In just a moment, Auto Light presents Suspense with Jimmy Cagney.
Harlow, tonight I understand we have an Auto Light Suspense special.
Every bit as special as your star performance as the Auto Light Resistor Spark Plug Maestro.
Is that a plug for me or for my favorites Auto Light Resistor Spark Plugs have?
Well, with no offense to either Harlow, it's neither.
Tonight Jimmy Cagney and Auto Light and Suspense are dramatizing one of our great American tragedies.
It's so tremendous a problem it warrants our entire nation warring against its grimness and the grim reaper who is its symbol.
Tonight's Suspense story will remind you to drive carefully behind Auto Light Resistor Spark Plugs or any other, Harlow.
Then let's join the Auto Light audience and listen.
Suspense.
Auto Light and its 60,000 dealers and service stations bring you Radio's outstanding theater of thrills.
Starting tonight, Mr. James Cagney in Anton Leder's production of No Escape.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
The only thing I can do now is tell you how it happened without any bunk.
I don't care what you've heard or read about me. I'm not a devil or a mad dog.
I don't know what people think happens to a fella. Do they think all of a sudden I turned into stone?
I'm no different than anybody else. If I don't eat I get hungry. If I cut myself shaving I bleed.
I'm just like the next guy and that's the whole idea.
This, this it happened to me sure but it would have happened to anybody.
It could have happened to you.
It was supposed to have been one of them days you circle on the calendar with a red pencil.
You see with a little town like ours 23 miles from the big city right on the main highway we get the speed artists going both ways.
Yeah and every couple of days they manage to leave something behind to remember them by.
Like a kid with a broken back or well, well you get the idea.
So a couple of years ago the Chamber of Commerce started a safety campaign to name the safest driver of the year.
Something to kind of keep the guys in their toes and this year the fella they chose for the award was yours truly.
And tonight was the big doings with a few well chosen words from me a lad who was a public speaker was a wonderful bus driver.
I got to the house a little after six. Teddy my kid brother was just leaving.
Hi you big shot.
Hello.
Ladies and gentlemen in this corner the world's champion driver.
That's me all right.
Hey that's a swell picture of you in the paper. You don't look so bad for an older man.
Quiet or I'll beat your ears in.
Say Eve called to say you should wear your blue suit and try to look human.
That I would like to see.
Me too.
Sorry I can't wait though. I'm late for a date.
I'll see you in the morning and you can tell me how you slayed.
All right Ted so long.
I gave myself the words shower shave the blue suit like the lady said.
Eve looked after me like I was at least five years old.
I didn't mind a bit.
Ever since Ma died in 42 I kept the house going for Teddy because a kid needs something like that.
But he was getting out of school in June and then maybe Eve and I.
Well it was nice thinking about it.
So nice that I guess I forgot all about the time that was passing.
Yeah.
Look slow motion you should be halfway over here by now.
Okay Eve honey got the speech ready.
Yes but if you don't get moving you'll be making that speech to a bunch of empty chairs and dirty plates.
Yes mama be right over.
Eve lived outside of town.
I'd really have to step on it to pick her up and spend some time rehearsing the speech.
And then get to the high school auditorium by eight.
I got into the car and I decided to take the canyon road through the hills where there wasn't any traffic.
I could make better time that way.
Now wait wait wait just a second.
Let me get my thoughts together.
I got to get this part exactly right.
You've got to see it just like it happened or else it's all a waste of time.
All right.
I was on the canyon road that wound up through the steep hills.
The wall of the mountain on one side of the road and the deep canyon on the other.
About about ten to seven but already dark.
Nobody on the road but me so I stuck pretty close to the middle.
And every time at every turn the scream of the tires.
But I wasn't worried about that.
Four brand new tires hardly a week old and good brakes.
I never take chances with things like that.
Going about about 50 miles an hour maybe a little bit better.
But I was all alone on the road so what difference did it make.
I was maybe two thirds of the way up to the top right where the road makes a wide curve.
I remember I put a cigarette in my mouth and I pushed the dashboard lighter in.
I heard the lighter click and I started reaching for it.
And then a pair of headlights blazing out of nowhere.
And then a screeching horn.
A car coming the other way.
I felt my inside double up like a fist.
I slammed my foot on the brake.
Swung the steering wheel to the right.
I didn't feel anything hit and I thought oh God it's going to be OK.
I jammed on the emergency.
I jerked the door open.
I looked back.
The road was empty.
I still heard the horn but far away and another sound too like a bunch of empty crates topping over and over.
And at first it didn't register with me.
