- For Christmas, I got a collection of old-time radio shows called The Time Travelers, 50+ recordings featuring time travel stories from various shows, broadcast from the 1930s-1970s. I’ve had a lot of fun listening to them and now I’m taking a crack at recapping them here.
Radio drama relies on voice acting, sound, music, and the listener’s imagination to be effective, and judging by this hair-raising piece, The Man Who Asked for Yesterday (originally broadcast January 31, 1974), CBS Radio Mystery Theater did it masterfully.
We open with a door creaking and a dramatic bass/timpani riff. “If only I could do it all over again is a cry from the human heart,” the show’s host, actor E.G. Marshall, says in a gravelly, slightly menacing voice. “But if some magical power could grant that wish, could we handle things better the second time around?”
We’ll find out—but first, a word from our sponsor. I like that commercials are included on this show, giving contemporary audiences a glimpse of the 70s. This “spot” for a bank, offering 5.25% (!) interest on a savings account reminds us that those aforementioned 70s, and banks giving interest, was a long, long time ago.
Now, Act I: A guy with a bullet to the head is wheeled into surgery. Half-conscious, he keeps muttering “Yesterday” as if he’s Paul McCartney on a bender. He slips into some echo-y purgatory, where he encounters a mysterious being who might be the man upstairs, or more likely that other guy, I don’t know, so I’ll just call him “Dave.”
“I never had a chance,” laments the dying guy, whose name is, appropriately, Mort (long-time radio actor Mandel Kramer). “If I had a chance to live yesterday over again, it’d all be different.”
“Would it?” Dave (Paul Hecht) asks, twirling his mustache. I have no evidence Dave has a mustache to twirl, but the greasy way he says this makes me picture it. Radio, theater of the mind, and all that.
Dave presses Mort to tell him why he wants to live yesterday over and we go into a flashback detailing the events leading up to Mort in the ER, nearing death.
The day began as usual, with a hangover and Mort’s wife Sherry (Evie Juster—vet of 225 CBSRMT productions) getting her nag on. His tossing and turning kept her awake all night. Mort blubbers about his gambling losses and Sherry verbally shrugs with a, “You’ll win today, everything will be fine.”
Mort’s unconvinced and drags off to take a shower. As soon as he leaves, you hear the thwip-ip-ip of an old rotary telephone dial—Sherry, dialing someone named Herb (Ralph Bell). We know he’s more than just a friend because he calls her sugar in the most suggestive way.
“We got our pigeon right where we want ’im,” she coos. “He’s hit bottom. Time to put the scheme in motion.”
At breakfast, Sherry pep talks Mort into making a bet. He calls his bookie, who, I’m sure you’ll be surprised to learn, is Herb. Mort puts a thousand smackers on a horse. Problem is, Mort doesn’t have a thousand smackers. Herb knows that, but agrees to take Mort’s personal check anyway. I’m tempted to yell “It’s a trap!” but doubt Mort will listen.
Of course Mort’s horse loses. He runs home to cry in Sherry’s arms, only to find Herb in his easy chair with his feet up. Herb demands his money, and threatens big trouble unless Mort gets it—and fast.
Segue to Herb and Mort at the diamond shop where Mort works. Herb breathes impatiently over Mort’s shoulder as he spins the dial on the safe. “The diamonds, too,” Herb orders when Mort gets the safe open and hands him the money. Mort balks, suddenly remorseful over robbing his partner, but Herb’s threat of pain and dismemberment overcomes Mort’s ethical qualms.
Back at Mort and Sherry’s, slimy Herb says he’s keeping both cash and diamonds, so Mort better leave town before the “boys upstairs” come looking for their dough. Herb says he’s booked a flight for Mort and the Mrs. to South America, and he’ll drive them to the airport. Mort’s mad, but agrees. Sherry agrees too, and, surprisingly, she has a bag all packed.
On the way to the airport, Herb turns onto a road under a bridge, and Mort panics. “This road leads to the river, it’s a dead end!” he cries.
