to see!
Dead, huh? Dead.
In just a moment, Mr. Dana Andrews, in the first act of The Crowd.
Hi. A Hap? New suit?
Yeah, Wilcox. You like it?
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And now with the crowd and the performance of Mr. Dana Andrews,
Auto Light hopes once again to keep you in suspense.
The call had come in from the police call box 12 minutes before.
It had come to headquarters, been transferred to me, Johnny Stilano, because I'm a lieutenant, New York police.
Things like this are my job. It had taken me maybe five minutes to get there and already the crowd was there.
The crowd, a ring of shifting, compressing, changing faces looking down at the dead man,
watching the shape of death in his face.
Stand back! Stand back!
Officer?
Have you gone through this man's pocket? Do you know who he is?
No, sir, I haven't had time.
I'll do it.
Here comes the ambulance, Lieutenant.
All right, you people, why don't you move on? Give them room. Give them room.
Hello, Doc.
You're through with them?
Uh-huh.
All right, boys.
Let them through. Come on through. Out of the way, you.
Here and there on the fringes of the crowd, a man detached himself from it, bit his lip and left.
Even the spectacle of death can't compete with a time clock.
Get back to work and tell your friends about it.
Then the sound of death fading away, and then the crowd too.
And in a little while, the only thing left of it was an unconvinced passerby who looked over his shoulder at the spot and hurried on.
Then the leaving of the crowd.
A dead man identified from a worn leather wallet as Edgar Dale, West 32nd Street.
Name and address.
Go there. Dig into a life that was done. Ask why.
At Edgar Dale's rooming house, a woman opened the door only halfway, touched her cotton wrap around high on her throat.
Shook her head to most of my questions.
Edgar Dale had no family, lived alone.
And a shrug to what friends.
He worked, that's all, at the Becker Sign Painting Company on First Avenue.
Maybe there, mister.
I went.
Something I can do for you?
I'm a police officer, Johnny Stilano.
Oh, how do you do? My name is Becker, Elliot Becker.
A man worked for you.
Edgar Dale?
Edgar Dale.
I just put the phone down on the police a minute ago. They called.
Told me what happened.
Then you know why I'm here.
I believe so.
You'll want to know all about Edgar. I'll help all I can.
Tell me about him.
Edgar? Edgar was like...
Edgar was like anybody.
Looked like anybody, talked like anybody.
Kept to himself, he did his job.
A man who sat in the supply room and back and read science fiction magazines when he didn't go outside to have lunch.
What else?
I don't know. You can only judge a solitary man by the things he did to give you that impression.
He listened to jokes but never told one.
He clipped pictures of movie stars in bathing suits and pasted them over his workbench.
Crossword puzzles, contests the newspapers ran, those things.
Friends? Girlfriends?
I don't know, Mr. Stilano.
I've wondered sometimes who might enjoy Edgar as a friend but I don't know.
Where was he killed?
Two blacks from here.
This morning. I saw the people running. I couldn't get away.
That's too bad.
How was he killed, Lieutenant?
What did he look like?
Hello, Johnny. Been waiting for you.
What's up, Rudin?
We've been getting phone calls. Five altogether.
From whom?
I don't know. I tried to wheedle it out of him but the man just wouldn't say.
He said he'd keep trying though. He has to talk to you personally.
What else?
This envelope came addressed to your special delivery. It's marked personal.
Open it.
It says personal.
Open it.
What is it?
A picture, Johnny. Clip from this afternoon's extra in the news.
I saw it there myself. A picture of the man who was stabbed to death on the street with the crowd around him.
I see it.
Look what's written under it, Johnny.
I did well, didn't I, police? Next time it will be even better.
John Estolano speaking.
Oh, I finally got you in, Lieutenant. I read in the papers you were assigned to the case.
The man found dead on the sidewalk.
Yes.
I just called to ask you if you got the clipping I sent you.
The one of the dead man lying on the street. I sent it special.
Oh.
I just got in. I haven't had a chance to look at the mail.
Will you hold on just a minute while I check?
Here, face this call quick.
Bye, Johnny.
I, uh, yes, I have it here.
The words written underneath. Did you write them?
Oh, yes. And I meant them. Every word.
There will be a next time, Lieutenant. There will be another murder.
I believe you. I won't be so foolish as to think you're some kind of a crank who would just...
...see you're a very intelligent man.
It was very clever how you committed the murder.
Broad daylight on the street.
Oh, the next one will be even more spectacular. Far more.
Well, tell me about it.
Oh, there's no need. There'll be a crowd. You read about it.
I'll send you a picture.
We're in it.
I got it, Johnny. Gilbert shoe repair. It's right around the corner from here.
I got the blotter on my desk. Gilbert shoe repair.
Gilbert.
Hey, Gilbert.
Turn off that machine. I want to talk to you.
