Roger, a condemned man, is driven to the prison in handcuffs with a guard beside him, while his thoughts drift between dread and fantasy. Escape presents this psychological drama in present tense, written by James Poe and starring Vincent Price, as part of the Escape series, which first aired on January 31, 1950. The narrator recalls a crime that haunts him and imagines a bold plan to cheat the state of its punishment. His mind moves through vivid, disordered scenes of confusion, fear, and a desire for freedom. The story is told largely from inside his head, blurring what he remembers with what he imagines.
The transcript of “096- Present Tense -1”, an episode of Escape first broadcast January 31, 1950. Press a time to play from that line (a 60-second preview; Potato Plus plays it all). Escape plays Escape free, live around the clock. Search inside this transcript.
Transcript
I'm Alex X30. Third of the everyday routine. Ever dream of a life of romantic adventure. Wanna get away from it all? We offer you... Escape! Escape! Designed to free you from the four walls of today for a half hour of high adventure.
Tonight, we escape into the mind of a man who has been sentenced to die. A man who attempts to refuse the bitter fate society has imposed upon him. As James both tells it in his seething tale of violent death, present tense, starring Vincent Price.
Dark land wheels away, and the hills beyond below the stars of black and sharp. Dead hill, cold steel below my feet, cold as the face of the officer at my side, cold as the cuffs which link my arm to his, which join us on this journey to the prison, where I die.
Want to see Ray? No. Go on, take one. No, I don't use them. Has this happened to you before? What? Being handcuffed to a murderer? Has it happened to you before? Sure, plenty time. To an axe murderer?
Yeah, there's nothing special, brother. That's the guy's axe there. Why? Lots of them. I hate to ask for it to happen, but I didn't. And now it's too late. Late. Late, ever too late. Never too late, too late, too late.
The train would be wrecked. If the detective were to be killed... The light is capable, the cross is shaped. The darkness, who am I?
The cars must have gone down the cover. There are no lights, no people in pain. This thing will fasten to my wrist Went halfway through the glass of the door. Keeps back from his blood.
…
Sweet sorrow with summer nights coming. By the authority bell, the night of the night. by the authority vested in me by the state of California. I pronounce this man dead. Escape is produced and directed by William N. Robeson. Tonight we have presented present tense by James Poe,
starring Vincent Price as Roger. Featured in the cast were Charles McGraw as Fred Snead, Joan Banks as Mary, Mrs. Mary, Harry Bartel is the doctor, and Van Wright is pollen. Also heard were Tom Tully, William Lally, Jeff Corey, and Paul Freeze.
Special music was arranged and conducted by Dale Castillo. Next week. Alone at the controls of an experimental rocket aircraft, about to be hurled 40 miles out from the Earth's surface into the limitless boundaries of space, into a nothingness from which there may be no escape.
Next week we escape with Graham Doar's imaginative and widely discussed story of a rocket pilot who receives the strangest and most terrible warning in the history of man, the outer limit. Goodbye then until this same time next week, when once again we offer you... escape.
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