For maybe half a second I just stood there wondering what happened.
Then I saw the reflection of the flame lighting up the whole canyon.
I went to the side of the road and looked down.
The car was about 500 feet below.
Burning.
And the horn still blasting away like the driver's body had fallen against it.
I started down the canyon.
It was almost straight down.
I fell and I rolled and I came to my feet again.
Why didn't that horn stop?
Why didn't it stop?
And then it did stop.
And I realized that I had stopped.
I had stopped too.
What was I waiting for?
To get my wind that's all.
I went down another few feet.
And then I stopped again.
Holding myself against the tree.
Come on.
Come on Harry.
Get going.
No.
What good would it do to go down there?
It couldn't help who I was in that car.
It was too late.
Nobody could help.
Far down the road I saw another pair of headlights starting the long climb.
I went back to my car.
I told myself I was going for help.
I drove on to the top of the hill.
There was a little gas station up there.
They had a phone.
I was almost there.
An old fellow in white overalls was putting around the pumps.
I started slowing down.
My whole life was about to be smashed.
I'd have to tell them the truth.
And what good would it do?
What about Eve?
What about my kid brother Teddy?
He was more important than a man's own family.
I'd reached the gravel driveway to the gas station.
The old guy heard me coming and started straightening up.
Now, now, I swung back onto the highway and pushed the accelerators to the floor.
I got to Eve's house a little before 7.30.
It was funny.
I thought I was okay until I reached for the door handle.
And then my finger seemed to go dead and my heart stopped.
It started going a mile a minute.
Harry? Is that you?
That's me.
I'm sorry.
Sorry I'm late, Eve.
Where in heaven's name have you been?
Honestly, if you aren't the most aggravi...
Harry Graham.
What?
Look at you.
You look like you've been run through a threshing machine.
Yeah, I know.
Let's go in and out. I'll clean up a little.
What in the world happened?
I had a flat tire. I had to change it on the road.
Flat tire? Oh, fine.
All right, wait right here.
I'll get the Whist Room.
Of all things to happen tonight...
All right, all right.
Happen. Lay off, will you?
Harry.
I'm sorry.
Well, don't just stand there.
While I'm doing this, take your comb out and start combing your hair.
Took my comb out and turned toward the whole mirror.
Funny.
I didn't look any different than yesterday or the day before that.
I was still Harry Graham.
After... after Eve finished with me, we went back to the car.
Get in.
I tell you what, you're so upset anyhow.
Why don't you let me drive into town?
Okay, if you want to.
See, now I turn left to the next block, don't I, for the Canyon Road?
Canyon Road?
Yes, we can save some time going that way.
No, no.
Huh?
No, no, I don't want to go to Canyon Road.
I want you to go the regular way.
But we're going to be late.
Do what I tell you. I'll drive the car myself.
But, Harry, we always...
Do what I tell you, Eve.
All right.
I don't have to bite my head off.
What have you got against Canyon Road?
It's... it's too dangerous at night.
Well, all I've got to say is that when they picked you for the safest driver of the year, Harry Graham, they really hit the jackpot.
We got to the high school auditorium just a couple of minutes late.
But it turned out we weren't the only ones late.
We got to the main table and I saw that the chair next to mine was empty.
Police Chief Blake, who was supposed to introduce me for my speech, hadn't showed up yet.
And they...
Then when the dinner was ended, Chief Blake came through the door and he looked awfully.
He went over to the chairman of the meeting and whispered something, pointing at me.
And then... then he started for me and I... I thought my heart would quit beating.
I was looking for a way to escape, maybe when...
Hello, Harry.
Oh, hello, Chief.
Hello.
Folks, folks, please.
I'm sorry I'm so late.
I've just come from Canyon Road.
Another terrible accident.
The car went over the canyon, four people killed and burned.
Oh, my God.
We still haven't gotten them out of the wreckage.
It looks like they were forced off the road.
Another dirty hit-and-run case.
Oh, that's terrible.
My boys are up there now looking for traces of this other car.
I don't have to tell you that we're gonna keep on looking till we find out who it was.
That's why I had one of my boys bring me back to town here to this meeting tonight.
Because now it's even more important to let a fellow like our friend Harry Graham here
know we appreciate his good work and wish to the Saints that were more like him.
As after what I just saw on Canyon Road, I'm really proud of Harry Graham.
For Suspense, Auto Light is bringing you Mr. James Cagney in Radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Suspense.
This show hits with the zing of a set of auto light resistor spark plugs.
It gets me right between the optics.
I know. I've been doing a little research.
Yes?
