Showing results by author "Les Crutchfield" in All Categories

Set in Dodge City, Kansas, during the thriving cattle days of the 1870s, the Gunsmoke radio show was routinely called by radio drama enthusiasts “the best show of any kind and any time”. For nine years from 1952 to 1961, Gunsmoke dominated the airwaves as it portrayed the epic legend of the American West. The lead character of Marshall Matt Dillon, as played by William Conrad, was called the “Philip Marlowe of the Old West”. Besides Conrad, the superb supporting cast included Parley Baer as Chester, Howard McNear as Doc Adams, and Georgia Ellis as Miss Kitty.

Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure radio dramas, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 to September 25, 1954. Featuring tales of science fiction and suspense, these episodes are full of thrilling stories that follow valiant protagonists involved in life or death situations.

An excellent story about the last voyage of an old freighter, her sick captain, and the strange Dr. Percival. You are trapped aboard an ill-fated ocean liner, captained by a dying man, whilst a mysterious stranger, haunting you, menacing you, seems intent on sending you to destruction...

You are making your way over the Great Indian Desert alone and dying of thirst, while behind you, pursuing you as a fanatical cop is he who once bowed to you as king and now calls for your life....

An excellent radio drama about three escaped convicts on a raft, and of their savage companion, a cannibal! New Maya in the South Pacific - to a generation of French criminals, two words to be uttered in the same terrified breath with Devils Island. The penal colony at New Maya, where the cutthroats, sadists, and the dregs of the French society were sent to a living death. Tonight, you are invited to escape from Maya in John Russell’s story, The Fourth Man.

The classic story about the bloke who could. In this tale you are crouched in the middle of an immense hurricane. Houses, animals, trees sweeping past you, and you suddenly realize that you have tampered with the Universe, that you are bringing about the destruction of the World. Lovely British accents in this tale with a message. A delightful little story that is far from the typical Escape style of thriller. Escape with us now to a placid English village in the company of an equally placid little man who one day shook the world as HG Wells told it in his story.

A fascinating adventure with a strange assortment of characters who live inside New York's department stores. You are groping in the midnight dimness of a gigantic department store and suddenly you realize that a hundred eyes are staring at you from the shadows and a hundred hands are reaching for your throat and your most urgent desire is to...escape! Based on the eerie short story Evening Primrose.

A whole train has vanished. Where is it?

Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you Escape - designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half-hour of high adventure! This episode is an excellent story about a band of Nazi deserters in the Sahara Desert, determined to become kings of "The Empire of the Niger".

Tired of the everyday grind? Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure? Want to get away from it all? We offer you Escape - designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half-hour of high adventure! This episode is an action-packed Western about the first Colt six-shooter, the California gold fields, and a double-crossing dance hall queen.

Not a mere reading, you will hear wraiths howl, the dead walk, and the massive old house of Usher fall in this unique new audio dramatization. This presentation is based on a classic radio script written by veteran scripter Les Crutchfield (who some sources consider a pseudonym for the then blacklisted screen writer Dalton Trumbo) and originally presented on the popular radio series Escape on the night of October 22, 1947.

A complex but exciting tale of intrigue on the trans-Balkan Railroad. You're aboard the Orient Express rushing through the European night, bound for Istanbul and in your compartment with you, a gun pointed at your head, a small, mysterious stranger is about to take your life.

A mountain guide finds a hidden valley where no one has eyes. However, the blind think that he is deformed. Zebarra is a mining engineer in Ecuador near the towering Andes. Up until a year ago his chief sport was mountaineering. His last climb was an attempt to climb the remote and forbidding peak of Parascotopetl, the 20,000-foot crag unconquered by man. It is unconquered still. 3,000 feet from the icy summit his party turned back and fled for their lives all escaping except for one, a guide named Nunez who slipped and fell over the precipice disappearing in to the vast chasm.

A determined man battles even more determined insects in the tropical jungles. You are isolated on a remote plantation in the crawling Amazon Jungle and an immense army of ravenous ants is closing in on you - swarming in to eat you alive. A deadly black army from which there is no escape.

The fascinating story about the home life of the richest family in the world. In a country as large as the US there are many odd and wonderful corners hidden away, but none more fabulous and wonderful than the one conceived in the imagination of F. Scott Fitzgerald and located in the pages of his famous short story of the same name. It is described in the words of John Unger, 20 years old, impressionable and quite willing to swear to the truth of this strange affair.