This Antony Ellis script about two ordinary-looking people, actually Cold War spies, who meet in a park and go on a
bus ride was originally used on Escape and broadcast
1953-04-12. It’s a good story and having nice-neighbor-next-door
Parley Baer as a spy named Charlie Rader is quite entertaining. The
two spies could not agree on a price for the information he had, so
they parted ways. He gets on a bus east and meets Julie Spaulding who
is heading to New York. She is played by Charlotte Lawrence in the very same role she had in the Escape production, also opposite
Baer.
Howard McNear plays a spy named Hutchinson, and strikes up a
conversation with Rader. He’s one of a few spies on the bus,
including the woman Rader met in the park. They are clearly checking
up on him, and are very concerned about him and the information and
blueprints he has about a new jet motor, and they want to be sure
they get it from him. Rader realizes (just in time for the mid-show
break cliffhanger) that they’ll kill him if he doesn’t kill them
first. The bus stops in New Mexico and Rader and Julie have breakfast
at the counter while the spies watching him are sitting in a booth.
He tries to tell her that there are spies watching him, and she
doesn’t believe him. He tells her to just play along with him, and
despite her skepticism, agrees. In a casual conversation supposedly
about fishing, Hutchinson tangentially offers him $10,000 (worth
about $120,000 in US$2025) for the information. At another bus stop
there is a final confrontation where there are final negotiations and
Rader had enough, shooting Hutchinson and his companion, and sends
their bodies over the cliff. Spaulding is appalled and frightened,
but he explains he had no choice. They return to the bus, the driver
waits for the two missing passengers, and then rides on. At the next
stop, there are FBI agents waiting for him. Then there are some
surprises at the ending...
The original title of the script was “The Biggest Secret in the
World,” changed in the few days before it aired on Escape.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP551122
THE CAST
Parley Baer (Charlie Rader), Howard McNear (Hutchinson), Virginia
Eiler (Lisa Nyland), Charlotte Lawrence (Julie Spaulding), Richard
Beals (Boy), Charles Seel (Bus Driver / Larry), Jim Nusser (The FBI
Agent), Larry Thor (Narrator)
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