Suspense. And the producer of CBS Radio's outstanding theater of thrills, the master of mystery and adventure, William N. Robeson.
This by way of explanation. To the dramatist, where there is conflict, there is a play.
The conflict, the naked emotions, the tragedy which occurs in the psychoanalyst's couch therefore, is fair game to the playwright.
But there cannot be a play without a protagonist and an antagonist.
In the play you are about to hear, the antagonist, the bad guy, happens to be the doctor.
But let the AMA and the APA note, we do not wish to imply that all psychiatrists are heavies, nor that psychoanalysis is nonsense.
Without psychotherapy, a lot of us would be dead, or worse, so sick that death itself would be a welcome surcease.
So listen, listen then to Head Shrinker, starring Miss Agnes Moorhead.
And now, Head Shrinker, starring Miss Agnes Moorhead.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
The Doctor will see you now, Mrs. Ellender.
Oh, thank you. I am his last appointment.
As usual, Mrs. Ellender. I'll be leaving shortly myself. As usual.
Thank you.
Ah. How are you this afternoon?
All right, I guess. The couch, or may I sit down?
The couch, I think. Your association seemed to flow more freely on the couch.
All right. You're the doctor.
I said, you're the doctor.
Yes, I heard you.
Well, that's supposed to be funny.
Is it?
You laughed the first time I said it. First day I came here.
I laughed to put you at your ease. I had heard it before.
You've heard everything before, haven't you, Doctor?
Does it seem that way to you?
Everything but this.
What?
I'm going to kill you.
When?
Before this hour is over.
Why?
Well, look at your notes, Doctor.
That must be quite a file you have on me.
Ruth Ellender. Manic, depressive, compulsive, obsessed, so I check and double check neurotic.
How long have I been turning myself inside out for you?
How long have I been doing my psychic strip tease for you?
How many hours have I spent on this couch? How many?
You know as well as I do.
Oh, no, I don't.
Once I could place myself in time fairly well.
No longer. Now there is no time.
Now there's nothing but five o'clock to 5.45 every afternoon, Monday through Friday.
Now they're 23 hours and 15 minutes a day. I don't know where they go.
And Saturday and Sunday.
What do you suppose happens to me on Saturday and Sunday, dear, dear, Doctor?
This is a phase of the treatment.
Oh, yes, yes, I know. I know. Transference, it's called.
To be followed by counter-transference. And when that is completed, I'll be a whole person.
Hasn't the transference gone a little bit too far?
I don't know any place where Freud suggests the weekend is a particularly effective time for transference.
What happened to those weekends, Werner?
What happened to the Saturdays and Sundays of my transference?
Each patient requires his own kind of treatment.
And some other patient needs the weekends? Is she as pretty as I am?
As intelligent? As sick?
If you're dissatisfied with the progress of your therapy, you are free to quit at any time.
Quit? Werner, I can't quit. You know I can't quit.
I love you, Werner.
Heaven help me.
I love you.
Love. I said I loved you.
What is love, Doctor?
What is it to you?
What is it to me? What is it to me? Always you answer a question with a question.
There was a Greek who did that once.
Socrates?
That's right. You're a lot like him, Doctor. You know what happened to him and why.
Aren't you projecting?
Projecting! I gave up little boys when I stopped being a little girl.
You were speaking of love.
I was a little girl once. I was daddy's little girl.
I'd run down the walk to meet him in the late afternoons, screaming,
Daddy's home. Daddy's home.
And he'd sweep me up in his arms and kiss me, and his cheek would be scratchy against mine,
and his mustache would tickle, and he smelled funny, but nice.
Sweaty in the sweet bitter breath of a pipe-smoker.
The smell of a man.
Oh, we had so much fun together.
In the evenings I'd curl up in his lap while he was reading the paper, never minded a bit.
Daddy?
Dear Daddy, you know what I'd like to do next Saturday?
I'd like to go to the beach with you.
Will you take me, Daddy?
Will you?
We'll go down early in the morning and we'll stay all day, and we'll have lots and lots of hot dogs, and...
