John Hodiak stars as “Bob Foster” in an Antony Ellis story about a dangerous climb up one of the world’s tallest peaks. Foster inches his way up that icy, gale-swept peak, but he’s linked by rope to fellow climber he no longer trusts. The story begins with the team of six tired and half-frozen climbers at the 24,000 foot level. The peak is hidden in mist, and towers almost a mile above them. Foster is the leader, and picks two of the stronger men to join him in an assault on the peak. If they fail, the other three are to have their chance. As they pass the mark, with the wind trying to team them off the icy slopes, Foster hears a scream and then feels the terrifying tug of the rope as one of his companions plunges over the edge of the crevasse. The rope holds, for a time, with the two remaining men digging in desperately. Then it suddenly goes slack. There is a cry, and a dark figure hurtles downward. The rope has broken... or has it been cut? When Foster sees the rope, it’s not frayed, it’s been cut clean by a knife! Is his surviving climbing partner a murderer? Or did he cut the rope in a panicky effort to save his own life and Foster’s? By the time he learns the answer, it is too late to matter. His life is now irrevocably bound to the other, possibly murderous survivor, by a rope as they make a dangerous return to camp. How will Foster explain what happened?
It is likely that Antony Ellis had the Mount Everest on the border of Tibet and Nepal in mind for the story. Its peak is 29,000 feet, and at the time of the broadcast, its height had never been conquered. A Swiss expedition failed in December 1952, and was in the news. A UK team was assembled shortly after that, and their planning for ascent was in newspapers at the time Ellis was writing the script. About ten weeks after the broadcast, Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary made the first documented full ascent of the mountain. Norgay was part of the Swiss attempt that came within 1,000 of the peak in 1952. By 2023, more than 6,500 climbers had reached the peak.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP530316
THE CAST
JOHN HODIAK (Bob Foster), Paul Frees (Perrucci), Ben Wright (John Eldridge), Joe Kearns (Thomas), John Fraser (Harry Feldman), James McCallion (Gaines), Larry Thor (Narrator)
COMMERCIAL: Dick Ryan (McSorley), Harlow Wilcox (Announcer), Sylvia Simms (Operator)
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