Listen carefully.
That is the sound of someone moving into the fourth dimension.
You'll hear the full story now from Hollywood on Romance.
Romance transcribed stories of love and adventure, of comedy and crisis, of conflict and human
emotion.
Today, an amusing and highly improbable account of life in the 25th century as we present
Joseph Slotkin's science fiction adventure, The Strip Teaser and The Space Warp.
Hi, my name is Benny Spelvin.
I'm a space bum.
Now, this all happened just a couple years ago when I was laying over on Venus after
being jet man on the Ceres to Neptune Run.
Well, anyhow, there I was relaxing with my second plutonium stinger in the dignified
atmosphere of Charlie's Venusian retreat when it was a strange noise outside the dive.
Oh, my.
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
I beg your pardon.
Would you mind if I joined you?
Hey, you don't look good.
Maybe you'd better sit down.
Thank you.
Oh, thank you very much.
Waiter.
Yeah, what do you have?
I'll have two of whatever he's got there, sir.
Hey, mister, this here's a plutonium stinger.
Yeah, we only allow two to a customer.
Well, maybe you'd better bring me three, waiter.
Who are you trying to kid, mister?
Look, never mind, Sam.
Just bring I and the little guy here a couple of Uranus Delights and forget it, will you?
OK, but nobody gets wise with me.
I got my job.
OK, you don't want to mind them waiters, mister.
They're all from Saturn, you know, cheap help.
Oh, I've had to get used to all sorts of things lately.
Yeah, yeah, so I see.
OK, that'll be two asteroids.
Here you are.
Keep the change.
Yeah, mister, thanks.
Sure.
Hey, look, fella, maybe it's none of my business, but Charlie's poison, that'll pick you up
and lay you down.
Oh, what difference does it make?
He'll get me sooner or later.
He?
Yes.
Perhaps you heard that heat ray gun going off outside a moment ago.
Oh, yes, that's what them noises were.
Yes, wherever I go, he shoots at me, waits for me to leave the house and then he shoots
at me.
Well, look, mister, it's none of my business, but would you carry all them asteroids around
on one or somebody's taking pot shots at you?
Oh, Luigi isn't interested in mine.
You don't mean Luigi the vlog?
Precisely.
Look, this ain't funny, mister.
Everybody knows what a dangerous guy that guy is.
Hey, what's he got on you?
He thinks I stole his girl.
Oh, sure, I make any fellow...
Stole his...
You?
Well, I didn't, of course.
But the fact that the last time she was seen was entering my apartment and the fact that
she never left it, at least visibly, well, it makes it difficult to convince him.
Oh, now wait a minute.
Oh, I don't expect anyone to believe me anymore.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe myself.
Well, do you know who Luigi's girl is?
Was.
Helen Latouva.
The same.
The queen of the barley circuit.
The same.
Wow.
She was the most attractive person.
Yeah, right out of this world.
Precisely right out of this world.
In your apartment.
No, just out of this world.
Look, if you wouldn't mind running the risk, I would appreciate your company.
Where are you going?
Back to my apartment.
The refreshments here lack the needed stimulation.
I have a much better supply at home.
Now under ordinary circumstances, I would turn down such an invitation.
But I find myself feeling sorry for a little guy who was obviously soft and inorganic.
So I give in.
And besides, I'm fascinated like a snake by this connection between this here mild looking
little neb and luscious Helen Latouva.
Oh, here we are.
Maybe here.
Let me turn on the lights.
Hey, it's a crazy looking pad you got here.
Yes, isn't it?
My, it's good to be safe again.
Please forgive me for not introducing myself sooner.
But under the circumstances, my name is Timothy J. Brown, PhD, MD and MA.
Oh, well, I'm Benjamin Spelvin.
No initials.
Very well.
Benny, if I may call you that.
Oh, sure, that's okay.
Benny, I am, you see, a psychiatrist.
You mean you're a...
Oh, yeah.
I am concerned mainly with psychological abnormalities and maladjustments.
I'm also known as something of an expert in the science of phenomenology.
Yeah, sure, sure.
But what has this got to do with the disappearance of Helen Latouva?
Oh, yes.
The events that brought me, a modest scientist, into contact with this awful Luigi, the lug
and that delectable creature, Miss Helen Latouva.
Not so long ago, I came to Venus from a rather successful series of experiments on Mars to
continue my research on the lack of inhibition in the outer planets, among the inhabitants,
that is.
Everyone on Earth had long ago been successfully set at peace with their psyches, but here
on the frontiers of civilization...