Oh, no, Daddy.
Just you and me.
We don't want Mother along.
Oh, why did it stop?
Why can't I sit on your lap anymore, Daddy? Why?
Why, Daddy?
Why, Daddy? Why?
Why?
I'll give you something to quieten you.
I don't want any of your shots. I don't need your fancy magic medicine with the unpronounceable name.
I don't want it, my Daddy.
I wanted to feel like it was... before.
Before?
I wanted to feel like... before I was 11 or 12... before he changed.
He changed suddenly, you know.
All at once, he wouldn't let me curl up on his lap anymore.
He'd push me away and tell me I was a big girl now.
He'd act embarrassed almost. Almost as if he were ashamed of me.
They're probably not ashamed, but certainly embarrassed to see you were growing up.
Well, I didn't want to grow up. I didn't ask to grow up.
I wanted to be Daddy's little girl. That's all I ever wanted.
I didn't want all those boys in school.
And later, they smelled like milk.
Milk that was turning sour.
Yes, you married one of them.
Yes, yes, I married one of them.
He called me his princess.
And he was my knight on a white horse.
And we were married in church. I was a June bride and Daddy...
Now he gave me away.
And I was Mrs. George Ellender. I wasn't a princess anymore.
George wasn't a knight on a white horse.
It wasn't like the fairy stories where they lived happily ever after.
Those stories don't tell you about sinks full of dirty dishes.
They make no mention of the sleep smell of the dawn embrace
and the painful tedium of getting to know someone after you're married to him.
But we made it all right.
We got through that first year. We played house.
I called him Daddy and he called me Mommy. We thought it was fun.
Well, it was fun.
And you changed all that. You wakened me.
You taught me reality. You opened my eyes. You and your psychoanalysis.
Why did you pick on me?
There were other women at that party where we met.
Lots of them. Nice, juicy, neurotic ones. Why me?
You sought me out.
Oh, come now. I arrived at that party in the best of health.
I left at a very sick woman who could be made well only by you.
You convinced me that I was leading a meaningless life,
that I was unhappy and maladjusted and immature.
You assured me that I would only realize my fullest potential through psychoanalysis.
You practically begged me. No, no, no. You seduced me into becoming your patient.
You came here of your own free will.
That first night when you took me to dinner, I didn't know then.
Well, how could I that no ethical analyst would have suggested such a thing?
Well, I thought it was part of the therapy.
I was so easy for you, wasn't I, Werner?
It must have been very little fun for you, really.
No struggle. Poor Werner.
I took away your sense of conquest, didn't I?
That I gave you everything else. Everything willingly.
I loved you, Werner. You were a god. My god.
Your pipe, your beard. You were...
Daddy.
What a contemptible thing to say.
What an evil, dirty man you are.
You see why it has become impossible for you to continue as my patient.
Yes.
I told you when I became your lover that I could no longer be your doctor.
And you were right.
So that's the last time I will ever lie on that couch.
From this moment on, I shall no longer be your patient, and you will no longer be my doctor.
That's a very mature decision.
Yes. Because now I'm going to kill you.
That gun is loaded.
You think I'm just acting out my aggressions? I'm not that sick, dear doctor.
This gun is loaded.
You have considered the consequences.
All of them.
If you take my life, society will take yours.
They won't get a chance. There's another bullet in this gun. Several.
I could ring for help.
Oh, go ahead. You'll be dead when it gets here.
You are quite determined to kill me?
Quite.
And do you feel qualified to judge, to condemn, and execute another human being?
You feel qualified as any other woman who has been rejected by the man she loved and found him to be not worth her loving?
Don't you think this comedy has gone far enough?
It is a comedy, isn't it? And you're the comedian.
The apostolic descendant of Sigmund Freud.
From all our sins, dear Freud, deliver us.
Thy will be done. Deliver us not into our id, and forgive our ego.
For thine is the power and the super ego forever and ever.
And little bearded Werner is thy vicar on earth.
Now you're becoming hysterical. Put the gun away and get hold of yourself.
Uh-uh. I'm enjoying our little comedy.