The frigid facts on faulty driving should dispel the optical illusions of any automobile driver
foolish enough to relax his vigilance for one single moment.
Every 30 seconds, a man is about to see the
man, woman, or child is injured on our streets or highways.
This year, 32,300 people are doomed to death.
By Cornelius Hap, I never stopped to realize.
You know, Harlow, it takes 10 seconds and 336 feet to stop a car traveling at 60 miles an hour.
That's why brains are more important than brakes.
Why the man behind the wheel should be aware of the speed at which he's driving.
Why safe and sane are synonymous with the speed of the car.
And synonymous words to drivers who value their fellow's lives as well as their own.
In other words, Hap, just because auto light resistor spark plugs give your car more pep,
don't try to use all of it, eh?
Exactly, Harlow. But there's more.
The good Samaritan is the gracious guy or gal who not only knows and keeps the rules of the road,
but also keeps his temper in his head when some bungling Benny gives him the hog, the road hog treatment.
Yes, Hap, it's sad but true that one right way to wrong driving is to always demand your highway rights.
Be sure to be safe.
Right, Harlow. And now let's get back to suspense.
And now auto light brings back to our Hollywood sound stage Mr. James Cagney as Harry in No Escape.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
I had to keep my eyes on the table. I couldn't even look at the chief as he stood there praising me.
All I could see was that burning wreck at the foot of the cliff.
And all I could hear was that awful horn blowing.
I had to bite my lips to keep him screaming, I did it.
Harry. Harry.
What? Oh, what?
Open your feet, son. We'd like to hear a few words from you.
Look, look, look, look, chief, folks. I don't think anybody wants to listen to me tonight. Please, let's forget it.
No, Harry. Now more than ever we should hear what a fellow like you has to say.
Come on, Harry. Say a few words.
But listen, listen.
Go on, Harry.
Oh, well, all right. I'm afraid I'm no great shakes as a speech maker. Just a lucky thing my girl's a good English teacher.
I don't believe we should honor a man for safe driving any more than we should honor him because he's never killed anyone with a gun.
When a man gets behind the wheel of a car, he doesn't give up his responsibilities to his fellow men.
No one can escape the responsibility of being his brother's keeper.
And that goes for, that goes for, that's...
Harry, what's wrong?
Listen to me. How can I stand up here and read a speech after what, after what Chief Blake just told us?
No, I can't do it. I'm sorry. I can't do it.
I guess Harry's right after all, folks. I guess maybe we just better call the meeting off.
I know I've got to get back to Canyon Road as soon as I can.
Come on, Eve. Come on. Let's get out of here.
All right, honey.
Oh, Harry.
Yeah, Chief.
You can do me a big favor. A fellow brought me down here. I had to beat it right back to the accident.
Oh, so?
I've got to get back there myself right away. Can you give me a lift?
Well, I sure like to, Chief, but well, I've got to, I've got to get Eve home.
Well, you could take me home by the way to Canyon Road. We've gone that way before, honey.
But I'd be much obliged to you, Harry.
Well, you see, Chief...
Harry!
Okay, okay. Let's go.
It's too bad the meeting had to end like this.
When I have a hunch, you feel like I do, Harry.
Like you can't sit still until you find the rat who killed those people.
Well, I promise you this, Harry. Whoever he is, we'll get him.
Oh, yeah. Wasn't that one for the book?
Less than two hours after my accident with the other car going over into the canyon,
I was back on Canyon Road.
Only this time with Eve sitting behind me and the Chief of Police in back.
Harry, if you don't mind could you step on it a little bit?
I promise you I won't give you a ticket.
Okay, Chief.
Honey, push the lighter in, will you?
The lighter?
For my cigarette.
Oh, sure, sure.
This speed better, Chief?
Harry hates this road. I wanted him to take it earlier tonight.
It's all right if you got good tires.
You don't have to worry about that.
Had four brand new ones put on just last week.
Oh, here's your light, Eve.
Eve.
Huh? Oh, thanks.
Her voice didn't sound right. Her voice didn't sound right.
Then I remembered.
When I picked her up tonight, I heard a voice.
When I picked her up tonight, I told her the reason I was so messed up was that I had to change a tire.
She was thinking about that now.
I knew she was, trying to figure out why I'd lied to her.
Nobody said anything after that.
When we reached the part of the road just before it made the big bend, I started slowing down.
I hope I got you here quick enough, Chief.
Yeah, you did fine.
Is this where it was?
Yeah, just around this bend.
Yeah, that's right.
But how did...
Huh?
Nothing.
Again, again, I'd said the wrong thing.