Well, I had set up practice here in this apartment when one day I was visited by this very attractive
young woman.
I'm grateful for you seeing me, Professor.
Honest I am.
Miss Latouva, was it?
Yeah, Helen Latouva.
You heard of me?
Well, the name has a familiar ring.
I've been known in the strip-tease game as Queen of the Galaxy Gavotte.
Well, just what do you do?
I'm a tease artist.
I take it off.
Strip.
Huh?
Well, Doc, the trouble is I'm right out of this world.
I beg your pardon?
That's the trouble.
I've been right out of this world.
Oh, you have dreams?
Let me explain.
I'm opening next week after a layoff on Earth, see?
Well, they got the whole show with the little Venus built around my number, and I figured
out a routine that's a sure sensation.
You should see this number.
It begins with me wiggling like this.
Well, I believe we can dispense with the...
Oh, but that's just it, Doc.
I've got to tell you about it.
It's symbolic, see?
A sort of United Planets number.
The idea is that all the planets are held together by love.
Real solid love.
The kind that grips you.
Yes.
Well, please, Miss Latouva, come to the source of your difficulty.
Hmm?
Oh.
Well, the number's coming along terrific.
I got it down perfect, every movement.
I feel I reached a peak in my art when it happens.
Yes?
I'm doing the routine in my dressing room, see?
First the singing, then the bubbles, then I get to the part where I suddenly give a
sort of wiggle with my hips, and then...
And then, Miss Latouva?
Oh, that's it, Doc.
That's when it happened.
One minute I'm standing there in my room practicing, and then I ain't there anymore.
Well, where were you?
Well, it's the funniest part of it.
I was standing on sand and some kind of desert-like.
And Doc, there was someone staring at me.
I see.
A man, doubtless.
Yeah.
And when he saw me standing there, he came toward me.
So I figured, here's a man, and I got my new routine, let's try it out.
So watching his face, I started my dance.
Then what happened?
Well, when I got to that same hip sway, his face became dim and sort of cloudy.
And then in a flash, I was back in my room again, just like it never happened.
Miss Latouva, tell me, when you were a child, were you always imagining men were looking
at you?
They were.
Hey, you think I'm imagining I was somewhere else?
Well, how come when I got back in my room, there was sand on the bottoms of my slippers?
Yes, of course, of course.
Now, I am not disagreeing with you.
Look, I'll do my routine right here, Doc, right now.
You'll see.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, please, Miss Latouva, not in my, please, not in my...
You see now?
Yes, yes, I'm afraid I'm beginning to.
Oh dear, oh dear.
How do you like it, Professor?
Oh, it's quite interesting.
Oh my, almost unusual.
Oh dear.
Just about now, I go into my new hip sway like this, and...
Ah, Miss Latouva?
Miss Latouva?
Where are you?
We'll return to romance in just a moment.
Tomorrow, on the Woolworth Hour, Percy Faith strikes up the band for Gala goings on with
Alec Templeton, who will perform the world premiere of his pocket-sized sonata for clarinet.
Tomorrow, every Sunday, over most of these same stations, listen for the Woolworth Hour.
And now, for the second act of romance.
She was gone without warning of any sort, she had vanished into thin air.
Well, you can imagine how perturbed I was.
I searched the entire apartment thoroughly.
For a moment, I was inclined to believe it was merely an hallucination of my own, but
there was the evidence of the clothing she had already shed, lying on the floor to prove
my own sanity.
Oh, I needed to drink something to calm me as I was pouring myself a uranium delight.
I'm back, Doc.
Miss Latouva!
Guess where I was this time.
What is that you're holding?
It looks like a human hand.
Oh, this, it's some kind of a metal glove.
What a night.
Night?
You've been gone merely a few minutes, how can you say night?
Search me.
All I know is I just spent the last few hours with a knight.
You know, the kind that ride a horse.
Well, then this is a gauntlet, the sort worn by those legendary knights in the prehistory
time of King Arthur.
He was so sweet, Doc.
Talk kind of funny.
He called it English, but I could understand enough to know.
Oh, anyhow, after a while, I remembered you'd be worried about me, so I sneaked out of his
castle.
Castle?
Yeah.
Anyhow, I went through my routine up to the point where I wiggle my hips and poof, here
I am.
Yes, but where were you?
Oh, search me.
He said his name was Lancelot.
What?
Lancelot.
Oh, that's a nice name.
I wonder what Luigi would say.