Huh?
Turn off that machine.
Oh, sure, Johnny.
Huh?
Oh, you want your shoes, Johnny.
You haven't been in here so long I was going to put them in the window with a for sale under them.
I don't want to talk to you about shoes.
Not about shoes?
There's something else we can talk about?
About a man. He just made a phone call from here.
What man?
Listen to me, Gilbert. Just a couple of minutes ago a man came in here.
I don't know what man. He made a phone call.
From here? He used my phone?
Maybe he did. All right, so he did.
You don't understand, do you?
This man was a murderer. Two minutes ago he was in here using your phone.
Oh, so what am I supposed to do about it? I'm a shoemaker.
Look out through the window, Johnny. See all those people?
Every now and then one of them breaks off, comes in, once his shoes fix, once he uses the phone.
Yeah, oh yeah. A few minutes ago one of them did come in.
And he asked to use my phone.
Well, I didn't notice anything about it. I never noticed anything about it.
They're all alike. Some are men, some are women.
Oh, this one was a man.
Then back into the street again and into the swarm of the crowd.
Into the wash of anonymous faces, the blob.
And somewhere in it, a murderer.
Then back into the office, sit down again, stare at Reardon again.
Reardon stares back.
And then, get up, walk to the window, stare at the crowd.
Phone's ringing, Johnny.
Uh-huh.
Don Estolano speaking.
You don't run so fast, Lieutenant.
You know, you almost knocked me down when you ran across the street into that shoemaker shop.
Reardon?
I'm close by, Lieutenant, in the pay phone on the subway.
Derry 4th Street. Run fast, Lieutenant.
Hello, hello? Never mind, Reardon.
Him again?
Him again. He even told me where he was.
So I'd go there and close my eyes and point a finger at the five o'clock subway crowd and say,
You, you're a killer. I almost knocked him down.
We talk to him, we chat on the phone.
I can give you a category for this murderer.
His phone calls, the boasting of his killing.
I'm not a doctor and I know he's crazy.
Sure, sure, sure you do, Reardon.
I don't know where to start. Where do I start, Reardon?
Take it easy, Johnny.
A lonely little man is stabbed to death on the street in New York City.
For all I know, this killer is standing right beside me, looking down at the dead man.
The killer sends me a picture.
The killer calls me on the phone.
The killer tells me he's in a subway at 34th Street Station.
The killer...
Lieutenant.
Yeah.
Call box report just came in.
The man was pushed in front of a subway at 34th Street Station.
And the pattern repeated itself.
With variation now, the body of a man broken, crushed without form like a child's drawing of death,
lay on a beer of railroad ties of glistening steel rails,
over him the shroud of a subway car,
and deep in the cavern, the lament of hurtling steel, the crowd.
The crowd watching on the platform.
No variation here.
Same crowd that gathers and watches at all death's public performance.
The crowd.
Let me look, let me look.
Get out of my way, I want to see.
Dead, huh?
Dead.
Let me see, will you?
Look out.
Hey, is he really dead?
Hi, here it is.
Really good.
Auto Light is bringing you Mr. Dana Andrews in The Crowd.
Tonight's production in radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
Say, Wilcox, you have a good tailor.
Sure, Sam is a suit-stitcher supreme now.
He never makes the pants too long since his car worries stopped.
What was his trouble?
Why, Sam's sedan used a tank of gas just to get out of the garage.
That's ridiculous.
That's what I said.
I told him to stop blowing his top and have his spark plugs checked by his friendly Auto
Light spark plug dealer.
Did he do it?
Yep.
Now this pleased pantaloon producer is getting a real run for his money.
He replaced the spark plugs that were not functioning properly with ignition engineered
Auto Light spark plugs.
And now he gets smoother performance, quick starts, gas savings.
I'll bet he thanked you, Wilcox.
He did, half.
He did, and he couldn't have bought better spark plugs for his car than ignition engineered
Auto Light spark plugs.
So friends, see your friendly Auto Light spark plug dealer and have him replace worn out
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You're always right with Auto Light.
And now Auto Light brings back to our Hollywood sound stage Mr. Dana Andrews in Elliot Lewis's
production of The Crowd, a tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
Come on, Johnny, I'll push them away for you.
One side, one side, out of the way.
Police, out of the way.
I guess we'll have to go through the car, Johnny, and out through the end to get to them.
Yeah, come on.
Hey, is there a Stalano here?
A Lieutenant Johnny Stalano?
Wait a minute.
Yeah.
Stalano, somebody on a phone call here wants a Lieutenant Stalano.
Lieutenant Stalano on a phone.
He's wanted.
Sure he's wanted.
By the draft force.
Yeah, I'm here.
Don't hang up.
I'm here.
What's the matter, Lieutenant?
You're out of uniform.
Former PFC presents you with a form.
