If Freedom Failed (ep11) No Escape (Mala Powers, Raymond Burr)

10 months ago
22

If Freedom Failed is a 26-episode series produced by the Armed Forces Radio Service in 1951. It presents a series of alternate-history stories of American life under a Cold War-era Communist regime.
Just like Frank Capra's Why We Fight film series helped our boys to understand why we needed to defeat the enemy in WWII, soldiers who would fight in the Cold War needed to be told why the Commies were such a threat. One effort was the If Freedom Fails series on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service.

Just as AFRN had during the War, AFRTS was able to tap considerable acting talent for the If Freedom Failed series, including Gregory Peck, Raymond Burr, Mark Stevens, and Richard Whitmore. The series takes place in the imaginary town of Springfield and describes what it would be like to live in a typical American town if the communists took over.

In the first episode, Gregory Peck plays a museum director who does not worry what the commissars might direct because everything in the museum represents well-known facts. However, it seems that the Communists who are running things now are more than willing to change the facts to suit their message. In another episode, a group of professional baseball players must face their fate when they are not willing to lay down in front of the Soviet ball team in the first "real World Series".

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