Three O'Clock

by Cornell Woolrich

Every day at Mayflower High, when the final bell rings, a portal opens and teenage anxieties come to monstrous life. Only one thing can stop the Three O'clock Club! The first original comic book from Butch Hartman (Fairly Odd Parents, Danny Phantom), co-written by Jordan Gorfinkel ( No Man's Land, Birds of Prey), is an action-packed kid-friendly adventure!

Genres: Short Stories

Audio Cassette

Published October 1, 1999

About the author

Cornell Woolrich is widely regarded as the twentieth century’s finest writer of pure suspense fiction. The author of numerous classic novels and short stories (many of which were turned into classic films) such as Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Waltz Into Darkness, and I Married a Dead Man, Woolrich began his career in the 1920s writing mainstream novels that won him comparisons to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The bulk of his best-known work, however, was written in the field of crime fiction, often appearing serialized in pulp magazines or as paperback novels. Because he was prolific, he found it necessary to publish under multiple pseudonyms, including "William Irish" and "George Hopley" [...] Woolrich lived a life as dark and emotionally tortured as any of his unfortunate characters and died, alone, in a seedy Manhattan hotel room following the amputation of a gangrenous leg. Upon his death, he left a bequest of one million dollars to Columbia University, to fund a scholarship for young writers.

Source: [http://www.hardcasecrime.com/books_bi...]

Reviews

[Classic reverie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love listening to OTR, Old Time Radio, and Cornell Woolrich before I knew he was an author or anything about him, I heard his work all over these radio programs. I had recently listened to Woolrich's Three O'clock on Suspense Radio Show and thought it was time to compare the written and radio version. I will include the radio link below which is almost verbatim from the story but the short story has a tad more. Van Heflin does a wonderful job in portraying his terror, on thing said in the radio not in the story was this man calling from his "mommy". Not like that was important but something that grabbed me as being different. I read from a collection of his works which stated a religious analogy which I did not buy. What I saw was a man on the edge of insanity looking to harm without reason but feels a reason has come, so he can "kill". Though I knew the story from the radio version, it still was suspenseful, seeing how it will play out with Woolrich's own words. The radio program "Sleep No More", link below, is almost verbatim of the story and told as reading the story by one person, Nelson Olmsted, giving the voices of the characters with different inflections. The Suspense version is better and "Sleep No More" is like an audio book, via radio. The ending leaves out the straight jacket comment and his wife's terror in his laughing.

This excerpt below sets up this story perfectly, a man looking to kill his unfaithful wife.

"HE HAD SIGNED her own death-warrant. He kept telling himself over and over that he was not to blame, she had brought it on herself. He had never seen the man. He knew there was one. He had known for six weeks now. Little things had told him. One day he came home and there was a cigar-butt in an ashtray, still moist at one end, still warm at the other."



My kindle edition gives a background in this story coming to life via radio and tv. I highlighted some of it below.

"Three O'Clock is regarded as one of, if not the most powerful story Cornell Woolrich ever wrote; it is also one of his most adapted and re-published works. This is a raw and honest tale about facing death and facing oneself that has resonated with audiences all over the world. Woolrich’s great despair was the knowledge that one day his death would come, and this story was created from the root of that agony."

"In 1949, four adaptations of the story debuted; Walter Nauman adapted the first ever radio performance of Three O’Clock in March for Suspense on CBS starring Val Helfin, and is still known as one of the most “Spine freezing” episodes of radio broadcast during the Autolite era."

"The next three adaptations premiered on ABC as live 30-minute broadcasts starting in March of 1949 as an episode of The Actor’s Studio starring Steven Hill and Frances Reed. Later that year, the adaptation of the story was presented in two formats within the same week from November to December. Starring Boris Karloff, Presenting Boris Karloff and Mystery Playhouse Theatre."

"The greatest adaptation to come from this powerful story was renamed Four O’Clockand aired on a 60-minute dramatic series titled Suspicion in September of 1957. It was adapted and directed by the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock."

The radio Suspense link-- March 10, 1949.

https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com...

Another version, Sleep No More, December 12, 1956.

https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com...

[Quỳnh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gần 4 sao.
Phải nói rằng Cornell Woolrich viết tâm lý gay cấn hồi hộp hay hơn hẳn viết trinh thám điều tra logic, đọc Three O'Clock thực sự căng thẳng. Lúc đọc mình đã nghĩ "chắc kết thúc hổng vậy đâu" mà đến cuối vẫn phải bất ngờ.

[David Shortell]

Whoever wrote this page's description seems to think this is 2017 comic book.