This is another Robson production about escaping an Iron Curtain country to come to the West. Like other episodes with similar storylines, Robson assembled a cast of performers who had a geographic or ethnic connection to the events depicted in the script.
The story has Hans Conried’s character bringing “his family” to the United States, and being challenged by officials about his paperwork. He may not be let it in, and is asked to tell his story. It involved assuming another identity as the father of a family for them to escape. It is a fine story of its era, broadcast only a short time after the failed Hungarian Revolution. It is an engaging and inspiring episode with many dangerous twists and turns along the way.
The script was written by Robson, Erno Verebes, and Max Colpet. The original title was “Flight to the West.” Robson may have encountered Verebes and Colpet in his research for his series Operation Underground, as he had many relationships and interests in that topic and Eastern Europe. Erno Verebes, left Germany after the Nazi party came into power. He retired from acting in 1953. Max Colpet (also as Max Kolpe) was a writer whose family moved around 1900s Europe escaping various political upheavals. His parents died in the Holocaust, and he found himself in the US through the 1940s and most of the 1950s, becoming a citizen in 1953. In the 1930s, he wrote screenplays with Billy Wilder (also a German refugee). Colpet left the US in 1958 to live in Munich.
Among the actors in this production are Margie Liszt, Miliza Milo, and Charles Hradilak. Liszt was active in the 1950s and 1960s with many supporting television and movie roles, many of them uncredited. She did have a busy radio career in the late 1940s. Milo is listed in the Internet Movie Database for three uncredited movie roles. Liszt, Milo, and Conried were born in the USA, and had Eastern Europe ties. She was in previous Escape and Suspense broadcasts. Czech actor Hradilak was in Russian New Years just a couple of weeks prior to this broadcast. Fritz Feld, also appeared in that episode, was born in Germany. Some of these actors will appear again in the upcoming episode, Escape to Death.
This program was recorded on Friday, January 25, 1957. The rehearsal for the cast and crew began at 1:00pm and ended at 5:30pm. The recording of the drama began at 5:30pm and finished at 6:00pm. The orchestra came into the studio at 8:30pm, and was recording from 11:00pm to 11:30pm.
The only surviving recording is from an Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) transcription in very pleasing sound. There have been past recordings, likely edited AFRS airchecks in very poor sound. There is also a version of the clean sounding AFRS recording that has a patched CBS announcement at the end. It is clearly not a valid network recording.
LISTEN
TO THE PROGRAM or download in FLAC or
mp3
https://archive.org/details/TSP570127
THE CAST
Hans Conried (Geza Bartok, aka Bela Hojos), Meliza Milo (Margrit), Margie Liszt (Stewardess / Anna the Nurse), Norma Jean Nilsson (Kati the child), Joe de Santis (Immigration Official), Charles Hradilak (Man / Dr. Fekette), Jack Kruschen (Guard / Slavic Captain), Fritz Feld (Vita), George Walsh (Narrator)
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