This Antony Ellis script is about a group of prisoners who plan an escape from Devil’s Island. It has a cast of Suspense regulars, led by John Dehner as the mastermind behind the plan, and fellow prisoners played by Parley Baer, Joe Kearns, and Tony Barrett.
Devil’s Island is off the coast of French Guiana and the northern coast of South America. The island was so remote, some of the inmates were allowed to roam the island on their own. The combination of prison conditions and treatment, and the harsh environment of disease transmitted by insects and other issues, gave the prison that was part of the French prison system a terrible reputation. It was often used for the most violent of criminals. One of the prisoners is believed to be an informer who helps the warden and the guard thwart escape attempts. The prisoners decide they will make their escape by taking the warden as a hostage.
They start to negotiate with the warden and create a list of demands. If he signs an agreement to implement the changes, he will live. If not, he will die. They also demand that they be allowed to escape. Finally, they demand to know the identity of the informer; the warden first claims that there is none. He finally identifies Maquil as the stool pigeon. He is dismissed from the room and runs away, shot by guards as he tried to escape. In the end, all they get is some improvements to conditions with a month in solitary confinement. When one of them tries to escape later, it is not an informer who identifies him, but the native who sold him the boat. In the end, there is no real escape from Devil’s Island for any of them.
The inmates invent games to stay busy: the show opens with them having cockroach races and betting on them.
Wikipedia has the history of the island at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Island The prison was closed in 1953, two years before this broadcast.
On July 7, 1955, a little more than two months before this broadcast, the film We’re No Angels was released. It was a comedy about Devil’s Island escapees with Humphrey Bogart, Aldo Ray, and Peter Ustinov. It is a bizarre idea in light of the treatment of prisoners and that they decide to return there. That film was still in theaters at the time of this broadcast.
The script was originally planned for broadcast on 1955-08-09.
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https://archive.org/details/TSP550920
THE CAST
John Dehner (Thibaud), Parley Baer (Euxille), Joe Kearns (Maquil), Tony Barrett (Canneau), James Nusser (Dodan / Guard), Edgar Barrier (Governor Planche), Larry Thor (Narrator)
Jay Novello was originally planned for Maquil, and was replaced by Joe Kearns
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