Adventure / thriller anthology · CBS
Escape
July 7, 1947 – September 25, 1954 · 251 broadcasts
"Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you... Escape!" Intoned by William Conrad over Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," that invitation opened radio's leading anthology of high adventure, which ran on CBS from July 7, 1947, to September 25, 1954. A different life-or-death tale each week, it leaned harder into science fiction and the supernatural than its sponsored sister show, Suspense. Escape was the underdog. A sustaining program with no regular sponsor, it was shuffled around the schedule on a shoestring budget, yet its team -- producer Norman Macdonnell and director William N. Robson, the same CBS-LA hands behind Gunsmoke -- compensated with ambitious sound design and prestige literary scripts. A tight repertory company carried it: William Conrad, John Dehner, Ben Wright, Paul Frees, Harry Bartell. Its signature showcase, "Three Skeleton Key" -- three men trapped in a lighthouse by a tide of rats -- was so good it was produced three times. The definitive high-adventure anthology of radio's golden age, Escape adapted du Maurier's "The Birds," Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven," and more -- enthralling listeners for seven years and leaving most of its episodes happily intact.
Collection status:
234 of 251 held (93% complete)
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Episode Spine
Grouped by year. Jump to the full list below, or open a season on its own page.
- 1947 (25 episodes)
- 1948 (45 episodes)
- 1949 (37 episodes)
- 1950 (53 episodes)
- 1951 (14 episodes)
- 1952 (12 episodes)
- 1953 (41 episodes)
- 1954 (24 episodes)
1947
A down-on-his-luck ventriloquist has a falling out with his dummy, whom he is convinced wants to dump him for bigger and better things. Adapted from the story by John Baines ??.
A down-on-his-luck ventriloquist has a falling out with his dummy, whom he is convinced wants to dump him for bigger and better things. Adapted from the story by John Baines ??.
March 24, 1947
Dead of Night (audition)
A down-on-his-luck ventriloquist has a falling out with his dummy, whom he is convinced wants to dump him for bigger and better things. Adapted from the story by John Baines ??.
June 23, 1947
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz
A student invites a friend to come to the secret estate of his amoral family whose fortune is based on a huge diamond. Adapted from the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Hungry for adventure, two soldiers venture beyond British India's NorthWest Frontier in the hopes of founding their own private kingdom. Adapted from the story by Rudyard Kipling.
A commando raid into Nazi-occupied France is endangered by the feelings one of the commandos develops for a girl in French resistance - a girl whose loyalties are suspect. Adapted from the story by Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden.
A student invites a friend to come to the secret estate of his amoral family whose fortune is based on a huge diamond. Adapted from the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
An old tramp steamer in the South Seas faces a triple threat--a shipload of angry migrant workers, an impending typhoon, and a captain who refuses to heed warnings. Adapted from the story by Joseph Conrad.
A young man is lured into a trap by a noble bent on taking action against him for his advances toward the noble's niece. Adapted from the story by Robert Louis Stevenson.
A scholar engaged in research at the Egyptology wing of the British Museum encounters a mysterious stranger who relates a bizarre tale of love, betrayal and a terrible fate that reaches back to a time before the Pyramids. Adapted from the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Three escaped convicts adrift on a raft in the South Seas are rapidly running out of water and tolerance for each other - but their biggest concern is over the fourth man on the raft, a native islander who is as oblivious of them as he is of thirst. Adapted from the story by John Russell.
Classic tale of a world renowned hunter who gets shipwrecked on an island owned by a madman who shares his passion for the hunt, except that he hunts only the most dangerous of game - human beings. Adapted from the story by Richard Connell.
October 8, 1947
The Run of the Yellow Mail
A trapper connives the captain of a passenger ship into allowing the transport of a bushmaster - the world's deadliest snake - with predictable consequences. Adapted from the story by Martin Storm.
Edgar Allen Poe's morbid tale of a man descending into madness over a family curse. Versions of this story also appeared on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, Escape, NBC Presents: Short Story, and The Weird Circle. Adapted from the story by Edgar Allan Poe.
An English colonist in Africa desecrates a native holy site. Naturally, the local witch doctor hexes him something nasty. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
A poet decides that he's had it with the real world and will go live secretly in a department store. Adapted from the story by John Collier.
Classic story of two thrill seekers in Victorian London get more than they bargained for when they join a secret society and find themselves unwilling members of a suicide club. Adapted from the story by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Edward Dunning, Britain's leading authority on Medieval life, writes a scathing review of a crackpot occultist's paper on ancient curses. Adapted from the story by M.R. James.
An adventurer discovers a strange valley in remotest South America whose inhabitants have evolved without sight. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
Peter and Kyra Vaughan meet Shiravieff while vacationing at Zweibergen, a small village in the Carpathian Mountains, during the Summer of 1926. Adapted from the story by Geoffrey Household , 1939.
