John Dehner wrote this script and starred in this production about an American reporter who escapes the incarceration and beatings of the Russian KGB who considered him a spy. He is picked up by the police after a cultural event, and charged with numerous crimes, including spying. They torture him but he never confesses. One morning he wakes up in his cell, but the door is open. He takes the opportunity to escape but always wonders if it was a set-up. He later learns that one of his captors wants to escape with him to the West.
The script was originally used in the 1953-03-15 broadcast of Escape. That broadcast starred Harry Bartell. This 1955 broadcast is one of the rare occasions on Suspense where the author and the star are the same person. Antony Ellis had written some scripts but never starred in any.
Dehner’s idea about using “steel teeth” in the storyline may have come from late 1940s news reports about Communist political figure Antonín Zápotocký and future leader of Czechoslovakia. He had such teeth. There were also occasional news reports in the early 1950s that mentioned steel teeth had become “popular” in Russia.
Lubyanka was a real place. The buildings were seized after the 1917 revolution and became the headquarters for the secret police, later known as the KGB. The prison was a two-story building next to the main one. In 1940, many of the prisoners were part of Stalin’s “Great Purge” before they were moved to Siberia and the Gulags. There are museums in the buildings now, but they are supposedly not open to the public but for private tours.
This broadcast is important for its technological history. Classic radio researcher and international entertainer Keith Scott notes that this was the last program recorded on transcription discs that would become part of the CBS archives. Future programs would be recorded on tape. Unfortunately many of those tapes would be erased and re-used. Some transcriptions were made, but by others like ad agencies and performers using an outside recording service. CBS would make tapes for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) which would be edited and distributed on 16” discs requiring two parts to its stations. They would later release them as microgroove 16” discs with a complete program on one side. AFRTS would later switch to 12” pressings.
If it was not for the AFRTS discs and home recordists there would be many gaps in the surviving Suspense series recordings. After November 1951, there are only two missing Suspense recordings. They are a repeat performance of A Case Of Nerves from 1956-04-24 and the only performance of Massacre at Little Big Horn from 1956-08-01. AFRTS recordings have proven to be the best sounding recordings for much of the 1957 and 1958 seasons, replacing many home recordings over the years.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP550217
THE CAST
John Dehner (Arthur Lutrell), Maria Palmer (Maria), Edgar Barrier (MVD / Soldier), Jack Kruschen (Max Golovin), Robert Boon (Bronislaw), Larry Thor (Narrator)
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