Johnny Stalano speaking.
Oh, oh, I'm glad they reached you, Lieutenant.
You see, there was another dead man.
Crowd much better than the first.
Much, don't you think?
Much better, the man said.
Much better.
How good does death have to be?
This time the murderer had chosen to push a man under a subway train.
The crowd seemed to like this one better, too.
They stayed longer after we got the body out from under the train.
Legwork, questions.
The dead man, Adam Treple, the Bronx.
Inquiries, there's merit, free children, and it's the supermarket.
More inquiries.
No motive for his murder.
No one wanted him dead.
Everybody said so.
Johnny, I brought you a thermos of coffee.
Thanks.
And this envelope just came for you.
Special delivery, marked personal.
Give it to me.
Like the last time?
Like the last time.
Newspaper picture.
This is a Treple under the subway train, with the crowd around.
Look at him.
And look at this one.
The first one I got when Edgar Dale was stabbed.
Crowd.
Why do people always hang around other people's hurt?
I'll pour you some coffee.
You want coffee, Johnny?
Yeah.
Here.
Here you are, Johnny.
Johnny?
What?
This man standing here in the picture, right up front of the crowd around Edgar Dale.
This man here.
Not very clear.
So?
Look at him, will you?
I'm looking.
Hey.
The same man reared in, the same man in both pictures.
I won't say no.
Me neither, because it's the same.
It could have been a coincidence.
It could have just happened that way.
It could have just happened that way.
One chance at 50,000, and 100,000, and 1,000,000.
But it could have happened.
One man, a part of a crowd, having his picture taken as a spectator of violent death on a
crowded street in a subway.
One man pushing his way to the front of the crowd to have his picture taken, just because
it happened to him twice in the same day.
By some sly smile of fortune, it was arranged for two people to die just where he happened
to be, just where there was a man with a camera to take a picture to.
A picture that would give him a name in his neighborhood, make people look up to him.
Don't tell me how it was.
He was there, twice.
Then there was the other chance, that he was the murderer.
That's the one a policeman had to put his money on.
He could do that by talking to a man he knew in a newspaper office, a man in charge of
the morgue, named Marty Powell.
You're slumming, Lieutenant?
Don't you ever open a window in here, Marty?
Who wants fresh air?
Fresh air is for the bird.
If you don't like it here, go away.
Still sour, huh, Marty?
You come from out there.
Anything happen to what out there just before you came in?
No.
I didn't think so.
When it does, when it dries up and blows away out there, I might sweeten up, if I feel like
it.
What can I do for you, Lieutenant?
I want to look at some pictures.
Don't we all?
Pictures where people were killed, where...
Look, Lieutenant, I got files and files of those to the ceiling, see?
More explicit.
How were they killed?
Accident?
War?
By a wife?
A jealous lover?
Suicide?
Stop me any time you like.
I tire easy.
Unloaded revolver?
Well, it's hard to explain, Marty, but pictures like these.
Local.
Let me see.
Pictures like unsolved murders, huh, Lieutenant?
Where the killing was violent.
Too violent for you boys to solve?
I'll get some for you.
Hard to explain.
How far back, Lieutenant?
Two, three years, maybe.
I was afraid of that.
Here, I made a selection for you.
The most artistic, the most captivating.
Several of these won prizes.
We are very proud of this one, for example.
To your taste?
Let's see some more.
This one.
Hold that one out, Marty.
Not the one with the guy who fell out of the window or the other one?
The window.
I'll see some more.
You've been here for two hours, Lieutenant.
I told you, I tire easy.
More?
Okay.
That one.
I'll take these two.
Goodbye, Marty.
You ready on that projector, Airdon?
Uh-huh.
I'll pull the screen down.
Okay, turn out the lights.
Let's have the first one.
This is a picture of a man pulled out of the river.
He was shot.
This picture was taken in December 1948.
Notice the crowd.
Notice this spectator, the one in the front row, not wearing a hat.
Let's have number two.
Picture of a man who was pushed or fell out of a window from a 10-story building, June,
this year.
Again, notice the crowd.
And the man in the right-hand corner of the crowd being pushed back by a policeman.
Now run the slides of the ones we had made from the newspaper clipping.
The crowd around Edgar Dale.
Notice that man up front on the end.
Okay.
The crowd around Adam Treple.
Notice the fourth man down in the front row.
What do you think, Airdon?
They're all the same man.
You sure?
The same man.
It took an hour for the newspapers to hit the streets with a front-page picture of a
man wanted for murder.
A man in the crowd who, for two or three years, had quietly committed murder.
Four killings to our knowledge.
Now we knew what he looked like, what went on inside his mind.
He liked to kill.
He liked to stand with the crowd over his kill.
With the crowd, liked to see death up close.
That man is my husband.
Where's your husband now?
He's in bed.
