Episode time
30 minutes
Language
English
While the show technically started in 1940 with The Lodger episode, directed by Alfred Hitchcock (as part of his "audition" for CBS Radio) the series itself, as regular broadcast, started two years later. Suspense was anthology show that concentrated on mystery and suspense short stories, something that later Hitchcock perfected in his Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series - it did not used supernatural elements (like f.e. The Inner Sanctum) to build the tension, but instead presented stories that often had some unsuspecting twists that changed the story completely. Another trademark of Suspense (similar to Hitchcock shows) is that rarely the bad people got away with their crime.
Throughout its over 20 years of broadcast the show changed some of its elements (like The Man in Black narrator), sponsors, directors and authors, but always had biggest stars from different walks of live taking part in the stories - from Bela Lugosi to Lucille Ball, from Ronald Reagan to EG Marshall and from Jack Benny to Kirk Douglas.
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as The Man in Black - narrator
as The Man in Black - narrator