Sixty years ago Escape broadcast its first episode,"Dead of Night," on March 21, 1947. A month earlier the story had been broadcast on the CBS series Out of this World with the same actors in the lead roles. When listening to Escape's original opening sequence, you will notice a similarity to the opening words of The Twilight Zone which came along about a decade later, also on CBS.
Escape's premier episode was based on one of the stories from the classic British horror film Dead of Night (1945). The movie is a collection of supernatural tales, including the urban legend of "The Phantom Coachman." Its most famous segment is about a ventriloquist named Maxwell Frere, played by Michael Redgrave, and Hugo, his dummy (pictured left). Dead of Night was also one of the inspirations for the famous Twilight Zone episode "The Dummy" in 1962. Richard Attenborough's 1978 film Magic also borrowed a little from this story.
Escape's "Dead of Night" stars Barry Kroeger as the ventriloquist and Art Carney as the dummy.
Download escape.1947.03.21_Dead_Of_Night_(Audition).mp3
The radio versions of this story aren't as good as the movie!
To view a video clip of Dead of Night see: Escape - Dead of Night (First Episode)
(Rev. 02/18/08)
Unfortunately I can't find anything online elsewhere at all about the CBS radio series Out Of This World. Did it actually exist?
Posted by: Jim | June 03, 2010 at 11:56 PM
I guess that should be clearer. Out of this World was the name of the series before it was changed Escape. The first audition episode was done for Out of this World, and then the second audition episode was done under the title of Escape-and the series went on from there.
Here is a link to an episode log.
http://www.old-time.com/otrlogs2/esc.log.txt
-Christine
Posted by: Cmillinsf | June 04, 2010 at 08:22 AM