A Confederate saboteur hanged from a bridge by Union troops gets a reprieve when the rope snaps; can he evade the enemy's pursuit and reach home? Adapted from the story by Ambrose Bierce.
A man's wife drives him too far and has had control of him for too long, so he starts to make plans... Adapted from the story by John Collier.
Released from a wartime hospital in London, a lonely Canadian soldier - seeking a little female companionship - gets lost in the fog and drawn into murderous goings-on. Adapted from the story by Algernon Blackwood.
1948
A cruise passenger who bemoans the lack of excitement in his life gets more than he wishes for when he gets himself lost in the shadowed alleys of a Mozambique port. Adapted from the story by Perceval Gibbon.
A cruise passenger who bemoans the lack of excitement in his life gets more than he wishes for when he gets himself lost in the shadowed alleys of a Mozambique port. Adapted from the story by Perceval Gibbon.
An iron-willed South American plantation owner is determined to prevent a plague of army ants from overrunning his land. Adapted from the story by Carl Stephenson.
An iron-willed South American plantation owner is determined to prevent a plague of army ants from overrunning his land. Adapted from the story by Carl Stephenson.
A small-time jazz band leader uses a voodoo song melody to make it to the big times, but can he escape the voodoo curse that comes with it? Adapted from the story by Cornell Woolrich (as William Irish).
A small-time jazz band leader uses a voodoo song melody to make it to the big times, but can he escape the voodoo curse that comes with it? Adapted from the story by Cornell Woolrich (as William Irish).
A mild-mannered geological surveyor on a train from Istanbul to Cairo helps out a woman and soon finds himself embroiled with wartime spies. Adapted from the story by Harold Lamb.
A mild-mannered geological surveyor on a train from Istanbul to Cairo helps out a woman and soon finds himself embroiled with wartime spies. Adapted from the story by Harold Lamb.
In a pre-war Paris hotel, an Englishwoman returning home from India with her daughter is struck by a sudden critical illness. Adapted from the story by Alexander Wolcott.
February 1, 1948
The Vanishing Lady
In a pre-war Paris hotel, an Englishwoman returning home from India with her daughter is struck by a sudden critical illness. Adapted from the story by Alexander Wolcott.
A wily old hermit in the Ozarks, feared by the locals for his affinity with snakes, incurs the murderous enmity of a backwoods hunter who thinks his wife is having an affair with the 'snake doctor'. Adapted from the story by Irvin S. Cobb.
A wily old hermit in the Ozarks, feared by the locals for his affinity with snakes, incurs the murderous enmity of a backwoods hunter who thinks his wife is having an affair with the 'snake doctor'. Adapted from the story by Irvin S. Cobb.
A man stays the night at a remote Welsh village where the residents insist they know him even though he could swear he had never been there before. Adapted from the story by Algernon Blackwood.
February 15, 1948
Ancient Sorceries
A man stays the night at a remote Welsh village where the residents insist they know him even though he could swear he had never been there before. Adapted from the story by Algernon Blackwood.
A minister befriends a psychiatrist who despises all forms of human compassion and attachment, yet becomes convinced some invisible lurking 'thing' is in love with him. Adapted from the story by Robert S. Hichens.
February 22, 1948
How Love Came to Professor
A minister befriends a psychiatrist who despises all forms of human compassion and attachment, yet becomes convinced some invisible lurking 'thing' is in love with him. Adapted from the story by Robert S. Hichens.
Transfixed by an enigmatic tropical grotto in the middle of the African savannah, an Englishman buys the land and settles there. Adapted from the story by John Buchan.
Sailors from a sunken South Seas cargo ship who return to salvage the wreck run afoul of restless natives. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
In the Philippines in 1790, an American merchant decides to try raiding the lair of headhunter pirates that look like easy pickings. Adapted from the story by Richard Matthews Hallet.
A trapper connives the captain of a passenger ship into allowing the transport of a bushmaster - the world's deadliest snake - with predictable consequences. Adapted from the story by Martin Storm.
Following a stroke, a wealthy financier decides to climb an unassailable glacier in the Swiss Alps. Adapted from the story by Charles Edward Montague.
The story of a family with a sailing tradition and their encounter with a beautiful but murderous ship. Adapted from the story by Joseph Conrad.
Two incorrigible fife and drum boys serving in the British Army on the Afghan frontier hunger for their first taste of combat, despite the reputation of their regiment for cowardice. Adapted from the story by Rudyard Kipling.
Three escaped convicts adrift on a raft in the South Seas are rapidly running out of water and tolerance for each other - but their biggest concern is over the fourth man on the raft, a native islander who is as oblivious of them as he is of thirst. Adapted from the story by John Russell.
A longshoreman who takes a job on a river wharf in the steaming jungles of West Africa finds himself the target of a sadistic dock boss. Adapted from the story by Robert Simpson.
