The collection consists almost entirely of papers documenting the work of William Spier, including correspondence, scripts and related materials. The Papers have been organized according to genre: radio, television, motion pictures, recordings, and theatre. Within each genre, series or productions are organized alphabetically; and within each series, chronological order (air time) has been preserved wherever it could be determined.
Radio materials (Boxes 1-29) compose the most complete and the most valuable portion of the collection and, in turn, scripts from two series, The Adventures of Sam Spade and Suspense, form the bulk of radio materials. The materials consist primarily of scripts, often heavily annotated, with some related papers (cast lists, cast payrolls, music cues). With the exception of one folder of general personal correspondence segregated at the beginning of Box 1, correspondence has been filed with the script material to which it pertains.
Much of the remainder of the collection (Boxes 29-38) is made up of television materials. There is extensive material pertaining to the Willy series, in addition to television scripts and outlines written by Spier. Again, related materials are occasionally filed with the scripts; scripts for Willy, for example, are often accompanied by set plans. Spier's award-winning script for The Untouchables can be found in Box 32.
The remaining three groups are small in quantity (four folders in Box 38). The motion picture group contains only one item, a preliminary draft of a script for what eventually became the film Lady Possessed. The group, “Recordings,” contains scripts adapted for the purpose of making commercial record albums. The popular Suspense program, “Sorry--Wrong Number,” was actually recorded, but the other scripts in this section apparently were not. The final group, “Theatre,” contains materials regarding three plays, August Heat,Devil on Two Sticks, and Midnight at Eight.
