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Title

Come Back with Me

Plot

A hard up businessman goes back in time to his favorite hangout to relive his glory days. He encounters old friends at the bar and learn that they share an unusual similarity.

Episode

0301

Air Dates

  • First Run - July 2, 1975
  • Repeat - November 2, 1975

Actors

Writer

Listen

Rating

158
130     28


30 Responses to Episode 0301

In this episode the man goes back in time when he is 19 years old. The problem is this is all he cares about and it turns out to be his undoing. I gave this episode 4 stars.

Don Heiland,Jr.

This sounded like it was going to be an intriguing episode, but for some reason I was disappointed. Bad casting of Redfield maybe-Mandel Kramer always did the best time traveller roles.

Ralph Bonacci

This play centers on a man who hears the calling of his youth. He begins to imagine life in the past and he longs for the music, culture, and simplicity of his glory days as a 19 year old. Unfortunately, people around him have moved on and are unable to imagine the time he envisions.

Wayman

Bill is a business executive that lives in the past. While his business crumbles all he can think about is visiting a place called Morrisey's - a bar that was hopping in 1939 when he was 19. Now, it is a condemned building in a neighborhood that has been marked for complete destruction. But, not to him - when he goes back the place is there and all he can think about is the way things used to be. Awesome program!

Renjen

A businessman who has grown weary of his life yearns for the more carefree days of his past. He discovers that when he enters the old neighborhood bar, he is able to travel back into the past. It makes little difference to him that the bar has been boarded up and condemned for years. But to those around him, particularly his business partner and his wife, the man appears to be losing his mind. This episode borrows much from several old Twilight Zones with a mildly interesting conclusion. Genre: DRAMA

Ronnel M.

When times get tough, a businessman travels back in time to old times, old friends, in an old bar to relive the good times of his youth. But the old friends at the old bar have one very disturbing factor in common.

Henry T.

A man overwhelmed with the pressures and cynicism of the present seeks out the comfort and safety of the past. While the neighbourhood of his youth has declined into a state of danger and disrepair, his mind recreates the people, places, and pleasures of the past. His wife worries about his ability to cope but accompanies him briefly on his journey into the past, and both reach their own conclusion about the future. I thought that Teri Keane gave a particularly strong performance as the beleagured wife.

Johnny D.

I remember listening to this one several years ago and enjoying it. I wonder how many of us would go back to a special time that we remember if we could. And what would we find when we got there? 

Robin

Poor old man . . . wonder if he made it back . . . Another interesting one! Terri Keane was cast as the "mean/stern" wife a lot.

Bienvenido

I was just listening to this at my work desk on a quiet Saturday morning...it's an excellent one that could be part of a "Howard daSilva week" at RMT (Monday (though I like Mondays): the depressing "The doppleganger"; Tuesday: "Come back with me"; Wednesday: "Hung jury"; Thursday: "Welcome for a dead man"; Friday: "The sealed room murder"; Saturday: (fill in your own favorite I missed); Sunday: (my all-time favorite of his and probably my all-time favorite non-supernatural (or maybe it was, in a way) )RMT: "The only blood"). In "Come back with me", the charming, talented voice of Teri Keane is as with embattled, put-upon-for-years wife of da Silva's character, who can see the past whenever he visits an old college bar, frequented mainly by a proprietor and friends long dead of many causes although they're fully alive, happy and dancing whenever he meets them there. In "Look who's coming", Keane herself plays a woman (married to another wonderful, deep, gravelly voiced actor/character, Joe Silver) who, in a way, can see the future, albeit through her television set (and not willingly), where during a soap opera she sees and hears what she thinks are aliens trying to warn her of an "Independence Day" style attack by hostile visitors from another galaxy; she later seems to see the ships hovering in our atmosphere. Both Keane's character in this episode and da Silva's in "Come back with me" (love how the thought of the past is conveyed in that title, with the thought of a future event equally manifested in the title "Look who's coming") are suspected of having psychiatric problems. But what's most striking about "Come back with me" and "Look who's coming" is that, at the third act's very end, the actor's voices speak over, and are almost drowned out by, very loud noises that end abruptly in silence; punctured a few seconds later by E.G. Marshall's very serious voice. (In the former show, seconds after he speaks some wonderful, non-CBS music starts to play). LOVED it...very moving touch by the RMT producers.

Jody M.

I listened to this story a couple of days ago and enjoyed it. I found similarities between this RMT tale and an episode (from Season One of Night Gallery) titled,"They're tearing down Tim Riley's Bar."