Lancelot, a metal gauntlet sand on your slippers.
Miss Latour, do you realize what you have accomplished by a mere wiggle of your hips?
I built up quite a reputation, I know that.
Hey, my seam's straightened.
Yes, yes.
Look, either we are both crazy or you have found a way to penetrate through the fourth
dimension into time itself.
Oh, that's fine, Doc.
Only if you can figure out some way to get that penetration, you called it, out of my
act so I won't disappear in the middle of it.
After all, I don't want to disappoint the cash customer.
Your act is unimportant.
Now, you have created a miracle in science merely by the undulations of your lower extremities.
Somehow, in some way, through that little wiggle of your hips, you have found your way
through a warp in space that's projected you into another time sphere, coextensive with
our own.
Oh, that's great, Doc.
Supposing I come up here again sometime so I can see lamp.
Well, hardly.
Come to my apartment so that you can carry on with a man dead a thousand, three thousand
years?
Certainly not.
He didn't seem dead to me.
Miss Latour, do you realize what this would mean to science?
Why do I care about science?
All I want is my routine.
Can you help me get that there fourth dimensional wiggle out of my routine, or can't you?
Well, I'd have to study this phenomenon much more closely.
Listen, I built myself up from a walk on in the chorus, worked hard, figured out my own
bumps and grinds, developed my own hip rolls, just so I could make myself the biggest name
in the business.
And now what happens?
I got what you call a fourth dimensional wiggle that gets me out through a space warp into
somebody's backyard who lived before I was born.
Well, I'm fed up.
I'll cut the business out of my routine and that's that.
No, no, no, no, you've got a debt to society.
Listen, I ain't playing guinea pig for no jerk scientists.
I got my aunt to think about.
No, no, no, please, I grant you all that, but Miss Latour, wait.
I was nonplussed, but I felt sure if I could just see her again and explain her value to
science, well, at any rate, I knew where to go.
I had never in all my life frequented one of those burlesque houses.
So it was with some apprehension that I sank into a seat in the semi darkness of the little
Venus theater.
Before the main show begins, ladies and gentlemen, lend me your ears.
Now you see this?
Well, you'll never see nothing like it.
Not only for two asteroids do you get a box of delicious chocolates with the nuts inside,
but a valuable prize in each and every box.
Plus, plus folks, a voluptuous picture of Maisie the Martian.
Now my assistants will walk among you.
As I relaxed munching on the chocolates I had purchased, I must confess I was intrigued.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the queen of the galaxy gavotte, our star attraction, the
toast of the universe, Miss Helen Latour.
Well there she was doing her routine on the stage.
It was quite well received.
But there was something lacking.
That hip wiggle.
Once having seen it, one comes to miss it, as it were.
After the performance, I endeavored to see Miss Latour backstage to see if I could persuade
her to change her mind and let me examine the evidence more thoroughly.
That is when I had my first brush with this Luigi person.
Hey Pop, what do you think you're going?
Oh, well they told me Miss Latour's dressing room was this way.
Oh, a stage door John, huh?
Sir, I am Timothy J. Brown and I desire...
Well Pop, you had in order to be creeping around those strip gals' dressing room.
Now look, don't you understand?
I must see her.
Oh yeah, well get this.
Nobody goes in there but me, Luigi Campanello, see?
Oh, are you Luigi the Lug?
Huh?
Nobody calls me that to my face, see?
And if I catch him calling that behind my back, see?
Oh yes, well I'm sorry Mr. Luigi, I really am, but I have just got to see Miss Latour.
You see, I want her to do her entire routine for me and...
Listen, wise guy, better scram before I scalp that pointy beard of yours.
No, no, look, you don't understand sir, I must see Miss Latour.
She must do her dance for me.
Go on, creep, beat it out, you're going out, come back!
Well I was desperate.
She wouldn't answer her telescreen.
I sent her numerous notes when she returned, unopened, and then one evening just when I
least expected it...
Hiya Doc.
Miss Latour.
Well, are you ready to continue with our experiments?
I ain't here for any experiments.
Well then why did you...
I've been practicing that space warp and hip wiggle in private, see?
And I've been meeting all sorts of characters, but not the one I got a real interest in.
Miss Latour, if you have come here...
Oh I'm bored Doc, Luigi's getting even jealouser.
So I figured if I come back to the place I first seen Lancelot, well, never mind.
So here's hoping he'll be there.
Oh no, oh.
Sweet boy Lanc.
Miss Latour please don't begin that again.
