Jeff Chandler stars in William N. Robson’s story about prisoners who used the chaos of a local flood to facilitate their jailbreak is one of the best stories of the Lewis era. Robson used a pseudonym, “William Norman,” to disguise his authorship. Why that was necessary is a story in itself, summarized below.
Chandler plays a ruthless convict who engineers and leads a daring escape with two other prisoners. They were planning to escape on a particular date, but when word of impending flooding rains came about, they decided to wait. The disruptions to police coverage and prison guard supervision would give them the best chance to escape without pursuit. The town asked the prison for inmate volunteers to help pile sandbags on the flood walls protecting the area. In the planning of the escape, Chandler’s character had a smuggled gun. He hid it under his uniform to use if needed. They planned to hide in his mother’s home, not far away, and plot their next steps to freedom. Things don’t work out the way they planned, and the surprise ending makes it a very worthwhile listen.
There seems to be no specific “actual event” for this story, but it is likely an extrapolation of what could have happened a few years before, and a combination of other incidents. Some bad Midwest floods in 1937 affected prison buildings in a few areas. Towns had to move their prisoners to other facilities. Other times, there are newspaper references to weather events that tasked prison labor to fill sandbags (within the confines of the prison) to help their localities prepare for floods. It wouldn’t take much to envision a plotline that pieced many of these discrete elements together as a single story.
Robson was from Pittsburgh, and the “Steel River” is a generic reference to the area being the “steel city” known for its iron and steel industry. The town is known for the three rivers, the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and how the two meet to form the Ohio River. The rivers are mentioned in the broadcast. There are many places and event references in the production. The relevance of Robson’s inside references are lost to the past. These are a selected few:
“The battle of barges” in 1892 was an attempt to unionize the steel industry that turned violent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_strike (7:30)
“Pine Hill” reform school may refer to the Thorn Hill School for Boys (8:45)
Some of the streets and intersections are “real,” but there appears to be nothing special about them, and they could be random.
Ohio Street is a major one in the city, and there is a Liberty Street. The accident that is a key part of the story is at the Ohio and Liberty intersection. Those roads do not connect at any point in Pittsburgh.
This script was submitted to Suspense by William N. Robson during the chaotic time that CBS and Auto-Lite were trying to make sense of the publication Red Channels. Auto-Lite didn’t want to be associated with anyone listed in that as possible Communists. Robson’s listing in Red Channels was the result of sloppy research, attributing events that his father was involved in as an official of the city of Pittsburgh many years before to him. Despite Robson’s track record as one of radio’s most successful and experienced producers and directors, his Peabody-winning work in the series Man Behind the Gun in support of American troops in the war, and the radio series supporting freedom in Europe, Operation Underground, CBS cut him off from work. CBS’ actions played out over a number of months, and he ended up off the network.
Elliott Lewis knew Steel River was a good script, so Bill Robson agreed to use a pseudonym and be credited as “William Norman” to avoid public scrutiny. His full name was William Northrup Robson, so “Norman” seemed a natural choice. He would submit later scripts as “Christopher Anthony,” comprised of the names of his young sons. That was not acceptable to CBS. He could not submit scripts no matter what name was used. One of his favorite producing assignments was Escape, where he could concentrate on great storytelling; that post was pulled from him. He was banished from the network for about four years.
Robson’s difficulties were mainly the actions of executive Daniel O’Shea. He was a former movie executive for whom Lewis had the private nickname “vice president of treason.” O’Shea operated freely and with little accountability. If someone was turned down for work (referred to as “not cleared”), they would never learn why. Robson’s CBS ordeal is summarized at this page https://sites.google.com/view/suspense-collectors-companion/click-for-home-arrow-for-more/the-blacklist-and-suspense#h.p_I60z386iaLmh That page details a letter Robson wrote to Edward R. Murrow in 1953 asking for help in returning to the network. That letter provides a “Rosetta Stone” perspective about the CBS loyalty system. O’Shea was eventually pushed out as CBS became tired of the mess, especially after Murrow’s own reporting on the Army-McCarthy hearings. Robson would return to CBS and Suspense in October 1956 as producer of the series. Two future Suspense episodes, Nobody Ever Quits (also produced later as Night on Red Mountain) and Date Night, were allegorical productions that he wrote that were related to his blacklist experiences.
The sound quality of this broadcast implies that it might be another aircheck recording though there is not time tone at the open or a station ID at the end or any indication that they were edited out. The recording has some background noise and somewhat narrow range. It is very listenable without any problems. For many years, the surviving copies were incomplete, ending before the credits were announced. That meant there was no announcement of the author, the cast, and other important details. In recent years, the complete recording became available, but that recording sounds like it was from the same original source as the incomplete version. A clean studio recording has not surfaced, nor has an Armed Forces Radio Service copy.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP510903
THE CAST
JEFF CHANDLER (Bragg), Charles Calvert (Boatman / Guard 2), Byron Kane (Red Cross / 2nd Con), Billy Halop (Moish), Tony Barrett (Runt), Bill Forman (Radio Voice / Guard 3), James Nusser (Con), Larry Thor (2nd Radio Voice / Narrator), Joe Kearns (Lefty / Guard)
COMMERCIAL: Robert Easton (Sheriff Sam), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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