RJ

First, as evidenced by the post-show AIDS commercial, the program I have listed as a 1975 broadcast must have been a rebroadcast as I don't think the disease we know as AIDS was given a name until the 1980's. Further, the Volkswagen commercial notes a 1990 model car. This play centers on a man who hears the calling of his youth. He begins to imagine life in the past and he longs for the music, culture, and simplicity of his glory days as a 19 year old. Unfortunately, people around him have moved on and are unable to imagine the time he envisions. His relationship with his wife has been strained for years and though she finally sees and hears people from earlier days, she is unwilling to go back in time. I thought this was a terrific selection. I listened to it late at night, when I usually fall asleep, but found I was mesmerized by this story. In many regards, I can relate to the main character because I visit my younger days everytime I spin up a CBSRMT program. The acting was excellent and though I suspect some reviewers will think the play moved too slowly, I liked the pace and felt it was necessary to provide us with the detail the show needed. Anecdotally, I've noticed that more of my male friends would go back to their high school days than would my female friends and this is certainly the case for my wife and me. As such, I certainly have an affinity for our main character. I rated this program as a 4/5 but my vote would actually be a 4.5/5 if half points were permitted by the polling system.

Larry Hall

I also think this is one of those programs (and there were SO many of them on the RMT) where at story's end you could say "and the moral of the story is..." If I were going to try I'd guess the moral of this story is..."The past is over and gone...live for the future". (Strangely, my own Mom told me just yesterday of some saying like "If you live in the past you'll forget about the present", which would be equally applicable here. The main character in the story is voiced by the talented Howard DaSilva, who (if a report I've read on the Web is correct) may have been one of the few if not only RMT players to have been at one time "blacklisted" as a communist. No matter his political beliefs he turns in a strong performance as a daydreaming executive of a company that's in deep financial trouble. I forget the actress' name who plays his wife but I always think she sounds like original Saturday Night Live alumni Jane Curtin...(it won't be my first choice, but if I get the opportunity I'll going to put as this as a dynamite CBS RMT play called "The house on Chimney Pot Lane", where this same Jane Curtin-sounding actress had a great set of roles). His wife is also an executive with their firm yet, unlike her husband, she sees both the gravity of their situation and a possible way out. Friends, I've been there where I was such a daydreamer I was blinded to reality. DaSilva's character is there, unfortunately for him, and as a result his marriage isn't in that good of a shape, either. He wants to restore the latter, however, and is convinced he can do so if he takes his wife away from the present and back to their college days when he was a happy, carefree, dashing young man. In fact, he's able to do so himself, going back to a bar owned by a friend of his during the college days who was killed in World War II. When he goes to the bar it's a lively happy place, filled with music, booze and good times, and it's a great place for him to run away from his current troubles. Problem is, whenever he hires a taxi to take him there he has to put up with taxi drivers who raise their eyebrows at him because the building where the "bar" is an abandoned, broken, destined-for-demolition wreck of a structure. And the taxi drivers don't know what he's going through well enough to tell him: "Dude, all those happy people from your past you see in that bar? Today they're all dead..." EXCELLENT choice for a show... I hope as many people as possible hear the program and live looking ahead of rather than behind them.

Dennis Austria

This was a well-written melodrama and you can never go wrong with Howard Dasilva. I did not know that he had been blacklisted. I think this episode is so appealing is because it appeals to something that is in all of us. It's not hard to sympathize with teh guy who is sacrificing a bleak future for some time in a joyful past. I have listened to this episode before and enjoyed it as much the second time as I did the first.

Danny K.

I enjoyed this episode particularly for the lead actor who always does a fine job. (The story reminded me the Twilight Zone episode called "Static" in which an eldery man in a boarding house begins to hear old time radio programs on his radio and longs for the past. He can't convince anyone he is actually hearing live broadcast of these long gone shows, not even his one-time fiancee who also lives in the boarding house. Even the music that is playing in the bar in in this CBSRMT episode is heard in that Twilight Zone episode. ) The ending of this story was definitley a downer but also inevitable I guess.

Len

This is a repeat broadcast from 1991 according to a Volkswagen commercial at the end, as well as a Tom Bodett/Motel 6 spot that wasn't from 1975 - then an AIDS P.S.A. Awesome program! I like the concept behind this one. The acting was excellent. The story line was good. I was locked in from the beginning. I never lost interest at all. As someone who likes old things and things from the past (as I assume most of us do) this was right on target. Really a great program with a sad ending but it made sense - as much as these things do, and there is a good lesson in it as well.

