T5#46 The Arithmetic of Honor

 

Episode number: 46
Network broadcast date: Monday, October 5, 1964
The Arithmetic of Honor
Genre: Drama
Author: Raphael David Blau
Production number: 52
Production date: Wednesday, September 16, 1964
Director: Warren Somerville

Plotline: Maria, a shy factory worker in West Berlin is swept off her feet by Hans, a charming defector from the other side of the Wall. It’s been a year since his daring escape and now that he’s a free man with all his papers, he wants to celebrate with a trip to East Berlin. But once they’re on the other side, and he’s disappeared with Maria’s identification, it becomes clear Hans hasn’t told her the whole truth.

T5#45 Subject Number 428A

 

Episode number: 45
Network broadcast date: Friday, October 2, 1964
Subject Number 428A
Genre: Psychological drama
Author: Robert Cenedella
Production number: 44
Production date: Thursday, September 3, 1964
Director: Harry Nelson

Plotline: It’s a strange kind of locked-room mystery in a lecture hall: two university professors shot dead and a computer smashed to pieces. What happened? The tragic end to a love triangle? Or a science experiment gone horribly wrong? One witness promises to shed light on this baffling mystery — and challenge our understanding of man’s free will in the process.

Listen: https://archive.org/details/T5project/Theater+Five+641002+045+Subject+Number+428A.flac

Cast: Donald Buka, Ivor Francis, Jack Manning, Court Benson

T5#44 John Hansen, Hermit

 

Episode number: 44
Network broadcast date: Thursday, October 1, 1964
John Hansen, Hermit
Genre: Topical melodrama
Author: Phyllis Coe
Production number: 43
Production date: Wednesday, September 2, 1964
Director: Ted Bell

Plotline: Always on the lookout for oddballs, a game show producer spots the perfect guest for his program — a homeless man who’s chosen to leave the modern world behind and live alone in a city park. But when this modern-day Thoreau agrees to appear as a game show contestant, he has no idea how much his life is about to change.

Listen: https://archive.org/details/T5project/Theater+Five+641001+044+John+Hansen%2C+Hermit+(likely+KGO-SanFran).flac

Cast: Stan Watt, Fran Carlon, George Petrie, Evie Juster, Cecil Roy, Gar Wood

T5#43 A Very Private Phone Call

 

Episode number: 43
Network broadcast date: Wednesday, September 30, 1964
A Very Private Phone Call
Genre: Comedy melodrama
Author: Robert A. Arthur
Production number: 42
Production date: Tuesday, September 1, 1964
Director: Harry Nelson

Plotline: Mrs. Williams dotes on her much-older husband, a cruel shipping magnate who’s always insisted on doing business over the phone instead of traveling. When he dies suddenly, she finds herself waiting by the phone for the ultimate long distance call — from beyond the grave!

Listen: https://archive.org/details/T5project/Theater+Five+640930+043+A+Very+Private+Phone+Call.flac

Cast: Joyce Gordon, Gertrude Warner, Ben Yaffe, Ralph Camargo, Hal Burdick

Notes:

Though not related to a Mysterious Traveler script, Robert Arthur had used cataleptsy as a plot element in at least one MT script, a missing episode 1949-01-20 Death is My Partner. Ever since Poe used it in Premature Burial, it was a common theme for some mystery and horror writers. 

A 1961 episode of Thriller with Boris Karloff that adapted the Poe story was still in the mind of TV viewers. The Suspense episode Dead Ernest is the most popular radio use of the condition in a storyline; Dead Ernest had a modestly humorous ending, this T5 episode has a very funny one, similar in style to what might have been done on the Night Gallery TV series a few years later.