"Operation Fleur de Lys" is an early Escape episode that dramatizes an incident recorded in the book Sub Rosa: the O.S.S. and American Espionage (1946) by former O.S.S. agents Stewart Alsop and Thomas Braden. William N. Robson adapted the story for radio.
(It is worth noting that in later years, Stewart Alsop became a prominent newspaper columnist and political analyst. Thomas Braden became a CIA operative, then a journalist, and later the co-host of CNN's Crossfire. He was also the author of the 1975 book Eight is Enough, which spawned the ABC television series of the same name.)
The episode begins in London at the Office of the Strategic Services during World War II. An operation is being planned to assist the advance of Allied Forces in Nazi occupied France. Two O.S.S. agents will parachute into northern France and then organize roadblocks on three major highways. The leader of the local French rebels, and his soldiers, will aid them in their mission.
The two agents assigned to this operation make their parachute jump successfully, but when they land, they quickly discover that the local patriots aren't as organized as they had hoped. Will the agents continue with their mission, or will they take the next plane back to London?
In "The McKay College Basketball Scandal," Tony Curtis stars as a college athlete who is asked to throw a game.
In another one of Suspense's "stories taken from life," we meet Fred Hudson, the star player on the McKay College basketball team. He and his father think basketball will be his career, but his mother and his girlfriend can't see that far ahead. Fred's grades aren't good, but his history professor thinks he has potential as a history major.
Young Fred, who is caught in the middle of this confusion, is then approached by two men. They offer him a lot of money to throw the game. Fred needs the money, but will he do it?
In "Of Maestro and Man," a boxing manager turns to murder when he has nothing left to lose.
Maestro has given Mr. Crip one too many I.O.U's to cover his gambling debts. This time, Mr. Crip wants his money. So, he offers Maestro the chance to pay off his debts by signing over the contract of his fighter, Ricky Martin. Reluctantly, Maestro agrees to sell the contract.
When the time comes to explain to Ricky that his contract has been sold, Maestro learns that Ricky has plans of his own.
Plunder of the Sun (1949) is a novel by David Dodge about an American in Chile, who smuggles a mysterious package into Peru and then ends up discovering a lost Incan treasure.
The episode opens in Valparaiso, Chile, where an antiques dealer named Don Alfredo Berrien and his nurse, Ana Luz Benavides, meet an American named Al Colby. Berrien asks Colby to smuggle a package into Peru. It is a valuable Peruvian artifact that was taken out of the country, and now he wants it smuggled back in. Colby isn't allowed to know what is inside the package, but he agrees to the job anyway.
He travels with them on a boat to Peru, but midway through the voyage, Berrien dies. Due to his age, the police assume that it was from natural causes, but when Colby and Anna Luz found Berrien, there had been someone in his room. Was it Jefferson, the American tourist that Berrien was afraid of?
When the boat lands in Peru, Colby opens the package and finds a quipa, an Inca message cord and pages of pergamino (parchment). The pages are written in a Spanish translation of the Incan language, Quechua. Supposedly, the pages give the location of a fabulous treasure of Incan gold that was hidden from the Spaniards. Colby travels to Arequipa, to visit Don Ubaldo Naharro, an antiques dealer even more devious than Berrien.
Will Colby have the message deciphered and find the treasure? Will he help Anna Luz, the beautiful nurse who wants to buy her way out of indentured servitude? Will Jefferson, the American tourist, get the package from Colby? Or, will Don Ubaldo Naharro find a way to get the package away from both of them?
The last part of the book is summarized too quickly, and the final parting of Ana Luz and Colby is very different. If you get the chance, read the book.
In "Hunting Trip," two buddies take a hunting trip, but one of them has murder on his mind.
As the episode opens, Stan and Eric are driving up to the mountains to relax and to go hunting. Stan is nervous because it is a black night and Eric is driving too fast. Even though they have known each other for years, Stan ponders how little he really knows about his friend...
Stan and Eric had grown up together, gone to school together, and even fallen in love with the same girl, Karen. Stan was the one who married her, but Eric appeared to have gotten over that. Did he? Perhaps they will find that out during their trip.
"Hunting Trip" was written by Paul Bernard and Lee Horton. Vincent Price and Lloyd Nolan starred as Eric and Stan. William Spier produced and directed. This episode aired on September 12, 1946.
In "Photo Finish," Michael O'Shea stars as a sidewalk photographer who snaps a picture that gets him into all kinds of trouble.
Joe Mooney is a roaming "candid camera" photographer who makes a living taking pictures informally and then selling them back for a buck. At the end of one hot afternoon, Joe takes a picture of a guy who appears to swoon and then fall to the ground. As it turns out, the guy was the target of a "hit," and Joe has unknowingly caught the event on film.
Joe then goes home and gets in trouble with his wife, Maude, for being late. When he tries to explain what kept him at work, he realizes that he left his camera downtown. Then, the police arrive at his door. Joe agrees to go downtown with them to get his camera, but soon realizes that these men aren't really homicide detectives. So, who are they and why do they want the film in Joe's camera?
In "The Far Away Island," a man in a mid-life crisis comes to realize that he has to face his problems rather than run away from them.
