“Fugue in C Minor” is an eerie episode from one of the most revered and longest-running Old Time Radio shows of them all, Suspense (1942-1962). It aired on June 1, 1944 and stars Ida Lupino (1914-1995) and Vincent Price (1911-1993) in a chilling tale involving a very strange old house, a pipe organ…and murder.

While America gathered around its radios in the summer of 1944, anxiously awaiting news about how our boys were doing overseas via nightly news broadcasts, SF fans were reading stories in the pulp magazines such as Clifford D. Simak’s pair of stories (“City” and “Huddling Place,” Astounding Science Fiction, May and July, respectively) that would later join several others to form his award-winning novel City. Sandwiched between this pair, and also from ASF, was Frederic Brown’s  undeniably classic short story “Arena” (ASF, June). 

But while America listened to Vincent Price chill them to the bone in “Fugue in C Minor,” little did it know that a mere five days later would come the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on June 6, 1944. D-Day was less than a week away.

Play time: 29:38