A classic story of a man who travels into the distant future and discovers a Utopia of idle leisure which hides a terrible secret. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
A Mountie and his prisoner must cross a frozen Canadian wilderness without food or warm clothing when a fire destroys their supplies. Adapted from the story by James Oliver Curwood.
An iron-willed South American plantation owner is determined to prevent a plague of army ants from overrunning his land. Adapted from the story by Carl Stephenson.
The classic story of three English brothers who join the Foreign Legion for adventure, and instead end up running afoul of a sadistic sergeant and defending a patch of nowhere against Berber hordes. Adapted from the story by Percival C. Wren.
An adventurer discovers a strange valley in remotest South America whose inhabitants have evolved without sight. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
A man with a toothache seeks help for his ailment and in so doing ignites the American Revolution. Adapted from the story by Stephen Vincent Benet.
A classic story about two explorer's search for a lost city in the jungles of East Africa and their discovery of the secret of immortality. Adapted from the story by Sir H. Rider Haggard.
A sour, crotchety old sea captain, who does not take kindly to snide remarks about his rusty relic of a ship, risks his crew to prove his critics wrong. Adapted from the story by F.R. Buckley.
Hungry for adventure, two soldiers venture beyond British India's NorthWest Frontier in the hopes of founding their own private kingdom. Adapted from the story by Rudyard Kipling.
A French convict escapes his prison and makes his way towards Spain, pursued by the only man he considers his intellectual equal - the chief of police. Adapted from the story by Vincent Starrett.
After taking on an unusual passenger, a ship starts experiencing a bizarre string of inexplicable and escalating troubles. Adapted from the story by James Gould Cozzens.
A student invites a friend to come to the secret estate of his amoral family whose fortune is based on a huge diamond. Adapted from the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
A man is tormented by persistent dreams of living another life, one in a dark future where he is a political leader unable to prevent the onslaught of global war. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
A poet decides that he's had it with the real world and will go live secretly in a department store. Adapted from the story by John Collier.
George Fotheringay has discovered the secret to performing miracles - all he has to do is ask and it is done. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
1949
A 40-ton locomotive disappears off the face of the earth on a section of single track between Liverpool and Manchester. Adapted from the story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
A man offers to help out a lady and what happens? He finds himself embroiled in a covert operation to smuggle a freedom fighter out of his native country, of course. Adapted from the story by Graham Greene.
A detective arriving in the jungles of Borneo to investigate a murder narrows down the list of suspects to three. Adapted from the story by Lawrence G. Blochman.
A WWII bomber crew in the Pacific is forced down and find themselves on a remote island populated by an advanced race of mutants planning to take over the world. Adapted from the story by Nelson S. Bond.
A man seeking to save Chinese art treasures from the advancing Japanese army during World War II awakens in a small Chinese village with amnesia years after the war. Adapted from the story by James Norman.
A trapper connives the captain of a passenger ship into allowing the transport of a bushmaster - the world's deadliest snake - with predictable consequences. Adapted from the story by Martin Storm.
When a young man's fiancee disappears while dropping off a parcel for her boss, he can't convince anyone that she even exists, let alone help him find out what has happened to her. Adapted from the story by Cornell Woolrich.
An adventurer discovers a strange valley in remotest South America whose inhabitants have evolved without sight. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
A life-enhancing serum gives a dying woman incredible powers, and an insatiable lust for power. Adapted from the story by Stanley G. Weinbaum (as John Jessel).
A student invites a friend to come to the secret estate of his amoral family whose fortune is based on a huge diamond. Adapted from the story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
A mobster's bodyguard narrates the story of a blind gangster who, following the cryptic clues of his dying brother, goes hunting treasure. Adapted from the story by Ralph Bates.
A broke American gets involved with embezzling funds from a brutal rebel Chinese general. Adapted from the story by Charles G. Booth.
One the eve of WW II, a Nazi agent assumes the identity of a captured English lord, but runs afoul of not only his doppelganger's past, but his own. Adapted from the story by E. Phillips Oppenheim.
Three escaped convicts adrift on a raft in the South Seas are rapidly running out of water and tolerance for each other - but their biggest concern is over the fourth man on the raft, a native islander who is as oblivious of them as he is of thirst. Adapted from the story by John Russell.
Two incorrigible fife and drum boys serving in the British Army on the Afghan frontier hunger for their first taste of combat, despite the reputation of their regiment for cowardice. Adapted from the story by Rudyard Kipling.
Following a stroke, a wealthy financier decides to climb an unassailable glacier in the Swiss Alps. Adapted from the story by Charles Edward Montague.
A cruise passenger who bemoans the lack of excitement in his life gets more than he wishes for when he gets himself lost in the shadowed alleys of a Mozambique port. Adapted from the story by Perceval Gibbon.
An iron-willed South American plantation owner is determined to prevent a plague of army ants from overrunning his land. Adapted from the story by Carl Stephenson.
A detective arriving in the jungles of Borneo to investigate a murder narrows down the list of suspects to three. Adapted from the story by Lawrence G. Blochman.