As the episode opens, Adam Hamish is on the run from a man who is diligently following him. Adam stole money back in Boston, but now he is in French Polynesia. His sole desire is to get to the island of Amoka, a paradise where he had lived six years earlier during the war.
Adam hopes to be reunited with the woman he loves and start a new life, but when he arrives at Amoka, that dream disappears. Shortly afterwards, the man who has been following him arrives on the island, too. Adam now has to face the fact that chasing a dream half-way around the globe doesn't mean his problems won't follow him.
In "Statement of Mary Blake," Joan Bennett stars as a lab assistant who discovers that her boss isn't the wonderful scientist that she thought he was.
As the episode opens, Mary describes the recurring dream that has been plaguing her. In it, she is tormented by the sound of a blind man's cane, tapping and tapping and coming closer from somewhere in the darkness....
With swirls of violin music, we are transported back to the day Mary's troubles began, the day she went to work for the renowned scientist Dr. Gregory Martin. To her, it was a wonderful opportunity to work in Dr. Martin's private laboratory as his assistant, but she soon realized that it wasn't all perfect. Dr. Martin's wife, Lorna, was not a happy woman, yet her husband doted on her constantly.
After a seemingly successful day in the laboratory, Lorna suddenly turns up dead. Can Mary defend herself against the accusations that she is the murderer?
"The Truth About Jerry Baxter" stars Gregory Peck in a dramatic report about teenage narcotics use in the United States circa 1951. The story is "taken from life" and "suggested by actual events."
As the episode opens, a juvenile investigator named Mr. MacIntire is caught in a life or death struggle with a teenage criminal named Jerry Baxter. We then drift back in time, and Mr. MacIntire explains how the trouble began...
MacIntire met Jerry at the corrections school and asked the parole board to take a kinder view of the young man's situation. The parole board agreed to give him a chance, but the same day Jerry left the facility, he was again in trouble with the police! MacIntire believes he is innocent, but will anyone else?
"Seven Hours to Freedom" tells the story of a fishing boat off the California coast that is hijacked by escaped criminals.
Jeff and Lou are in their boat, The Merry Widow, trolling for mackeral not far from the shoreline. Suddenly they hear the sounds of a car wreck on the nearby highway. Shortly afterwards, a rowboat comes toward them carrying a group of men who seem to be in trouble.
When they get the men safely on their boat, Jeff and Lou realize they have made a mistake. The men have just escaped from prison and now, they want to be taken to Mexico. The border is seven hours away, will Jeff and Lou make it there alive?
Procter & Gamble and CBS Television are taking Guiding Light off the air after seventy-two years. It now joins The Edge of Night, Search for Tomorrow, Another World, and other once-great Procter & Gamble soap operas...that are no more.
I've never watched a single episode of Guiding Light, but when the longest running soap opera in history goes down, we all have to stop what we are doing and pay attention. Times have changed and daytime dramas are struggling to keep their audiences.
Perhaps Guiding Light will now join the other fallen, broken-down Procter & Gamble soap operas that are being rerun on AOL Video, but.... wait, Proctor & Gamble abruptly yanked all of those without warning in 2009! It was bad enough when they ended The Edge of Night's television run in 1984, but to do the same cruel thing again in 2009 by abruptly taking them off the internet was very disappointing.
I hope that Guiding Light fans will get angry and not let their show go off the air without a fight. I would like to see those fans running through the streets screaming and crying--as I wish I had for The Edge of Night, even though it was pretty bad in its last years.
Once a soap opera ends, it is gone forever...and Procter & Gamble may or may not let you see it again. (Guiding Light and Another World are currently available on Hulu.com, but for how long?)
Guiding Light began as a fifteen minute radio drama on NBC in 1937. It moved to CBS Television in 1952, but the radio show continued to air until 1956. The television show went from black & white to color in 1967, was expanded to a half hour in 1968 and to a full hour in 1977. Guiding Light will air its last episode on Friday, September 18, 2009, after more than 15,700 episodes on radio and television combined! It is the longest-running daytime drama in the Guiness Book of World Records and has been awarded sixty-nine Daytime Emmies.
Radio episodes from Guiding Light are available at the Internet Archive
Here is a clip of an episode of Guiding Light from April 9, 1953. You can watch this episode on full screen at the Internet Archive.
While we are on the subject, here is a short Youtube video comprised of promos for The Edge of Night. (The visual quality is not very good.) These promos are from the last four years of its run, and they convey the basic essence of the show. It was like Suspense but in a soap opera format.
In "Public Defender" a man must stand trial for a burglary charge -- while not letting on that he also murdered the wife of his public defender.
Phillip Penn murdered Mrs. Tyler for her purse while attending an Armistice Day parade. He skipped town for a month and when he returned, he went about his business as though nothing had happened. That is, until the police showed up at his door to ask him questions about a robbery.
Penn claimed to know nothing about it, but the officers didn't like his answers or his dodginess. Later, when he was charged with burglary, the court appointed an attorney for him-- the husband of the woman he murdered. Could Penn hide the truth from his own attorney?
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