What was the matter with me?
How was I supposed to know that that axon was around the bend?
I was cutting my own throat, but now...
Now I'd made the turn and there was the red flares burning on the road...
and a big crash truck at the edge of the canyon...
and police cars blocking the highway.
Just pull over the side, Harry.
Okay.
They're coming down there, Fraser.
Hello, Chief.
You're ready to start bringing them up soon.
That's a walkie-talkie he's working with?
Yeah, he keeps contact with the men down the canyon.
Say, Harry, why don't you come along with me and really see how we work here?
Oh, thanks, but I've got to get Yvonne home.
The schoolteachers have got to get up early, isn't that right, Basie?
I don't mind waiting if you'd like to stay.
Huh?
Come along, Harry.
I don't mind waiting, Harry.
Now...now it was me against all of them.
Oh, I was sick about that car down there in the canyon, those four bodies inside.
But, well, nothing could change that now.
And I was fighting for my own life.
And they wouldn't break me down.
I stood with my foot on the bumper and Chief Blake...
leaning against the fender of my car...
while his boys gave their reports about the hit-and-run car...
and didn't bother me a bit.
Two of them told about the plastic cars they'd made of a tire mop they'd found on the road.
Uh, does it help you any, Chief?
Uh, not much, Harry. No tire.
A lot of people have new tires.
You, for instance.
Hmm.
I kicked my new front tire for them, kicked it hard.
They brought over an old fellow in white overalls.
The guy in the service station where I'd almost turned in to report the accident.
The chief asked him if he thought the car he'd seen was a hit-and-run.
It must have been just about that time, you know...
the way this fellow skidoodled away for no reason at all.
I don't know what kind of a car it was, though.
A black sedan, I'd say.
Like this one, maybe?
Well, might be. Might be that.
But there's two darks, to be sure.
Well, first thing tomorrow, I'm gonna get myself a green convertible.
Yeah.
And everybody got a good laugh out of that, but I would have to be careful.
Mustn't go too far.
It was me against all of them, and I felt the kind of excitement...
that a guy might get from walking a tightrope.
Thinking back now, sure seems screwy, but that's how I felt.
And maybe that is the worst thing that happens to a guy in my spot.
The way it turns you into a wild animal against the world.
All right, Charlie.
Chief Blake.
There you are, Charlie.
There was the fellow with the walkie-talkie over near the crash truck.
We're ready to start bringing up the bodies.
Okay.
Come on, Harry. Let's go over.
Something flopped coldly in my stomach.
And then lay still.
This was the test.
If they didn't break me down now, they could never do it never in a million years.
All the people who had come up in the town started gathering around the crash truck.
I wanted to run and never stop running.
But I didn't move.
And just then...
The first body swung into view.
And you could hear everyone in the crowd suck in his breath.
And I bit down hard on my lip till I tasted blood.
The brown blanket wrapped neatly around something.
And then the bundle rested on the ground.
And everyone seemed to edge away from it like it could hurt them.
And the cable went down into the valley again.
And then there was a second bundle.
And then there was a third.
And then a fourth.
And over and over like a drum beat, like a prayer I told myself they wouldn't break me down.
And then someone pushed forward from the crowd.
Joe Mandel.
The little tailor.
He seemed shy and embarrassed as though he had no business being here.
Chief Blake.
Oh, yeah, Joe.
My boy, Philip.
He didn't come home for supper tonight.
You want to look?
Well, you know how a woman is.
Rose will feel better if I tell her, OK, I looked and it wasn't.
Well, you know.
All right, Joe.
Doesn't hurt none.
Thank you.
No.
I'd better go back to my house.
Sorry, Joe.
Wait a minute.
Yes.
Do you know who Phil was going to be with tonight?
His best friend was Mike Robock.
They were always together.
The Goldust twins.
Everybody called him.
Thanks, Joe.
Excuse me, Chief.
I must go to Rose now.
Fraser.
Yes, Chief.
Get back to town.
Go over the Robocks.
Don't tell them anything is wrong.
Just see if Mike's home.
OK.
I couldn't take anymore.
I started back for the car.
My legs felt like they weighed a ton.
I heard a sudden movement in the crowd behind me.
Oh, no.
Oh, my baby.
My baby.
They wouldn't break me down.
I opened the car door and Eve was there.
I'd almost forgotten her.
And I was sure she knew the truth.
They brought up all four?
Yeah.
Harry.
I don't want to hear anything now.
I'm taking you home.
Wait, Harry.
Listen, I'm telling you.
Kiss me, Harry.
What?
