Escape!

Radio Anthology Series (1947-54)

“Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you… ESCAPE!”

ESCAPE! was American radio’s most popular and acclaimed anthology series, offering “high-adventure” thrillers and mysteries,  airing on the CBS network from 1947 until 1954.

It aired over 230 episodes, featuring both originals and adaptations, and offered more sci-fi, horror and supernatural tales than Kraft’s Suspense over on NBC. Still, most of the shows involved someone caught in some kind of dire straits, often in some “exotic” location such as South America or “the Mysterious Orient,” and occasionally featured detective and crime tales.

CBS even brought Escape to television in 1950, although it only lasted a few months.

RADIO

• ESCAPE!
  (1947-54, CBS)
  Premiere: July 7, 1947
  Final broadcast: September 25, 1954
  Half-hour drama anthology
  Announcers: William Conrad, Paul Frees, Roy Rowan
  Musical intro: Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain
  Tagline: “Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you… Escape!”
  “Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half-hour of high adventure!”
  Writers: John & Gwen Bagni, Morton Lewis, Les Crutchfield
  Writers adapted: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, David Dodge, Edgar Allan Por, Daphne DuMaurier, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, Geoffrey Household, Cornell Woolrich, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rudyard Kipling, Ray Bradbury, Lawrence G. Blochman
  Directors:
  Starring Art Carney, Jack Webb, William Conrad, Frank Lovejoy, Paul Frees, Vincent Price,
  • “Red Wine” (February 26, 1949)
    Based on the 1930 short story by Lawrence G. Blochman
    Adapted by Morton Lewis and Les Crutchfield
    Produced and directed by Norman MacDonnell
    Starring Jeff Chandler as PAUL VERNIER
    Also starring Berry Kroeger, David Ellis, Lou Krugman, Jack Kruschen, Lorette Filbrandt
    Paul Vernier journeys from San Francisco to a rubber plantation in Borneo to bring back a man wanted for the murder of his wealthy wife.
  • “Red Wine” (August 11, 1949)
    Based on the 1930 short story by Lawrence G. Blochman
    Adapted by Morton Lewis and Les Crutchfield
    Produced and directed by Richard Sanville
    Starring William Waterman as PAUL VERNIER
    Also starring Robert Boon, Marian Richman, Lawrence Dobkin, Vic Perrin, Wilms Herbert, Clarke Gordon.
    They must have liked this one–this remake popped up only six months later.
  • “Plunder in the Sun” (November 8, 1949)
    30 minutes
    Based on the novel by David Dodge
    Written by John Dunkel
    Produced by William N. Robson
    Starring Paul Frees as AL COLBY
    Also starring Gerald Mohr, Lucille Meredith, Harry Bartell, Charlie Lung, Tony Barrett
  • “Figure a Dame” (December 20, 1949)
    Based on the 1937 short story by Richard Sale
    Adapted for radio by Morton Fine and David Friedkin
    Produced and directed by William N. Robson
    Starring Frank Lovejoy as JOE HARRIMAN
    Also starring Joan Banks, Sara Selby, Ben Wrightplayed Rafferty. Also appearing were Paul Frees, Harry Bartell, and Gary Merrill.
    Joe Harriman, an American detective with the Magnum Insurance Company, is hired to guard a recently purchased emerald on its journey by train to Paris.
  • “The Target” (September 18, 1954)
    30 minutes
    Written by Tony Barrett
    Starring Whitfield Connor, Mary Jane Croft
    Vic Kennedy, an insurance investigator hunting Arthur Matson, a con man who’s fled to Chile, gets caught in a web of betrayal, deceit and murder.

Report respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.