Tired of the everyday grind?
Ever dream of a life of … romantic adventure?
Want to get away from it all?
We offer you … ESCAPE!
Escape (1947-1954) aired “Shark Bait” on July 14, 1950 as the show’s 119th episode. Not surprisingly, we have aired many episodes (35+) of this top-shelf program over the past 13 years, the last coming in June of this year (2022). A spinoff and sister show of the highly popular radio program Suspense (1942-62), Escape produced (according to one source) 251 episodes of which 241 were unique stories, plots, or scripts. Escape concentrated on adventure tales, some with an SF/F theme, though the straight adventure tale set in exotic locales was its meat and potatoes. Escape soon established itself with an even more focused approach to action and exotic adventure, dramatizing literary classics (from such as Rudyard Kipling, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Nelson Bond, Ray Bradbury, Eric Ambler, Jack London and others) while at the same time treating its audience to many brand new tales, a fair number of which have become radio classics. In fact, some of Escape‘s original shows were so well written, acted, and produced they were later reincarnated for episodes of Suspense.
While strangely not consistently supported by its host network CBS, that rarely gave advance notice of upcoming program titles and moved the show to different times and days willy-nilly no fewer than 18 times over its 7-year run, the show found a faithful audience, and continued to produce well-written scripts with many of the finest actors in radio.
“Shark Bait” brings to mind the 1937 Ernest Hemingway novel and the 1944 classic film made from the novel starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Walter Brennan, To Have and Have Not. While the particulars vary (the novel is set in Key West, Florida, for example), the broad outline of a fishing boat captain caught up in political intrigue is enough to make the comparison. In this radio play we are taken to Nicaragua during a time of unrest in the neighboring country of Honduras, where revolution has inevitably birthed an underground of gun-running, organized rebellion, and the usual violence and terror endemic to such movements. When our American fishing boat captain is forced into helping gun-runners rendezvous with their contact to receive a shipment of arms, things don’t go down as expected, and the drama is further heightened when an unforeseen double twist makes this a most interesting half hour of adventure radio. As for the title of this episode, please be forewarned if you are of a weak constitution, for it is definitely not a symbolic one, and proves a graphically depicted reality for a member of the crew for which there will be no…escape!
(“Shark Bait” is included in the Radio Archives CD linked at top.)
Play Time: 29:31
{“Shark Bait” aired on a Friday in the summer of 1950, in the middle of summer vacation for the neighborhood gang. It was no surprise, therefore, to find them at the corner newsstand on a Saturday morning in search of other stories full of adventure and possible danger. Adventure (1910-71) always supplied something different, and this issue held true. The cover story “Death at Gola Ghat” refers to a major city in one of the far northeastern states of India. Myanmar (formerly Burma) lies to its southeast, while Bangladesh lies to its southwest, and the story no doubt takes place in the period having to do with India’s fight for independence from British colonialism. Adventure was a monthly in 1950 though it managed only 11 issues, skipping its December issue. Future went through a number of slight title changes over its lifespan, though from 1950-54 its full title had become Future (combined with Science Fiction stories). Action and adventure were married to imaginative tales set around the cosmos, making for exciting reading for receptive minds both young and old. It was a bi-monthly in 1950. Thrilling Wonder Stories (1936-55) was a long-standing must-buy bi-monthly and showcased some of the most popular authors in the field (notice the cover below sporting names like Henry Kuttner and Jack Vance) with some of their most colorful and unforgettable work, many issues now considered highly collectible in huckster rooms at SF conventions.}
[Left: Adventure, July 1950 – Center: Future Jul/Aug 1950 – Right: Thrilling Wonder Stories Jul/Aug 1950]
To view the entire list of weekly Old Time Radio episodes at Tangent Online, click here.