Escape Episode Guide: Part 22

Welcome to the final entry of my episode guide on the fantastic old-time radio series Escape!

• #211: "Night of the Guns" (July 31, 1954) Starring: Herb Ellis. Story/Script/Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: Haiti.
  Plot: Two businessmen are mistaken for gun runners while in the midst of a revolution.
  Review: Another everyman in hot water story but nothing memorable. It might have been stronger with a single protagonist instead of two. This episode includes actor John Dehner's final performance on Escape. My Rating: 2.5/5 stars.
• #212: "The Price of the Head" (2nd version August 7, 1954) Starring: Hans Conreid. Story: John Russell. Script: John Meston. Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: Solomon Islands.
  Plot: A redheaded brawler kills a man but an indigenous man offers his help - for a price.
  Review: Appropriately, even in this final batch of episodes we have one final repeated script (from episode #150) - and it's by John Russell, whose stories were part of Escape throughout its history. This version has much cleaner audio than the previous one. However, I still don't find this story very exceptional. Note that this is actor Ben Wright's final appearance on Escape. My Rating: 2.5/5 stars.
• #213: "The Coward" (August 14, 1954) Starring: Barney Phillips. Story/Script: E. Jack Neuman. Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: Caribbean.
  Plot: A pilot schemes to retrieve a fortune lost in a plane he himself had wrecked.
  Review: Another high seas treasure hunt story and pretty average for what it is. In many ways it's a less-interesting version of "Gringo" (#149) which Neuman also wrote. My Rating: 2.5/5 stars.
• #214: "Two and Two Make Four" (August 21, 1954) Starring: Shep Menken. Story/Script: Walter Newman. Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: England.
  Plot: A sailor who was mugged in France awakens to find he's in England.
  Review: The nature of the mystery - how the protagonist got from France to England so quickly - is a bit odd and that keeps this episode a bit more engaging than others of this era. My Rating: 3/5 stars.
• #215: "The King of Owanatu" (August 28, 1954) Starring: Tony Barrett. Story/Script: Robert Tallman. Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: Coral Sea.
  Plot: A self-proclaimed king deliberately wrecks ships on the high seas.
  Review: It's very pleasant to hear Joseph Kearns as a villain one last time. The story itself is somewhat derivative of other stories we've heard over the years (a little bit of #9: "The Most Dangerous Game," a pinch of #125: "The Power of Hammer," heck, a bit of #19: "Wild Oranges" too) but it has romance, adventure and suspense - a good example of the average Escape episode. My Rating: 3/5 stars.
• #216: "The Boiling Sea" (September 4, 1954) Starring: Ted de Corsia. Story: Vincent McHugh. Script: John Dunkel. Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: Pacific Ocean.
  Plot: A ship's crew find themselves endangered by volcanoes at sea.
  Review: Volcanoes on the high seas! Here we have some tense high adventure that feels like the series at its best (Dunkel had been writing for the show since #12: "Pollack and the Porroh Man"). So many of the stories set on ships have been man vs. man that I find it very welcome to have a man vs. nature story, the likes of which I don't think Escape had hosted since all the way back to "S.S. San Pedro" (#50)! This is also the final episode of Escape with actors Ted de Corsia and Harry Bartell. My Rating: 4/5 stars.
• #217: "Carnival in Vienna" (September 11, 1954) Starring: Jack Moyles. Story/Script/Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: Austria.
  Plot: A carnival worker schemes to steal a fortune.
  Review: A pretty average crime story; I'm not sure why it wasn't simply produced on Suspense. Unless... this is a bit like the Suspense episode "The Giant of Thermopylae" which aired 4 months earlier, isn't it? Man trapped in funhouse attraction with laughing clown? My Rating: 2.5/5 stars.
• #218: "The Target" (September 18, 1954) Starring: William Conrad. Story/Script: Tony Barrett. Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: Chile.
  Plot: An insurance investigator pursues a criminal on the run.
  Review: This is the 2nd of 2 episodes written by actor Tony Barrett and the final time Conrad served as protagonist, along with Barrett and Hans Conreid's final appearances on the series. The tale itself is quite average but does at least send us out to the high seas one last time. My Rating: 3/5 stars.
• #219: "The Heart of Kali" (September 25, 1954) Starring: Paul Richards. Story/Script: Ross Murray. Director: Morton Fine/David Friedkin. Setting: India.
  Plot: A former soldier schemes to steal a ruby he discovered during the war.
  Review: And here we have the final episode of Escape, closing on our old friend William Conrad promoting his western series Gunsmoke instead of a new episode. Escape had been moved around the schedule so many times that I wonder if the audience at the time (or even cast and crew) were certain whether or not this was the series' final bow. The show does at least go out strong with one last treasure hunt tale in a remote locale. This is a good mix of crime, adventure and an ironic punishment, elements we heard many, many times during the program's seven year run. There were better episodes and worse episodes but the quality of this one is decent and although I find the quality of many episodes in the Fine/Friedkin era erratic, it feels as though Escape went out as a strong program that still had life in it. Thankfully, Paul Frees was still present and had been one of Escape's most versatile performers throughout its run. My Rating: 4/5 stars.

You can listen to episodes of Escape at the Internet Archive!