A wily old hermit in the Ozarks, feared by the locals for his affinity with snakes, incurs the murderous enmity of a backwoods hunter who thinks his wife is having an affair with the 'snake doctor'. Adapted from the story by Irvin S. Cobb.
A poet decides that he's had it with the real world and will go live secretly in a department store. Adapted from the story by John Collier.
A man learns from a former Mexican revolutionary the location of a stolen gold shipment that was buried in the desert many years ago. Adapted from the story by Geoffrey Household.
October 8, 1949
The Primitive
A doctor, responding to a distress call from a sailing yacht in the Caribbean, becomes embroiled in a deadly game of betrayal, greed and murder. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
A small time Cuban thug has decided to go straight, but gets involved in one last deal. Adapted from the story by Burnham Carter.
October 29, 1949
The Blue Wall
A salvage crew helping to rescue ships in the English Channel during the war inadvertently takes on a Nazi saboteur. Adapted from the story by David Divine.
A man escorting an old archaeologist who possesses an Incan manuscript detailing the location of a cache of Inca gold ends up in a mess of double-cross, triple-cross, and quadruple-cross. Adapted from the story by David F. Dodge.
Three men are besieged in a lighthouse when a ship wrecks on the shoal and releases a horde of starving rats. Adapted from the story by George G. Toudouze.
The first mate of a Caribbean tramp freighter discovers that the ship is carrying a Pandora's Box of rifles, and gets himself entangled with gunrunners, betrayal, murder, and drunken revolutionaries. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
An alcoholic makes a deal with his uncle to kill a man in exchange for future financial support for his family once he commits suicide. Adapted from the story by George F. Worts.
A look into the lives of US cavalry troopers on a search and rescue mission into hostile Sioux territory. Adapted from the story by James Warner Bellah.
A down on his luck actor comes across a stash of counterfeit money and decides to go across the border to Mexico to spend it. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
On a train to Calcutta, the embittered bodyguard of a wealthy widow murders her for the fabulous emerald he thinks will change his life. Adapted from the story by Richard Sale.
A besotted, ex-Navy drifter is hired by a Chinese treasure hunter to retrieve a cache of pearls from a sunken ship off the coast of Borneo. Adapted from the story by Freud A. Nelson.
1950
A frontier tale of a man who sets out to seek revenge on the claim jumpers who murdered his brother. Adapted from the story by Les Crutchfield.
In a pre-war Paris hotel, an Englishwoman returning home from India with her daughter is struck by a sudden critical illness. Adapted from the story by Alexander Wolcott.
A doctor, responding to a distress call from a sailing yacht in the Caribbean, becomes embroiled in a deadly game of betrayal, greed and murder. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
A Carribean island serves as the backdrop for an unhappy couple who go into business with a third man and find out that a paradise retreat isn't all that it is cracked up to be. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
A condemned murderer on his way to death row for killing his wife is granted a reprieve by fate when the train he is on derails and he escapes to find the man who framed him. Adapted from the story by James Poe.
A test pilot in an experimental high altitude aircraft disappears from radar, only to return safely ten hours after he should have run out of fuel. Adapted from the story by Graham Doar.
A British journalist must try to arrange the escape from Russia of his Soviet ballerina wife. Adapted from the story by Roger Bax.
Gritty tale of conflict between prisoners and a villainous trustee/executioner over the trustee's intended wife, set on the French penal colony of New Caledonia. Adapted from the story by John Russell.
A WWI ship's captain's unsupported claim that he stopped a German invasion must wait many years for the truth behind his fantastic story to finally surface. Adapted from the story by Robert Buckner.
An ex-merchant seaman turned violent hood browbeats his way into a place amongst a diving expedition to the Caribbean to retrieve treasure from a city that had sunk in an earthquake centuries before. Adapted from the story by Gil Doud.
Three men are besieged in a lighthouse when a ship wrecks on the shoal and releases a horde of starving rats. Adapted from the story by George G. Toudouze.
A man desperate for work accepts a job posing as a controversial author. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
Ignoring warnings not to enter the Valley of the Infernal River, a scientific expedition encounters a superior alien life form doing some specimen-collecting of their own. Adapted from the story by T.S. Stribling.
A gentlemanly poker shark from Virginia seeks to swindle a Chinese warlord out of a precious relic. Adapted from the story by Achmed Abdullah.
A down and out pilot is tempted by money and a beautiful woman to fly an archaeologist deep into the Yucatan in search of a sacred Mayan temple, despite native threats, and the disappearance of two previous expeditions. Adapted from the story by Paul Pierce.
Seeking passage from the interior of China to Shanghai, an American journalist manages to get aboard a crowded river steamer, but finds himself drawn into a web of intrigue and violence over the whereabouts of the mysterious Shanghai Document,... Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
A drifter witnesses a woman leap from a car just before it careens off a cliff, and sees an opportunity to indulge in a little honest blackmail. Adapted from the story by H. Vernor Dixon.