No, no, no.
Miss Latour please, please, I feel, I must warn you that...
Warn me about what?
Warn you that, dear, that time and space are really fluid as that ancient philosopher Einstein
suspected back in the 20th century.
You may not reach the same time space continuum again, you may well wiggle yourself into the
middle of a Pharaoh's tomb, why perhaps even to the bottom of the Russian ocean.
I'll take my chances Doc.
Oh.
Oh pretty good huh?
I implore you Miss Latour.
And now Lancelot honey, here I...
Well I waited for what seemed an eternity but she never reappeared to this day.
And that's the story.
Yeah, say Professor, you mind if I grab another drink?
Oh of course not Benny, help yourself.
Ah thanks.
I guess maybe you've been hitting a bottle yourself lately Doc?
Oh you don't believe me do you Mr. Spelvin, Benny?
Well no, not exactly but you've got a bit of a sense kind of...
Luigi!
Okay Pop, where is she?
Where you keeping her?
Please Mr. Luigi, Miss Latour is not here.
I don't know exactly where she is.
What do you know about it?
Mr. I...
I never seen this guy until this evening, I don't know nothing.
I assure you I would like to help you Mr. Luigi.
Well hello suckers.
Baby.
Great Latour herself.
Baby where you been?
Wouldn't you like to know?
So you been to time on me huh?
For this old girl.
I assure you.
The Doc?
You been making book with the Martians too long.
Now I go where I please.
Ever since I figured how to get direction on this here wiggle.
Look, that white robe, Miss Latour, where did you get it?
This thing?
The old guy I married gave it to me.
Married?
Yeah, but I'm getting fed up.
Besides, I met a new fellas got a lot more SA than the guy I'm hitched to now.
Why three goddesses were after him to judge their beauty contest once.
You take that jet line to Atlantic City baby?
Professor, tell this jerk what I'm talking about.
So that's why you didn't come back.
Yeah, I've been telling my new boyfriend about the way I can dance.
He kept pleading for me to do my stuff.
I finally gave in.
Guess I'm still a ham.
Well, right after we eloped, I did my strip tease for him.
I guess I must have forgotten added that extra wiggle.
Poof, here I am.
Well, where were you, Miss Latour?
Oh, some crazy place.
They wear sheets instead of clothes.
They call them togas or something.
Listen, I got to get back.
There's going to be some trouble because Paris and me eloped.
You been in France, Miss Latour?
Fella, I've been everywhere.
Well, this here's Latour's farewell tour, man.
Hey, baby, you ain't going to start that routine here, are you?
Shut up, creep, I got to concentrate.
This here robe sort of cramps my style.
You know, Miss Latour, there must be a destiny about this.
Yeah, that's what my Paris keeps telling me.
It won't seem the same on Venus without you.
Oh, shut up, Professor.
Baby, stop dancing around.
Out of my way, Lug.
I'm working up to the finale.
So long, suckers.
Miss Latour.
She, she's here no more.
Baby?
Helen?
Where you hiding?
Honey?
Helen!
It's no use, Mr. Luigi.
She's gone back, and this time I suspect it's forever.
But she can't do that for me.
Gone back?
Where?
To her Paris.
What?
Leave me for some Frenchman?
Oh, no, no, no, no.
This Paris is a part of ancient Greece.
He was a young shepherd prince who stole the wife of Menelaus and thereby started the Trojan
War.
Ah.
Helen.
Of course.
That was her name, Helen of Troy.
Helen Latour.
The face that launched a thousand ships.
Who would ever have believed?
Okay, Pop.
Oh, Mr. Eel, you can see the doctor's telling the truth.
He didn't steal your girl.
Who says he did?
I'm going after that guy Paris, and when I find him, I'm going to turn on the heat ray
and blast him right into Ceres.
How far is gonna steal my girl?
Romance is produced and directed by William Frugge.
The strip teaser and the space warp was written by Joseph Slapkin and featured Jack Crouchon,
Parley Bear, Charlotte Lawrence, Peter Leeds, and Lou Krugman.
Musical supervision by Jerry Goldsmith.
And patterns by Ray Kemper and Bill James.
This is Dan Coverley, inviting you to hear Romance transcribed next week at this same
time.
Gunsmoke is the action-packed dramatic series that takes place in the early days of Dodge
City when a man was no taller than his gun sight and no sharper than the click of his
trigger.
For all that excitement, stay tuned now for Gunsmoke, which follows immediately over most
of the same stations.