Lance

It was one I do not yet have. Let me begin by admitting that I am not a big Tammy Grimes fan. I also should acknowledge that I prefer episodes that contain more of an element of terror or at least suspense. “Tales of the macabre” if you will. That said, I enjoyed this episode. I think Howard Da Silva is one of the finest actors ever cast by Mr. Brown. Everyone who has ever experienced a professional set back can relate to Bill’s desire to go back to a happier time. A time when your whole life stretched before you. I found it appropriate that Zelda was able to see that the bar was not reality and that everyone there was dead. She had no desire to live in the past. Most of us have probably attended or will shortly attend our 20-year high school reunion. Having attended mine last fall, I can tell you that the sexes were divided by their topics of conversations. The women talked about their children, families and careers. They were very grounded in the here and now. We men obsessed over who scored which touchdown or sank a game winning foul shot. Stories of pranks and good times 20 years past dominated the male portion of the conversation. I feel that the message in the ending was-no matter how inviting the past may appear, if you try to live there the present will fall apart around you.

Fred

I'm glad you were able to get the program and it's great to see your comments. I have to agree that I really like the stories of the macabre. That said, I also enjoyed this program because I could sure relate to enjoying moments from the past. I think most OTR listeners would say they enjoy the past but it's critical to maintain a healthy balance. It's perfectly healthy to enjoy the familiarity of the past, live for the day and look forward to the future.

Bruce

Come Back With Me 7/2/1975 A man overwhelmed with the pressures and cynicism of the present seeks out the comfort and safety of the past. While the neighbourhood of his youth has declined into a state of danger and disrepair, his mind recreates the people, places, and pleasures of the past. His wife worries about his ability to cope but accompanies him briefly on his journey into the past, and both reach their own conclusion about the future. I thought that Teri Keane gave a particularly strong performance as the beleagured wife.

Jim Enobay

This is an interesting episode. The host (EG Marshall) seemed more philosophical than in other shows, and also more omniscient. The main character's dementia is never really explained, other than unhappiness in the present. But I think that is a good thing, and one of the strengths of the series, that it left things hanging (and often troubling). Howard DaSilva was in a lot of episodes, at one point (around the Bicentennial) he was starring in shows and was also in some of the commercials broadcast around it! I was a bit confused by the AIDS commercial just before the epilogue, that puts this broadcast no earlier than the early 'eighties. At any rate, another good show.

Lawrence

Any time I hear a show has been written by Sam Dann I know it will be a good one. The acting was great and it was not slow at all. Going through tough business times, a man travels back to a nightclub of his youth. His old friends are there, the good times and music . This is also where he met his wife. Even though the building is condemned and there is no one there, he keeps going back because he can hear the music and see and interact with the people. He is reliving his youth and much happier times of his life. When he brings his wife there, she sees all of these people and tells him she wants to leave because she notices that all of these people that they are seeing are already dead. The desire to relive the good, worry -free life of his past has a fatal result when the nightclub building is knocked down with him in it. I liked this show and the idea that if you live in the past you lose the present and the future. It's something I try to remember every day of my life.

Joey Dona

a pretty good show over all. my tastes tend to be more on the horror side though. although this story has been done before this did keep my interest. good acting. well written.

Mr. B.

I'm watching the "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar" episode of Night Gallery and thought the same as RJ

Kenneth Cotton

I also liked the episode. It's an enjoyable romp into the past for those who were in "The Greatest Generation." For the rest of us, "Boomers and Beyonds" the time- travel-esque quality was very engaging. I rate this cleverly written, and terrifically sequenced show a 5. The reason for the high score comes because those in Hy Brown's post-production crew added great period elements, spectacular music choices, in particular. By the by, if anyone can conjure up the name of the tune with the Sax Quintet just as the officer is meeting the "Boss" at Morrisey's initially, I would pay money to know the name of the tune. Please post that, or a list of the entire score if anyone's got the discography knack. Thanks in advance for the big band guru.

mathbrown73

Great episode! 5 stars.

Pete

A pretty good listen. I can somewhat sympathize with the main character, but I remember that I wasn't as happy/easy going then as I am now (all those years ago), so it may not be as good of a thing. It's more of a state of mind.

Alec

Bill Harlow wanders through the neighborhood of his youth — now a dangerous, deserted part of town — and comes upon a bar he used to frequent in his college days. He enters and sees nothing has changed. The same people; the same music; everything is just as he remembers it. A cop, Tom Bergen, finds Harlow and takes him back to the present, where he’s confronted by an anxious wife, Zelda, and many business problems. Refusing to deal with the problems, Harlow tries to persuade Zelda to return to the past with him and relive their lives differently.

Adam

I guess I expected more. This episode showed promise but proved disappointing.

Christine

I enjoyed this episode. Great acting, good sound quality, captivating plot. Thank you for curating these radio shows.

Kathy D

More fantasy than mystery, but very entertaining. Silva and Keane are excellent.

Jer


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