A New Orleans hotel guest snatches a bible from his room and finds himself the target of some very desperate and dangerous people. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
A young woman in a Bentley convertible befriends a hitchhiker who's trying to escape his life as a spy and be a regular American. Adapted from the story by Hildegarde Tolman Teilhet.
After an American soldier stationed in occupied Berlin inadvertently murders a German fraulein, he finds himself the victim of blackmail from a pair of stage show mind-readers. Adapted from the story by Morton Fine and David Friedkin.
A look into the lives of US cavalry troopers on a search and rescue mission into hostile Sioux territory. Adapted from the story by James Warner Bellah.
The first explorers to land on Mars discover - Earth, and an idyllic Midwest town populated by their long lost relatives. Adapted from the story by Ray Bradbury.
June 9, 1950
The Big Sponge
A rough 'n ready unemployed pilot in India accepts a job offer to smuggle undesirables out of China, but runs afoul of an Indian manservant who plots his untimely demise. Adapted from the story by Joel Murcott.
A farmhand takes exception when a notorious gunslinger commandeers his horse and rides the animal to death. Adapted from the story by Joel Murcott.
Five men trek deep into the steaming jungles of the Amazon to verify a uranium find that could make them all billionaires - and escalate the nuclear arms race. Adapted from the story by James Poe.
A trapper connives the captain of a passenger ship into allowing the transport of a bushmaster - the world's deadliest snake - with predictable consequences. Adapted from the story by Martin Storm.
A fishing boat skipper in Nicaragua is hijacked by gunrunners to a deadly rendezvous with rebels from neighbouring Honduras. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
A ruthless treasure hunter murders a whaling ship's first mate to get his hands on the man's treasure map, then usurps his post as part of a plan to seize the vessel and then the treasure buried in the Panamanian jungle. Adapted from the story by Bud A. Nelson.
An American engineer on contract in India has his excessive bigotry tested to the limit when he wakes to find a deadly snake in his bed and must rely on a native doctor to save him. Adapted from the story by Roald Dahl.
A man gets sucked into a treasure-hunting scheme by an old war buddy whose life he once saved and his buddy's unfaithful vixen of a wife. Adapted from the story by Jules Archer.
After tracking down and killing a man for framing him, a murderer flees the remote cabin and inadvertently starts a raging forest fire, which local authorities draft him into helping to quench. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
An expedition to recover treasure from a remote temple in the Mexican desert runs afoul of a fanatical cult. Adapted from the story by Gouverneur Morris.
A timid man most smuggle illicit cargo across Nazi occupied Paris with a loudmouthed madman as company. Adapted from the story by Marcel Andre Ayme.
A 19th century prison hulk delivering convicts to the penal colony of Australia is endangered when the desperate prisoners decide to stage a revolt. Adapted from the story by Weston Martyr , 1929.
A wet-behind-the-ears English college student is seduced by a beautiful woman into taking her to Turkey via train in exchange for $50,000; sounds like easy money, if it weren't for the killers who are after her. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
A wet-behind-the-ears English college student is seduced by a beautiful woman into taking her to Turkey via train in exchange for $50,000; sounds like easy money, if it weren't for the killers who are after her. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
A thinly disguised take on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness - a safari guide is recruited by Belgian authorities to lead an expedition into the deep Congo to arrest a megalomaniac who has made himself the master of a fanatical native tribe. Adapted from the story by Joseph Conrad.
A thinly disguised take on Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness - a safari guide is recruited by Belgian authorities to lead an expedition into the deep Congo to arrest a megalomaniac who has made himself the master of a fanatical native tribe. Adapted from the story by Joseph Conrad.
A classic story of a man who travels into the distant future and discovers a Utopia of idle leisure which hides a terrible secret. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
A classic story of a man who travels into the distant future and discovers a Utopia of idle leisure which hides a terrible secret. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
Two mackerel fishermen are sea-jacked by a group of desperate and murderous criminals. Adapted from the story by Bud A. Nelson.
Two mackerel fishermen are sea-jacked by a group of desperate and murderous criminals. Adapted from the story by Bud A. Nelson.
After a plague has wiped out the bulk of humanity, a small community of survivors struggle to rebuild civilization, but the same old problems of greed and violence stand in the way. Adapted from the story by George R. Stewart.
After a plague has wiped out the bulk of humanity, a small community of survivors struggle to rebuild civilization, but the same old problems of greed and violence stand in the way. Adapted from the story by George R. Stewart.
A British engineer working for the Turkish government becomes a target for enemy agents and is forced to flee the country on board a ship bound for Athens. Adapted from the story by Eric Ambler.
A hard-nosed doctor sent to battle plague in Malaya must also contend with the theft of his serum and a murder. Adapted from the story by Charles Israel.
