Support Breaking Walls at https://www.patreon.com/thewallbreakers
This episode was originally released 04/2019.
Escape, CBS’s high-adventure anthology, debuted on July 7th, 1947. During its erratic seven year run it was shifted and dropped frequently, almost always cost-sustained by the network. It developed into an experimental training ground in the late 1940s for those who’d come to dominate radio in the next decade. The show was originally produced and directed by William N. Robson, as Mary Jane Croft, Jeanette Nolan, and Sam Edwards remembered.
By the end of 1947, CBS had put together thirty-six new radio programs, but few were sponsored. It also established a news documentary unit. Television was now a programming factor. That year, William Paley negotiated a $20 million loan from the Equitable Assurance Society so that CBS would have the resources to move into TV.
The 1947-48 season was the last year of major growth for the network radio industry. Revenues broke the $200 million mark for the first time. Thanks to a surging baby boom, top 50 average ratings jumped twenty-three percent. It was the most popular radio season ever. Young parents were staying home to take care of their children. Movie attendance bombed.
The networks were also beginning to control programming, previously vested with the advertiser and its agency. William Paley knew that by doing so CBS could dictate terms to potential advertisers. They were spending millions on network-sustained programs without any assurance of finding a sponsor to absorb these costs. Escape was one of these gambles.
Robson’s assistant was Norman Macdonnell. By late 1949 they were alternating directorial duties, experimenting with first-person present-tense narratives, and adult-oriented westerns. On December 6th, 1949 audiences heard “Command,” a story about the lessons a young West Point cavalryman must learn on the frontier, Starring Elliot Reed and Bill Johnstone. It was popular enough to be repeated in May starring Harry Bartell and John Hoyt.
The next month, on January 3rd, 1950, Gerald Mohr and Betty Lou Gerson starred in “The Pistol.” It was under this watch that the Richfield Oil Company sponsored Escape between April and August of 1950: The only time the show found a regular advertiser.
On June 23rd, Escape broadcast “Sundown,” starring Sam Edwards, Barton Yarborough, and Will Geer. It’s the story of an orphan boy named Ben taken in by two men. They gift the boy a horse, which he cherishes, until one day a gunslinger named Kirby Hunsiker rides into town. While Ben is doing chores, Hunsiker forces the trade of his old horse for the boy’s. Hunsiker runs the horse into the ground, and Ben is forced to euthanize the animal. Barton Yarborough’s character Dan offers Ben any other gift he’d like. Ben chooses a gun. He spends the rest of his childhood learning to be a gunfighter, eventually getting the chance for revenge.
Escape’s talented team of writers included Kathleen Hite, Morton Fine, David Friedkin, E. Jack Neuman, and John Meston.
In “Wild Jack Rhett,” John Dehner starred in a role he would emulate a decade later in Have Gun, Will Travel.
Although Escape would never again attract a sponsor, the tight-knit crew of production people continued to work together. As they perfected exaggerated sound patterns and adult-themed dramas, William Paley requested a series emulating the hard-boiled Adventures of Philip Marlowe, but set in the old west.
#cbs #americana #podcast #goldenageofhollywood #oldtimeradio #radio #audiofiction #ushistory #radiodrama #hollywood #hollywoodradio #postwar #babyboomer #history #retro #western #westernshow #westernart #bartonyarborough #dragnet #hawklarabee #oldwest #manifestdestiny #oregontrail #escape #gunsmoke #gunsmokeradio
Информация по комментариям в разработке