And my hour isn't over for twelve more minutes.
It is my hour. I'm paying for it.
You're insane.
Uh-uh. Insane is a legal term, not a psychiatric term.
Remember we learned that early on the couch. There is no such thing as insanity, only varying degrees of adjustment to reality.
There. See how well I know my lesson?
See what a good patient I've been?
But you were not just a patient. You were so much more to me.
You made me a man.
Yes, I know. I know so you told me.
But you didn't tell me about the one before me.
The one who tried to commit suicide after you refused to continue therapy.
How did you...?
Oh, I've been doing a little checking.
Very interesting, the things you hear around Tom when your name is mentioned.
You know, Werner, you aren't very highly thought of in this community.
What do you mean?
I'm surprised no one has named you as a correspondent in a divorce case yet.
How many of your patients stay married after you go through with them?
What is it you have against marriage, Werner?
I cannot be responsible for what a person does once he learns the truth about himself.
Of course you can't.
A surgeon can be held responsible if he leaves a pair of pliers inside a patient after an operation.
An obstetrician can be held responsible for a bungalow delivery, but you can't be sued for a ruined life.
Oh, it's a great out you have.
The patient did it himself.
Name me one patient you've made happy.
Psychoanalysis does not guarantee happiness.
Now you tell me.
It seeks to help the individual to adjust to reality.
There's no such thing as happiness.
That's not what you said.
There is only absence of angst.
Translation, please.
Angst, anxiety, fear.
A person can function normally only when he has rid himself of fear.
What are you afraid of, Werner?
Me?
Nothing.
Then why do you hide behind that beard?
Well, aren't you afraid to look like other men, lest people realize that's all you are, just another man?
No, no, no, of course not.
Then why do you use your analyst couch as a lonely hearts club?
Can't you meet women any other way?
Ruth.
Are you afraid to compete with other men in the world of women?
Ruth, please don't say things like that.
Why, why? Because they're true?
Are you afraid of truth, Werner? Of reality?
Ruth, you said once you loved me.
Oh, so I did, and you said you loved me.
And I believed you.
But now I know you didn't love me.
You hated me.
You hate all women, and you hate the happiness they can bring to a man.
So you tried to destroy love wherever you find it.
You aren't an evil man, Werner.
You're a sick man.
No, I know I am.
What can I do?
I sit here all day long listening to the deepest problems of others, but...
Who can I turn to with my problems?
Well, forgive the bad joke, but what you need is to be psychoanalyzed.
Oh, I was, you know that.
Well, then you need a refresher course.
No, no, no.
Ruth, I need you.
Me?
Yes.
Ruth, you know all about me.
You understand me.
I need your help, Ruth.
Help me.
Oh, no.
You must help me, Ruth.
Please.
You seem to be forgetting that I came here to kill you.
No, you didn't mean that, really.
You're acting out aggressions, that's true, but you wouldn't go that far.
Oh, yes, I would.
No, not when I need you so desperately.
You're really afraid, aren't you?
Yes.
Yes, I am...
I'm terrified.
Not of dying.
Of living?
Yes, without you.
I know now I...
I can't go on living without you.
Well, then the biggest help I could be to you would be to kill you.
But I couldn't do that now.
It would be ungrateful of me.
Ungrateful?
Yes.
You see, Doctor, you've cured me.
Of what?
Of you.
But I need you.
Well, that, my dear Werner, is your problem.
Well, I see my hour is nearly up.
No, you're not leaving me.
Yes.
Well, Ruth, you can.
Oh, yes, I can.
You're no longer my doctor, my father, my lover, all my God.
Please.
You're just a frightened little man.
Please, Ruth.
Oh, I, uh, I might as well leave this gun with you.
I'll have no further use for it.
Good luck, Werner.
Suspense.
In which Miss Agnes Moorhead starred in Head Shrinker.
Written, produced, and directed by William N. Robeson.
Supporting Agnes Moorhead in tonight's story were Lawrence Dobkin and Patty Gallagher.
Listen.
Listen again next week when we return with another tale well calculated to keep you in...
Suspense.