He pretends he's an invalid.
He's been lying there for five years, but I know he sneaks out at night when I'm asleep.
I've been waiting on him hand and foot for five years, and I know he don't let you tend
me.
We checked it.
The man was an invalid, paralyzed.
Then?
I'm the man.
I'm the man you want.
I did all those killings.
This picture of you we have, you don't look the same.
You've changed.
That's right.
I've changed.
I change all the time.
Don't you think that's clever of me?
Yes, it is.
Will you wait here a moment?
Airdon.
Yeah, what is it, Johnny?
There's a man in my office.
Take him to the cycle.
John Estolano speaking.
Please, can you come here quickly?
Who is this?
I'm Mrs. Jane Shirley.
I have a rooming house at 1216 East 38th.
What is it you want, Mrs. Shirley?
The man whose picture is in the paper, the man you're looking for.
He has a room in my house.
Is he there now?
No, but I expect him home any minute.
Please, will you come quickly?
Right away.
His name is Charles Turner, Mr. Estolano.
At least that's what he told me it was.
He's been living here for the past seven years.
I don't know much more about him than that.
He comes and he goes.
Take me to his room, Mrs. Shirley.
Yeah, right down the hall.
Turn on the light.
This is his room.
These pictures on the wall, a man in a subway on a street corner, a man who fell out of
a building.
Yes, they all belong to Mr. Turner.
He hung them on the wall.
I never asked him.
What are you doing here?
I never asked him what will happen now.
Do you have a room near the front of the house?
My room?
Well, wait for Mr. Turner there.
Mr. Estolano.
Don't worry about a thing.
I'll get it.
Johnny, who are you looking at me like that for?
I told you to wait in the squad car.
Well, a call just come through, a guy's holding our killer.
What?
Yeah, a greasy spoon lunch room down the corner.
Mr. Turner always eats right down the corner.
The guy who runs the joint phoned in that our man is eating his supper there right now.
Let's go.
There's a crowd.
That's funny.
The street was deserted less than a minute ago.
Let's go.
All right, let us through here.
Officers, let us through.
What happened to you?
You police?
That's right.
I own this place.
He saw me making the phone call, ran out.
I ran after him.
He had a knife and...
He's dead, Reardon.
Johnny, he's not.
He just fainted.
I said he's dead.
One of you people in the crowd go in the store and call an ambulance.
This man's dead.
Let me through.
Let me through.
Reardon.
That's him, Johnny.
This man.
Is he dead?
What happened to him?
Anybody know what happened?
Would you like to see him, mister?
Would you like to see him up close?
Why, why, I...
The photographers will be here in a few minutes.
Why don't you stick around and have your picture taken, Mr. Turner?
You're wrong.
My name is not Turner.
I just wanted to know whether the man was dead.
That's all.
I want to get out of here.
Come back here tonight.
I'm going to the store.
I'm going to the store.
I'm going to the store.
I'm going to the store.
The man was dead, that's all.
I want to get out of here.
Come back here, Turner.
One side.
Come back here.
Johnny?
Yep.
Let's go over there.
Dead.
Johnny, look at him.
Look at him.
Yeah.
Here comes the crowd.
Is he dead?
What?
What?
What?
What?
What?
What?
What?
What?
What?
Let me out.
Let me out of here.
Ooh, okay.
Let me down.
Get out of my way, I want to see.
Dead?
Did you really die?
I want to see him.
Is he really dead?
Look at him.
You're dead now.
Come to me.
Tighten that stand.
What did he get you into?
Suspense presented by Auto Light. Tonight's star, Dana Andrews.
Say Wilcox, your tailor has a lot of satisfied customers, huh?
Yes, hap, but nowhere near the hundreds of thousands Auto Light satisfies each year,
because Auto Light makes over 400 products for cars, trucks, planes and boats
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These include complete electrical systems used as original equipment on many of America's finest cars,
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Don't accept electrical parts supposed to be as good.
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Next week on Suspense, Mr. Joseph Cotton as star of Fly By Night.
And in the weeks to come, you will hear such famous stars as Miriam Hopkins, Milton Berle and Howard Duff,
all appearing in tales well calculated to keep you in Suspense.
Tonight's Suspense play was produced and directed by Elliot Lewis,
with music composed by Lucian Morrowek and conducted by Ludd Bluskin.
Parts of this program were transcribed.
The crowd by Ray Bradbury was adapted for Suspense by Morton Fine and David Friedkin.
Dana Andrews appeared through the courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn.
He may currently be seen in the Goldwyn production Edge of Doom.
And remember next week on Suspense, Mr. Joseph Cotton in Fly By Night.
You can buy world famous Auto Light resistor or standard spark plugs, Auto Light staple batteries,
Auto Light electrical parts at your neighborhood Auto Light dealers. Switch to Auto Light. Good night.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.