“Yeah, dead end,” Herb says, all oily and sinister, pulling a gun. “Particularly for you.”
That would’ve been a nice quip to end it on, but Herb and Sherry have to rub it in, telling Mort about their affair and that the tickets to South America are for them.
“It took someone as stupid as you not to guess,” Sherry cackles.
Then, bang!
Commercial break. This one’s for Budweiser, and I time travel back to our front stoop on a July day, sitting with my father and listening to the Red Sox stink up Fenway with another loss. Good times…
Himan Brown, genius producer of over 30,000 radio shows, including this one, wardrobe for radio
Act II: Harp music returns us to the show. Mort’s with Dave, muttering that it’s unfair he’s dead, and Sherry and Herb got away with making him dead. If only he could live yesterday over again… Dave’s like, if I let you, will you do yesterday better? Mort pinky swears and Eagle Scout promises he will, so Dave grants Mort’s wish.
Mort wakes up to his usual hangover and Sherry’s nagging, knowing exactly what’s going to happen this day. He vows to change things—but not for the better, as he’d promised.
“This time Herb will be the one that gets hooked,” he vows. He cleans out the safe, places a huge bet Herb can’t cover, then hurries home to a surprised Sherry, and, in a move that makes me think this marriage can’t be saved, Mort pulls a gun on her.
The final commercial is for Special K, a movie parody called “The Good, the Bad, and the Heavy,” with the amazing Mel Blanc doing about a zillion voices.
Act III: Mort forces Sherry into their car at gunpoint. He says he’s taking her to the airport for a trip to South America, but he really takes her down that dead end road by the river. He tells her he knows what she and Herb are up to and he’s turning the tables on them. Big time—with a melodramatic, “Welcome to my grave,” Mort shoots Sherry dead. He leaves, certain Herb will be blamed for her murder, and hoofs it to the airport, with no baggage and a million dollars in stolen diamonds weighing down his pocket. I wonder how he’ll explain that to the TSA.
Cruel fate, or maybe devilish Dave, steps in. All airport traffic is suddenly shut down by bad weather and good old 70s-level Los Angeles smog. Mort can’t leave. Scrambling for another way out, Mort finds a cabbie, and, his voice tightening in panic, begs the man to take him to the train station, but a fire in the highway tunnel stalls traffic. Buses aren’t running either, since the drivers have gone on strike. Frustrated, the cabbie boots him from his hack—coincidentally, right in front of Herb. Mort laughs hysterically. I think fate’s laughing too. At him, not with him.
Sinister Herb’s figured out what Mort’s done and is going to get his revenge. He drives Mort to the dead end by the river (I think that road is called Fate Street), steals the diamonds and shoots Mort, shoving his body into the river.
More harp music and we’re with Mort, back in limbo, lamenting that he didn’t change anything, and worse, he killed Sherry. “Oh, she’s dead in both timelines,” Dave says. Mort kills her in one timeline, in the other “yesterday,” Herb, who wants the diamonds all to himself, does the deed—just before he’s hit and killed by a truck on that dead end street. Seems like Fate Street should be a “must avoid” on any navigation app.
“And me? Will I live?” Mort asks hopefully.
“Do you think you should?” Dave asks.
Mort’s like, duh, yeah. “I can prove it, if you’ll just let me have yesterday again.”
“You had your chance,” Dave says, twirling his mustache again, and adding a smirk for good measure. “Now you belong to me.”
Drama sting, and that’s the bitter end of our three unlovable losers, Herb, Sherry and Mort.
Epilog: The host, E.G. Marshall, gets the last word: “Mort was a weak little man, a stupid little man, and he got exactly what he deserved.” Ouch, don’t hold back E.G. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but I gotta admit, I agree.
If you’d like to hear the full radio broadcast, it is available free at the link below. Enjoy!
https://www.cbsrmt.com/episode/26-the-man-who-asked-for-yesterday.html
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