A pilot takes an interest in a beautiful woman during a layover, only to have her hijack him to fly her to a remote location in northern Mexico to evade the law. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
As the good ship Roundabout readies for departure from Shanghai to Bali, a stranger approaches Captain English and asks for passage. Adapted from the story by Ellis St. Joseph.
Red Mesa, a lawless western town, turns to a hired professional killer for peace. Adapted from the story by Earnest (Ernest??) Haycox.
George Fotheringay has discovered the secret to performing miracles - all he has to do is ask and it is done. Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.
1951
A gripping account of a mountain climber's obsession to be the first man to reach the top of Mt. Adapted from the story by Leonard Lee.
An American Secret Service agent in France undertakes a mission to 'remove' an elusive mystery assassin known only as 'Mr. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
An army deserter is blackmailed into accepting the dangerous job of blasting open an old mine beneath the sea bed off the coast of Cornwall, to flood it as an underground conduit for a band of smugglers. Adapted from the story by Hammond Innes.
February 16, 1951
Killer Mine
An army deserter is blackmailed into accepting the dangerous job of blasting open an old mine beneath the sea bed off the coast of Cornwall, to flood it as an underground conduit for a band of smugglers. Adapted from the story by Hammond Innes.
Returning home from abroad, a husband discovers his wife's ex-lover dead on the floor and his wife missing, apparently fled to Mexico. Adapted from the story by Patrick Quentin.
February 23, 1951
The Follower
Returning home from abroad, a husband discovers his wife's ex-lover dead on the floor and his wife missing, apparently fled to Mexico. Adapted from the story by Patrick Quentin.
Okinawa, 1945 - Two American soldiers on patrol behind enemy lines encounter a beautiful girl who tells them of the island she came from, the idyllic paradise one of them has always dreamed of finding and will do anything to reach. Adapted from the story by Millard Kaufman.
The first Earthmen to reach Mars are greeted not as interplanetary ambassadors, but as lunatics. Adapted from the story by Ray Bradbury.
A champion heavyweight boxer is kidnapped by a wealthy man with a fixation on ancient Rome . Adapted from the story by Millard Kaufman.
Just prior to WW II, an American ex-submarine captain accepts a commission from the Chinese government to repair an old sub and take it into action against Japanese convoys supplying their war in China. Adapted from the story by Alec Hudson.
Scaring off what he thinks are poachers from a neighbor's field, a man accidentally kills one and soon finds himself embroiled with former high-ranking Nazis. Adapted from the story by Geoffrey Household.
A jilted lover seeks escape and forgetfulness among the primitive tribes of New Guinea, but he must first deal with a local chief who is convinced he has come to overthrow him. Adapted from the story by Hugh B. Cave.
A New Orleans hotel guest snatches a bible from his room and finds himself the target of some very desperate and dangerous people. Adapted from the story by John and Gwen Bagni.
1952
An American boat skipper agrees to help a Mexican adventurer and his gold-digging girlfriend retrieve a fortune from a plane that crashed offshore on the lip of an active underwater volcano. Adapted from the story by E. Jack Neuman.
A violent alcoholic beach bum in the South Seas is continually rescued from dire straits by his native companion - but what possible reason could he have for going to all the trouble? Adapted from the story by John Russell.
The Sheriff of Nottingham dispatches an assassin into Sherwood Forest to rid himself of the pesky Robin Hood. Adapted from the story by Traditional - Legend.
Lucky in love, unlucky at cards describes the lot of a plantation owner in Honduras, but the tables turn when his wandering eye incurs the jealous wrath of a local voodoo priestess. Adapted from the story by Herb Purdum.
A world-weary adventurer longs for what he believes cannot exist : a place without strife or conflict or suffering - until he is clubbed in an alley and wakes to find himself in an island paradise where all his dream come true. Adapted from the story by Kathleen Hite.
The simple-minded locals of a remote Louisiana bayou community suspect a newcomer of lycanthropy when a child is found brutally murdered. Adapted from the story by William Froug.
November 23, 1952
Transport to Terror
November 30, 1952
Pagosa
An archaeologist who in Ecuador seeks to make his reputation by getting rare shrunken heads, and begins the long road... Adapted from the story by Ross Murray.
With the Allied forces closing in, a group of American POWs plot an escape from a German prison camp, fearing their captors may execute them before they can be liberated. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
December 28, 1952
Nightmare in the Sun
1953
January 4, 1953
Dangerous Man
A WWII bomber crew in the Pacific is forced down and find themselves on a remote island populated by an advanced race of mutants planning to take over the world. Adapted from the story by Nelson S. Bond.
Dutch officials in colonial Bali are faced with a sudden uprising when a trio of English tourists defile a native temple and steal off with the high priest's daughter. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
A squad of German soldiers fleeing defeat in North Africa follow a megalomaniacal officer obsessed with carving out a kingdom of their own in the remote interior of the continent. Adapted from the story by Les Crutchfield.
Two men trapped for the winter at a remote research station in the Arctic Circle must contend against each other as well as the elements. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
An alien disregards protocols and contacts Adapted from the story by John Russell.
Red Mesa, a lawless western town, turns to a hired professional killer for peace. Adapted from the story by Earnest (Ernest??) Haycox.
Susan falls asleep and meets a woman trapped in her nightmarish dream world. A version of this story was also produced for Suspense. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
Okinawa, 1945 - Two American soldiers on patrol behind enemy lines encounter a beautiful girl who tells them of the island she came from, the idyllic paradise one of them has always dreamed of finding and will do anything to reach. Adapted from the story by Millard Kaufman.
A correspondent in Moscow imprisoned and accused of espionage escapes from a Soviet prison and flees his pursuers toward the Iron Curtain. Adapted from the story by John Dehner.
A hard luck, unpopular sub captain seeks to redeem his reputation by taking on a Japanese aircraft carrier and its escort of destroyers single-handed. Adapted from the story by Richard Chandlee.
A milquetoast husband hounded by his wife for his obsession with his ham radio hobby, makes contact with an alien spacecraft on its way to Earth. Adapted from the story by Michael Gray.
A 19th century prison hulk delivering convicts to the penal colony of Australia is endangered when the desperate prisoners decide to stage a revolt. Adapted from the story by Weston Martyr , 1929.
A spy traveling cross-country by bus exchanges military and government secrets with foreign agents. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
Partial episode directed by Anthony Ellis and written by E. Jack Newman about a love hate triangle in Mexico. Adapted from the story by E. Jack Neuman.
The survivors of a sunken ship happen across a drifting derelict, but when they discover gold aboard, they find a far greater menace than being adrift at sea. Adapted from the story by Larry Roman.
A young British Officer stationed in East Africa is befriended by a bigoted, high-handed retired colonel who becomes the target of insurgent Mau-Maus. Adapted from the story by John Dehner.
On a remote South Seas island, a besotted miscreant and womanizer meets his match in the prudish stalwart daughter of the local pastor. Adapted from the story by W. Somerset Maugham.
The first expedition to another planet discovers a world in ruins, where the dominant surviving life form are insatiable hordes of giant hungry rats. Adapted from the story by Charles B. Smith.
May 24, 1953
The Blue Hotel
Sinbad the sailor relates one of his adventures from his youth, when he took a wife in a distant land, and fell victim to a unique form of native barbarism when she dies of a sudden illness. Adapted from the story by Traditional - Arabian Nights.
A swashbuckler a la Hornblower - an early 19th century naval frigate is ordered into the Caribbean to deal with a French privateer preying on American merchantmen. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
Adam Hamish is living a leisurely life in self-imposed exile when he learns that his past is catching up to him, in the form of an unidentified pursuer. Adapted from the story by Charles B. Smith.
June 28, 1953
One-Eighth Apache
A crusty English farmer is abducted by a German flyer, who is under the impression he is one of their agents, and taken to Nazi Germany. Adapted from the story by Stacy Aumonier.
A remote outpost in British Malaya is the crucible for the only two Englishmen assigned there, both of whom hate one another with every fiber of their being. Adapted from the story by W. Somerset Maugham.
A straight-up survival tale of four men in a small dory lost in an ocean which is not identified. Adapted from the story by Stephen Crane.
Two prospectors in the Old West run afoul of a desperate and murderous claim jumper. Adapted from the story by William J. Radcliff.
After tracking down and killing a man for framing him, a murderer flees the remote cabin and inadvertently starts a raging forest fire, which local authorities draft him into helping to quench. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
Three men are besieged in a lighthouse when a ship wrecks on the shoal and releases a horde of starving rats. Adapted from the story by George G. Toudouze.
WW II desert commandos on a mission to locate, penetrate and destroy a secret German airfield in North Africa. Adapted from the story by Douglas M. Smith.
An spy assigned to escort a defecting nuclear scientist on a train across the Iron Curtain discovers that there is an enemy agent aboard carrying a bomb with which he will blow up the train should it reach its destination. Adapted from the story by Ross Murray.
An expedition into the Himalayas to search for the legendary Yeti finds more than it bargained for. Adapted from the story by Antony Ellis.
Upon hearing that his old boat is to be sold for scrap, an ex- submarine captain hires his old crew and steals the ship from under the noses of its owners, intending to lead a life of modern-day piracy on the high seas. Adapted from the story by Marianne Mosner and Francis Rosenwald.
Two men on a business trip to India find their venture disrupted when one, a germophobe, becomes convinced he has contracted leprosy from a street beggar. Adapted from the story by James Leal Henderson.
Neighborhood children invent a new game called 'Invasion' - or is it just a game? Versions of this story also appeared on Future Tense, Adventure Theater, Suspense (3 versions), X Minus One, The Mysterious Traveler, and Dimension X. Adapted from the story by Ray Bradbury.
