ON AIR 24/7
Golden Radio Hour
Escape was a CBS adventure anthology that sent listeners into danger, survival stories and literary adaptations from 1947 to 1954. William Conrad and Paul Frees were among the voices closely associated with its memorable opening narration. Golden Radio Hour preserves 250 recordings.
CBS high-adventure anthology mixing original radio stories and literary adaptations.
The run breaks into several distinct periods: Audition recordings (February 28, 1947 to March 21, 1947) on CBS Radio Network, First regular CBS run (July 7, 1947 to August 30, 1951) on CBS Radio Network, and Post-hiatus CBS run (October 12, 1952 to September 25, 1954) on CBS Radio Network.
Names that turn up again and again in the surviving run include William Conrad (performer and announcer), Norman Macdonnell (director, producer, and assistant producer), Roy Rowan (announcer), William N. Robson (producer, director, and radio adaptor), Leith Stevens (conductor, composer, and music), Paul Frees (performer), and Ben Wright (performer, narrator, and writer).
Across its run, the surviving broadcasts are tied to CBS Radio Network, Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, Armed Forces Radio Service, and KNX.
The stories often return to survival in extreme danger, wartime danger, danger at sea, dangerous animals, wilderness survival, and crime, pursuit, and captivity.
The show also sits in a wider radio history that includes the postwar adventure-anthology boom, radio adaptations of literature, and radio drama moving toward television anthology formats.
If you are following the same actors and creative circles, related programs worth opening next include Lux Radio Theatre, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, The Whistler, The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, and Broadway Is My Beat.
Search this program or browse in its validated catalog order.
Ventriloquist Tomkins insists that his dummy Toby is a separate, jealous personality and claims the dummy drove him to shoot another man. While authorities debate whether Tomkins has split into…
Ventriloquist Eric Hickson's dummy Toby begins speaking thoughts Hickson insists he never supplied, wrecking his act and provoking a bitter confrontation with another performer. After Hickson and the dummy are…
Two ambitious British adventurers enter the dangerous mountains of Kafiristan intending to conquer the territory and make themselves kings.
Two American OSS operatives parachute into occupied France to organize resistance fighters, only to discover a traitor inside the new Maquis network.
A young visitor learns that his wealthy friend's family guards a mountain made of diamond and will kill to keep its existence hidden.
A rigid ship captain must carry his vessel and its unusual cargo through a devastating typhoon in the China Seas.
Fleeing street patrols, a lost cavalier slips through a doorway and finds himself forced to choose between an unwanted marriage and death.
An Egyptologist learns of an ancient man condemned to immortality who has spent centuries seeking the means to die and reunite with his lost love.
Three escaped convicts from New Caledonia flee on a raft with a native guide, but thirst, liquor and mutual distrust turn the fugitives against one another. By the time a…
A renowned hunter reaches an isolated island where a wealthy madman has created the ultimate hunt, with human beings serving as the prey.
A deadly bushmaster brought aboard ship for a collector escapes its container, leaving the crew searching for the snake before it can strike.
A visitor to the decaying Usher estate is drawn into the family's physical and mental collapse and an increasingly macabre secret surrounding the house.
An arrogant Englishman in Africa brings a deadly curse upon himself after insulting local beliefs and helping cause another man's death.
A poet hiding overnight in a department store discovers a secret society living there after dark, with a horrifying punishment for anyone who threatens the community.
A penniless young man giving away cream tarts is drawn into London's secret Suicide Club, where desperate members gamble with cards to decide who must die and who must carry…
Scholar Edward Dunning rejects a paper by the sinister Karswell and soon learns that Karswell uses a runic curse to mark enemies for death. With help from the brother of…
A mountaineer reaches an isolated valley inhabited entirely by blind people, only to discover that its society regards his ability to see as an illness.
Two vacationers investigate unexplained disappearances in a Carpathian village and begin hunting a creature the locals believe is a werewolf.
As a condemned man stands at Owl Creek Bridge, his final moments become an intense imagined struggle to escape execution and return to freedom.
A solitary sailor becomes involved with the frightened residents of an isolated Georgia plantation and discovers the dangerous secret controlling their lives.
A meek botany professor desperate to escape his dominating wife secretly devises a murderous plan to free himself from their marriage.
A shell-shocked veteran wandering through London fog witnesses a killing and is drawn into a frightening maze of deception and psychological manipulation.
A timid tourist on a world voyage is unexpectedly swept into danger and romance in the back streets of Mozambique.
Second-class tourist Ronald Dawson gets lost in a Mozambique storm while returning a souvenir and stumbles into a room with dead men and a mysterious woman. She leads him through…
A defiant Amazon plantation owner relies on ingenuity and nerve as an immense army of flesh-eating ants closes in on his estate.
Plantation owner Leiningen refuses to abandon his Amazon estate when a miles-wide army of ants approaches, convinced human intelligence can defeat the threat. After his defenses fail, he personally crosses…
Bandleader Eddie Bloch turns a forbidden voodoo chant into the number that makes him famous, then begins wasting away after Papa Benjamin and his followers place a curse on him.…
Bandleader Eddie Bloch turns a forbidden voodoo chant into the number that makes him famous, then begins wasting away after Papa Benjamin and his followers place a curse on him.…
Bandleader Eddie Block builds his fame by turning a forbidden voodoo chant into his signature number despite Papa Benjamin's warning that profaning it carries a death curse. As Block wastes…
Oil engineer Humphrey Ward boards the Taurus Express for home and is drawn into a dangerous web of refugees, couriers and enemy agents. After a gunfight leaves two suspected Greek…
An American businessman traveling toward home becomes entangled in an international espionage plot after assisting a mysterious woman aboard a train.
Young Cynthia Winship leaves her critically ill mother in a Paris hotel after a doctor sends her across the city for medicine. When she returns, the hotel denies that her…
A young woman in Paris discovers that her mother has vanished from their hotel and is plunged into a terrifying conspiracy when everyone insists the woman never existed.
J. F. Morner plans to murder the Snake Doctor and steal the savings hidden in his cabin, using jealousy and a hunting trip as cover. Morner dies after reaching toward…
Suspicious farmer J. F. Mauna hates the local Snake Doctor and eventually tries to steal the healer's hidden savings. Reaching into the hiding place, Mauna believes a cottonmouth has bitten…
Traveler Arthur Llewellyn stops in the isolated village of Martin and becomes fascinated by Ilsa and townspeople who watch him with the unsettling intensity of cats. He flees after discovering…
A traveler feels oddly expected in an isolated border village and gradually uncovers a sinister connection between its residents, its cats and his own fate.
Professor Guildea, a brilliant skeptic who dislikes human attachment, becomes convinced that an invisible presence has entered his home and developed an intimate, repellent affection for him. The unseen thing…
A solitary professor who despises affection becomes the unwilling object of devotion from an unseen presence that increasingly invades his private life.
Lawson becomes obsessed with a beautiful, unnatural grove in Africa, builds his home beside it and falls increasingly under the influence of the ancient goddess Ashtaroth. Alarmed by his friend's…
Choose an archive episode to view its synopsis.
Pause Golden Radio Hour automatically after:
