Escape
Season 12, Episode 05
May 20, 2024
Radio's finest adventure series
Re-Imagined Radio offers a double feature tribute to Escape and actor Vincent Price. We sample from two episodes of Escape, "Present Tense" and "Three Skeleton Key," both starring Price, to celebrate radio's greatest series of high adventure storytelling and an unforgettable voice actor. From our Tribute Series.
Access the episode script
Background
Escape (1947-1954) was radio's leading anthology of high adventure drama. It offered adaptations from a wide range of classic and contemporary stories and novels in many different genres—from science fiction to horror to murder mysteries—by well-known writers. Episodes placed characters in impossible situations from which they had to escape. The cast changed with each episode, and frequently included well known voice actors, like Vincent Price.
Quick Info
OTR serial radio series
July 7, 1947 to September 25, 1954
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)
30-minute episodes
Total episodes: 228 (230 counting the two auditions; 237 counting East Coast versions of seven
shows)
Surviving Episodes: perhaps 227
About Vincent Price
Vincent Price (1911–1993) is legendary for his stage, television, motion picture, and radio appearances.
In radio, he is noted for voicing Simon Templar in The Saint, 1947 to 1951, and the two
episodes of Escape featured here, "Present Tense" and "Three Skeleton Key." It's also
interesting to note that Price provided a chilling voice over for singer/song writer Michael Jackson's
1993 music video "Thriller."
Together, the two episodes of Escape featuring Vincent Price provide outstanding radio storytelling.
Additional Exemplary Episodes
"Evening Primrose" - Episode 013, November 5, 1947
"Leiningen vs. the Ants" - Episode 023, January 17, 1948
"Poison" - Episode 121, July 28, 1950
Resources
Production
Contents
This episode of Re-Imagined Radio samples from two episodes of Escape, both starring Vincent Price: "Present Tense" and "Three Skeleton Key."
"Present Tense" - Episode 096, 31 January 1950
A story of murder, execution, and a man whose mental musings seek escape from the fate
society has imposed upon him. Roger, a poet, voiced by Price, is convicted for murdering his wife and
sentenced to death. Roger imagines different escape scenarios on his journey to the gas chamber. But
each imaginary "escape" only returns him to the gas chamber, from which there can be No escape. Or, is
escape an embrace of death as restful sleep?
Credits
Vincent Price as Roger
Charles McGraw as Fred Sneed
Joan Banks as Mary
Harry Bartell as The Doctor
Ben Wright as Pollen
Also Tom Tulley, William Lalley, Jeff Corey, and Paul Frees (Announcer)
William N. Robson (Producer, Director)
James Poe (Adaptor)
Del Castillo (Arranger, Conductor)
"Three Skeleton Key" - Episode 102, 17 March 1950
"The lighthouse with rats," is how many people remember this classic radio story of horror, and
escape.
As narrated by Price, three men in a lighthouse on Three Skeleton Key, a small island off the coast of
French Guiana, are overrun by rats and fight for survival. Award-winning sound effects make this episode
intimately immersive.
Adapted from a short story by French writer Georges-Gustave Toudouze (1877–1972). The story concerns three men tending a lighthouse on a small rocky island off the coast of French Guiana. The island is called "Three Skeleton Key" because three escaped convicts died there of starvation. An abandoned, derelict ship crashes on the reef releasing hordes of rats who swarm the lighthouse looking for food. The three men battle against the rats. One dies. One goes insane. One, the narrator, survives.
A radio adaptation by screenwriter James Poe won the "Best of the Year" award that year from Radio and Television Life magazine for its rat sound effects, created by Cliff Thorsness and executed by himself, Gus Bayz, and Jack Sixsmith.
Credits
Vincent Price as Jean
Harry Bartell as Auguste
Jeff Corey as Louis
Paul Frees (Announcer)
William N. Robson (Producer, Director)
Georges-Gustave Toudouze (Author)
James Poe (Adaptor)
Cliff Thorsness, Jack Sixsmith, and Gus Bayz (Sound Effects)
Del Castillo (Music)
Harry Esman (Control Engineer)
Credits
Written, Produced, and Hosted by John F. Barber
Sound Design, Original Music Composition, and Post Production by Marc Rose
Promotional Graphics by Holly Slocum with Sydney Nguyen
Significance
Noted as the finest radio adventure series ever broadcast, Escape is significant for providing listeners a variety of literary experiences drawn from adventure classics and contemporary original scripts.
Producer's Notes
This tribute celebrates both the Escape series and the incomparable Vincent Price, whose
voice brought life and terror to these classic radio adventures.
— John F. Barber
Promotion
Press
Graphics
