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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.
A shipwreck salvager searching for a fortune in gold uses an old diving suit to appear before islanders as the god Jimmy Goggles. A local witch doctor tries to exploit…
First mate Harper records the mystery aboard the Evening Star after Captain Burgess marries the widow of the ship's former captain, DeRell. Burgess becomes convinced DeRell's ghost has returned, secretly…
An American trader in Manila becomes involved with Delphina, the unhappy wife of a powerful Spanish colonial official, and is drawn into a dangerous voyage aboard a Chinese junk. When…
An American trader in Manila becomes involved with Delphina, the unhappy wife of a powerful Spanish colonial official, and is drawn into a dangerous voyage aboard a Chinese junk. When…
A collector insists on shipping a deadly bushmaster snake from Venezuela despite warnings about the danger, and the snake escapes aboard the passenger vessel. After days of terror and fruitless…
After suffering symptoms he believes are the beginning of a disabling stroke, 52-year-old Christopher Bell secretly gives up his business and attempts to make his death look like a mountaineering…
Sailors regard a handsome sailing ship as a murderous jinx after a long history of fatal accidents, but she behaves peacefully while brothers Ned and Charlie Wilmot sail with Maggie…
Young regimental drummers Jakin and Piggy watch the British Fore and Aft break under Afghan fire and decide to shame the soldiers back into action. They march into the open…
Three escaped convicts cross the tropical sea on a primitive raft with a native guide they despise and underestimate. Thirst and greed turn the fugitives against one another until all…
Mild-mannered Scotsman John Todd takes a post at an African trading station where bullying Captain Brock humiliates workers and repeatedly provokes him. When Brock beats Todd and prepares to punish…
Dr. Dudley takes Fowler in his time machine to the year 100,080, where they find a beautiful childlike people living above ground and predatory Morlocks below. When the Morlocks seize…
After accidentally killing camp boss Thorne in a fight, Billy Loring flees into the Canadian north and is finally captured by Sergeant Brokaw. A blizzard traps captor and prisoner together…
Plantation owner Leiningen refuses to flee when a vast army of ants approaches, trusting a network of defenses and his own intelligence. When the ants overwhelm the plantation, he runs…
The disappearance of the Blue Water sapphire sends the Geste brothers into the French Foreign Legion, where their secret follows them to a brutal desert outpost under Sergeant Lejaune. After…
After surviving a mountain fall, Nunez discovers an isolated valley whose people have been blind for generations and regard his sight as a defect. He falls in love with Medina-Sarote…
A farmer's painful tooth sends him to Paul Revere and, through a chain of comic circumstances, helps set events of the American Revolution in motion.
Two explorers reach a lost African city ruled by a beautiful immortal queen who believes one of the newcomers is the man she has awaited for centuries.
A combative sea captain recently jailed for assault sets out to prove himself by rescuing survivors during a hurricane, only to face a perilous medical emergency and more trouble.
Soldiers of fortune Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan leave India determined to become kings in remote Kafiristan. Using military skill and the people's belief that they are more than ordinary…
Soldiers of fortune Daniel Dravot and Peachey Carnehan leave India determined to become kings in remote Kafiristan. Using military skill and the people's belief that they are more than ordinary…
A celebrated thief escapes from prison in southern France and turns the pursuit by detective L'Amir into a contest of vanity and wits. As fear and obsession distort everyone around…
During a violent storm, a ship's first officer struggles with a dangerous list while an enigmatic passenger seems unnervingly tied to the vessel's fate.
John Unger visits the impossibly wealthy Washington family on a hidden Montana estate built around a mountain-sized diamond. When he learns that outsiders who discover the secret are imprisoned or…
A weary man repeatedly dreams that he inhabits a future ruler who abandoned power to live with the woman he loves, only to see that private choice help ignite a…
A poet secretly moves into a department store so he can live and write without money, only to discover a hidden nocturnal society that has lived there for years. He…
George Fotheringay discovers that whatever he commands can become reality and, with a clergyman's encouragement, spends a night performing increasingly ambitious miracles. When he stops the Earth's rotation and unleashes…
Inspector Collins investigates a special train that vanishes completely between stations despite apparently having no place to leave the main line. The mystery leads to railway official Bland, who bribed…
American traveler Gregory Myatt boards the Orient Express and becomes entangled with Dr. Czinner, a political exile trying to return secretly to his homeland, and Coral, a young woman caught…
Investigator Paul Vernier reaches a remote Borneo station knowing one of three Americans is the murderer Stiques, but not which one. Attempts on Vernier's life and the murder of controller…
Navy flyer Brady and his crew are forced down on a Pacific island and discover an underground society made up of humans who represent the next stage of evolution. Their…
American David Armor wakes in a Chinese mission hospital after a long fever with two months missing from his memory. As General Kinto and others question him, fragments return about…
A deadly bushmaster snake escapes from its container aboard a passenger liner, forcing Chris Warner and the officers to search the ship while trying to avoid a panic. The snake…
Kenny's fiancée Steffi vanishes after entering an apartment building to deliver a package, and every witness seems to deny she was ever there. Detective Gilman uncovers a spy network hidden…
Mountain guide Nunez survives a fall into an isolated Andean valley whose inhabitants have been blind for generations and cannot comprehend his claims about sight. He falls in love there…
An experimental serum gives a desperately ill woman the power to adapt almost instantly to disease, injury and even threats to her identity. Kira uses that ability to transform her…
Prep-school student John Unger visits classmate Percy Washington and discovers a hidden Rocky Mountain estate whose fabulous wealth comes from a diamond mountain kept secret at any cost. When the…
Confidential agent David travels to England to secure industrial diamonds needed by his embattled anti-fascist country while enemy agents try to bribe, frame and kill him. With help from Rose…
Blind racketeer Heineman follows the dying clues of his prospector brother to an Arizona treasure while Pascal and the other gunmen accompany him. At the final marker, greed turns the…
Broke adventurer O'Hara is drawn into Irene Mallory's attempt to recover half a million dollars in gold before it falls to warlord General Yang. The struggle ends aboard Yang's junk,…
German agents plan to replace English baronet Everard Dominey with his near-identical German acquaintance Leopold von Ragastein and use the impersonation to penetrate British society. The man who returns to…
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