Eager to prove his theory that love is an illusion, a man offers a couple a small fortune if they agree to his trial by ordeal. Adapted from the story by Stephen Vincent Benet.
1954
A fortune seeker after a source of rare bird skins in the South Seas instead stumbles on a remote island whose only inhabitants are a beautiful girl and her rather violent boyfriend, who is as jealous of his privacy as he is of her. Adapted from the story by John Russell.
An American plantation owner in a banana republic becomes the prey in a deadly manhunt when a petty thug he once humiliated resurfaces as the leader of a successful revolution and now seeks revenge. Adapted from the story by Les Crutchfield.
Lieutenant Daumier, a young officer in Napoleon's Grande Armee sports an obsession with fighting pistol duels, which brings him into mortal conflict with an experienced senior officer--who just happens to be engaged to Daumier's former lover. Adapted from the story by Alexandre Dumas.
A world-weary adventurer longs for what he believes cannot exist : a place without strife or conflict or suffering - until he is clubbed in an alley and wakes to find himself in an island paradise where all his dream come true. Adapted from the story by Kathleen Hite.
An inexplicable and lightning-quick plague sweeps across the world, killing its victims within an hour of the first symptoms. Adapted from the story by Jack London.
A British officer is assigned to Mandrake to head military research on rockets; but a German POW has escaped from a nearby prison camp and may have an idea of what's going on at Mandrake. Adapted from the story by Ben Wright.
An island haven for crooks, swindlers, smugglers and other nogoodniks receives a visit from 'Honest John Weatherby' , a merchant captain who is eager to demonstrate just how honest a fellow he really is. Adapted from the story by John Russell.
A fishing trip to the back country of Ireland leads a vacationer into a dangerous love triangle wisha beautiful Gypsy girl. Adapted from the story by John Dehner.
A diver becomes enmeshed with a gang of treasure hunters in the Amazon. See also: "The Footprint" (Escape). Adapted from the story by Tony Barrett.
The Klondike is the setting for this tale of murder and revenge when a close knit group of friends seek frontier justice against the killer of a missing companion. Adapted from the story by Les Crutchfield.
A man must take his schizophrenic wife across the high Pyrenees to get her to the hospital, but her delusions persuade the locals on the way that he is a threat to her life. Adapted from the story by Kathleen Hite.
A story of the day when all the birds in the world decided the planet would be better off without humans in it. Adapted from the story by Daphne du Maurier.
A story with similarities to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. A representative of a historical research society is sent into the depths of the Burmese jungle to locate a fellow researcher who has seemingly gone mad. Adapted from the story by Kathleen Hite.
A salvage crew helping to rescue ships in the English Channel during the war inadvertently takes on a Nazi saboteur. Adapted from the story by David Divine.
Two American smugglers in Haiti are confused by the natives' demands for their merchandise. Adapted from the story by Morton Fine and David Friedkin.
A violent alcoholic beach bum in the South Seas is continually rescued from dire straits by his native companion - but what possible reason could he have for going to all the trouble? Adapted from the story by John Russell.
The lone survivor of a plane crash in the Caribbean seeks to return to the crash site to retrieve a fortune. Adapted from the story by E. Jack Neuman.
A merchant sailor recovering from a head wound in Calais suffers a blackout after which he finds himself in England and the target of an unknown enemy out to kill him. Adapted from the story by Walter Brown Newman.
Two fortune hunters after black pearls find a mother lode on a remote Pacific island, one ruled over by a hermitical tyrant with an arsenal and an army of natives to back up his power. Adapted from the story by Robert Tallman.
A ship becomes trapped when a volcano rises out of the ocean around them, encircling them in a ring of rock and burning magma. Adapted from the story by Vincent McHugh.
An insurance investigator on the trail of a con man in Chile gets caught in his target's web of betrayal, deceit and murder. Adapted from the story by Tony Barrett.
The Story
"Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you... Escape!" Intoned by William Conrad over Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," that invitation opened radio's leading anthology of high adventure, which ran on CBS from July 7, 1947, to September 25, 1954. A different life-or-death tale each week, it leaned harder into science fiction and the supernatural than its sponsored sister show, Suspense. Escape was the underdog. A sustaining program with no regular sponsor, it was shuffled around the schedule on a shoestring budget, yet its team -- producer Norman Macdonnell and director William N. Robson, the same CBS-LA hands behind Gunsmoke -- compensated with ambitious sound design and prestige literary scripts. A tight repertory company carried it: William Conrad, John Dehner, Ben Wright, Paul Frees, Harry Bartell. Its signature showcase, "Three Skeleton Key" -- three men trapped in a lighthouse by a tide of rats -- was so good it was produced three times. The definitive high-adventure anthology of radio's golden age, Escape adapted du Maurier's "The Birds," Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game," Bradbury's "Mars Is Heaven," and more -- enthralling listeners for seven years and leaving most of its episodes happily intact.
Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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