ESCAPE
debuted over the CBS network in July 1947 as a Summer replacement for
the Lux Radio Theater, and ran for seven years, broadcasting its final
show in September 1954. Unlike its counterpart adventure series SUSPENSE
(a continuous run on CBS from June 1942 to September
1962), ESCAPE never settled into a reliable time slot, being
moved around to fill CBS' needs. It was even off the air for a few long
gaps while other programming took its place. Still, thanks to solid
scripts, excellent acting and high production values (for its relatively
low budgets), ESCAPE is widely considered one of the best radio action
adventure series produced during radio’s “golden” age.
Each
week the gruff voice of William Conrad queried listeners: “Tired of
the daily grind? Ever dreamed of a life of romantic adventure? Want
to get away from it all? We offer you… ESCAPE!" Add a few bars from
Moussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain as a theme, and the proper
mood was set. Whether the show you were about to hear was classic adventure,
western, horror, or science fiction, one thing all scripts had in common:
On ESCAPE, desperate characters always faced life-and-death situations.
The
stories heard on ESCAPE were based on original works by notable radio
playwrights along with adaptations of classic adventure (Rudyard
Kipling, Arthur Conan Doyle, HG Wells), horror (Edgar
Allen Poe, Lu Xun), and contemporary science fiction (Ray
Bradbury). But it is a James Poe adaptation of a 1937 short story
published in the magazine Esquire by little known French writer George
Toudouze that is one of the best stories in the series, if not in all
of “old time radio”. The story, often referred to as “the one with the
rats” is, of course, Three Skeleton Key. And even though Toudouze
wrote many books and plays on subjects as varied as the sea, art and
architecture, or French Naval History, it is Three Skeleton Key
for which he is still remembered today. And when Vincent Price stepped
behind the microphone on March 17, 1950 as Jean, a classic was born.
Three
Skeleton Key proved very popular with audiences, and in response
to hundreds of requests, it was produced three times over the years
on ESCAPE. In fact, the Vincent Price production was the second; Elliott
Reid was Jean for its debut (November 1949), and
Ben Wright in the third (August 1953). Then when
ESCAPE left the air, 3SK was produced on SUSPENSE several times, with
slight script modifications to accommodate longer commercial breaks,
and not unexpected cast changes (even Conrad took a turn as Jean). Price
was a big star now, commanding top dollar, but again due to popular
demand, he was paid to reprise his classic role at the microphone in
1956 and 1958. Almost universally, the 1956 show seems to be considered
the best preserved in sound quality; however, it is the March 1950 Price
version that is considered the finest rendition.
A
great part of the reason why Three Skeleton Key remains indelible
in so many memories is the outstanding sound effects created by the
legendary Cliff Thorsness, a man who could “conjure a world before your
very ears.” Assisted at different times by David Light, Carl Schaele,
Bill Gould, Gus Bayz and Jack Sixsmith, Thorsness and his group won
the highest award for sound effects at the time for creating the “hundreds,
no thousands, no millions, I don’t know, and endless undulating carpet
of enormous rats!” that “took over the entire lighthouse … devouring
all of our food supply, our water, our leather.”
Thorsness
passed away in 2002, but in 2001, when One Act announced our intention
to create a new Three Skeleton Key, his friend and “protégé”
Tony Palermo contacted us and graciously passed along some of Cliff’s
secrets behind creating these unforgettable horrific creatures. For
fans and producers of audio theatre, it is comforting to know that Cliff’s
irreplaceable collection of sound effects equipment (don’t call it “Foley”)
now resides in the Museum of Television and Radio where it is still
used today.
For
the One Act production of Three Skeleton Key, we elected to
quiet the piece down, and in this way it most definitely is more “modern”
than an old time radio “recreation”. This is underlined by the sparse
and haunting score composed and performed for us by John Clark Stiefel.
Stiefel’s music perfectly captures the lonely isolation of the lighthouse
and its occupants’ confrontation with a ghastly grim reaper, arriving
in the form of a vast multitude of starving rats.
So
in the words of our friend, Claude McAlistair, “sit back, relax, and
turn off the lights … if you dare.”