Hold me and kiss me.
I'm such a stupid fool.
Hold me.
All right, all right.
Now, now, stop it.
Stop it.
Harry.
I'm telling you, Harry.
If you knew what's been going through my mind.
Okay, okay.
Stop it.
I'm just a fool, a stupid fool.
And then when I saw you come back to the car, the look on your face.
Oh, Harry.
How could I have ever thought?
All right, all right.
Now, we'll talk about it later.
I'll never talk about it again.
Never, Harry.
So, it was all over with.
I was going to be okay.
God, I wasn't proud.
I felt rotten and sick.
And now that it was all over, the strength ran out of me like water running out of a glass.
But what good would it have been to crucify myself?
It wouldn't have changed anything.
I wasn't a bad guy.
It could have happened to anybody.
And now, now I was going to be able to take care of my own.
Eve and my kid brother Teddy.
Was that a bad guy?
A fellow who wanted to do right for his family?
I started the car.
I put in gear and then looking at me through the windows,
was Chief Blake signaling me to wait.
I turned the key off.
Well, whatever it was, I was very tired.
Come on out, Harry.
I've got to get Eve home.
Come on out of the car.
But, Harry, do like I tell you.
Come with me.
What do you want?
Come with me.
When you drove up here tonight, I didn't think it would end like this.
You know about it?
You, of all people, Harry.
Listen, you've got to believe me.
It shouldn't have happened to a fellow like you.
You've got to hear my side.
Right here, Harry.
Huh?
What are you...
Take a look at this fourth body.
Why should I?
Pull the blanket back, Harry.
Oh, no.
No.
Teddy.
So, that's it.
The whole works.
I don't care what you heard or read in the papers.
That's the story.
Just like it happened.
No bunk.
And thinking back, I guess I kind of hit the nail on the head in that speech that I made that night.
You know, that part about no man can ever escape the responsibility of being his brother's keeper.
Thank you, James Cagney, for a magnificent performance.
Mr. Cagney will return in just a moment.
Well, Hap, after that performance of Jimmy Cagney's and your heartfelt expressions on the rights and wrongs of the driving man,
it's hard to switch the conversation to auto light resistor spark plugs.
Well, Harlow, I'm sure you'll find a way.
Yes, I think I'll just say, friends, switch to a set of auto light resistor spark plugs just as quickly as you can swing into a service station.
When you replace your narrow gap spark plugs with wide gap auto light resistor spark plugs, your car will idle smoother,
give you better luck with lean gas mixtures, actually save you gas dollars.
What's more, auto light resistor spark plugs cut down spark plug interference with radio and television reception.
Switch to auto light resistor spark plugs today.
And remember, auto light means spark plug.
Ignition engineered resistor spark plug.
Auto light means batteries.
Stay full, batteries.
Auto light means ignition system.
The lifeline of your car.
And now here again is Mr. James Cagney.
It's always a pleasure to appear on suspense, but I was especially pleased when Tony Leader asked me to do tonight's story.
That's because I feel strongly about the kind of thing that happened to Harry Graham.
I believe that any person who gets behind the wheel of a car assumes a great responsibility to himself, to his family, to his fellow men.
That one moment of carelessness or recklessness or drunkenness can mean a lifetime of pain and misery for someone.
And it might be you or me.
Yes, when you're driving an automobile, we are our brother's keeper.
Over the holiday season and all the time.
Drive carefully.
Next week on radio's outstanding theater of thrills, Herbert Marshall will appear in a story with a Christmas atmosphere.
Another study in suspense.
James Cagney is now appearing in the photo play of William Saroyan's prize stage hit, The Time of Your Life.
Copies of tonight's suspense play, No Escape by Larry Marcus, will be available for educational use by groups interested in highway safety.
They may be obtained by writing Suspense, the Columbia Broadcasting System, Hollywood, California.
Music was composed by Lucian Morrowak and conducted by Lud Bluskin.
The entire production was under the direction of Anton M. Leeder.
In the coming weeks, Suspense will present such stars as Ronald Coleman, Robert Montgomery, Dana Andrews and Frank Sinatra.
Make it a point to listen each Thursday to Suspense, radio's outstanding theater of thrills.
And next Thursday same time, hear Herbert Marshall.
This is the Auto Light Suspense Show.
All right, Mr. Wilcox.
Auto Light and CBS wish to thank the radio editors and columnists of America for electing Suspense as the best mystery show in the annual balloting conducted by Motion Picture Daily for the magazine fame.
Good night. Switch to Auto Light.
This is CBS, the Columbia Broadcasting System.