Playhouse 90 (1956)
Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California. Since live anthology drama series of the mid-1950s were usually hour-long shows, the title highlighted the network's intention to present something unusual, a weekly series of hour-and-a-half dramas rather than 60-minute plays. Playhouse 90 began as a pitch by Frank Stanton—the formidable, forward-thinking right-hand man to CBS chairman William S. Paley—during a brainstorming session for program ideas. The project was ultimately developed by Hubbell Robinson, a CBS vice president who received no screen credit on Playhouse 90 but is often described as its creator.
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Episode 1 - The Plot to Kill Stalin
Release Date: 1958-09-25In late 1952, an aging and increasingly paranoid Stalin puts in motion a purge against his doctors, with anti-Semitic overtones. His lackeys, including Khrushchev, Molotov and Beria, fear it will spread to the Politburo, and plan to strike first.
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Episode 2 - Days of Wine and Roses
Release Date: 1958-10-02An alcoholic falls in love with and gets married to a young woman, whom he systematically addicts to booze so they can share his "passion" together.
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Episode 3 - The Time of Your Life
Release Date: 1958-10-09William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play revolves around the denizens of a San Francisco bar in 1939. Lonely, lovelorn, weary or cynical, the characters drift in and out of the bar and each other's lives, giving voice to Saroyan's philosophies as they randomly comment about the impending world war, the beauty of art, and traditional notions of good and evil.
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Episode 4 - The Long March
Release Date: 1958-10-16 -
Episode 5 - Shadows Tremble
Release Date: 1958-10-23An elderly immigrant tries to buy an old house in New England and is opposed by snobbish locals.
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Episode 6 - Word from a Sealed-Off Box
Release Date: 1958-10-30A courier for the Dutch Resistance is captured by the Nazis.
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Episode 7 - Heart of Darkness
Release Date: 1958-11-06A trading company manager travels up an African river to find a missing outpost head and discovers the depth of evil in humanity's soul.
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Episode 8 - Old Man
Release Date: 1958-11-20To fight a Mississippi flood in 1927, a prison farm releases some convicts.
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Episode 9 - The Return of Ansel Gibbs
Release Date: 1958-11-27After years in retirement, Ansel Gibbs is asked to return to government service.
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Episode 10 - Free Weekend
Release Date: 1958-12-04 -
Episode 11 - Seven Against the Wall
Release Date: 1958-12-11The story of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929.
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Episode 12 - The Nutcracker
Release Date: 1958-12-25This telecast of George Balanchine's famous production was broadcast only four years after it was premiered by the New York City Ballet. This was the only episode of the series televised in color.
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Episode 13 - Face of a Hero
Release Date: 1959-01-01 -
Episode 14 - The Wings of the Dove
Release Date: 1959-01-08An impoverished woman who has been forced to choose between a privileged life with her wealthy aunt and her journalist lover, befriends an American heiress. When she discovers the heiress is attracted to her own lover and is dying, she sees a chance to have both the privileged life she cannot give up and the lover she cannot live without.
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Episode 15 - The Blue Men
Release Date: 1959-01-15 -
Episode 16 - The Velvet Alley
Release Date: 1959-01-22Ernie Pandish has tried to be a writer for years and has never made much money out of it. But now he seems likely to hit the big-time.
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Episode 17 - A Quiet Game of Cards
Release Date: 1959-01-29A few friends meet each weekend for a quiet game of cards. But they're bored with poker and, in trying to find another diversion, gradually find themselves plotting a hypothetical murder. It is hypothetical, isn't it?
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Episode 18 - Child of Our Time
Release Date: 1959-02-05War deprives Tanguy of his childhood. When his mother returns to Spain to oppose the Franco regime, he is left in Nazi-occupied Marseilles, France.
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Episode 19 - The Second Man
Release Date: 1959-02-12 -
Episode 20 - The Raider
Release Date: 1959-02-19A corporate raider plans a hostile takeover. To stall him, pressure is put on a scientist to rush through a new type of engine before all necessary tests have been completed.
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Episode 21 - The Ding-A-Ling Girl
Release Date: 1959-02-26A housewife is offered a Hollywood contract. She'd rather stay home, but her husband has ambitions for her.
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Episode 22 - Made in Japan
Release Date: 1959-03-05A young soldier in occupied Japan after World War II falls in love with a lovely Japanese girl, but is horrified about what his prejudiced family in Philadelphia will think if he takes her home with him.
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Episode 23 - For Whom the Bell Tolls: Part 1
Release Date: 1959-03-12During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.
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Episode 24 - For Whom the Bell Tolls: Part 2
Release Date: 1959-03-19The completion of the mission has tragic consequences.
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Episode 25 - A Trip to Paradise
Release Date: 1959-03-26 -
Episode 26 - In Lonely Expectation
Release Date: 1959-04-02 -
Episode 27 - The Day Before Atlanta
Release Date: 1959-04-09 -
Episode 28 - Judgment at Nuremberg
Release Date: 1959-04-16In the later stages of the Nuremberg Trials, four German judges are accused of perverting the course of justice.
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Episode 29 - A Corner of the Garden
Release Date: 1959-04-23 -
Episode 30 - Dark December
Release Date: 1959-04-30During World War II, an army doctor struggles to convert a Franciscan monastery into a field hospital.
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Episode 31 - Diary of a Nurse
Release Date: 1959-05-07The daily emergencies and stresses of a major city's hospital ward as seen through the eyes of nurse Gail Lucas.
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Episode 32 - A Marriage of Strangers
Release Date: 1959-05-14Marry in haste, repent at leisure? Well, maybe.
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Episode 33 - Out of Dust
Release Date: 1959-05-21On a cattle drive across the prairie, the sons of a wealthy cattle baron plot his death.
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Episode 34 - The Rank and File
Release Date: 1959-05-28A powerful union leader is interrogated by a Senate committee.
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Episode 35 - The Killers of Mussolini
Release Date: 1959-06-04As the Salo Republic crumbles around him, Mussolini, along with his mistress and several of his ministers flee with retreating Nazi soldiers, but are caught at the town of Dongo by red partisans. All are brutally executed without trial.
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Episode 36 - Project Immortality
Release Date: 1959-06-11Key defense scientist Doner has cancer. Schramm is assigned to code Doner's thinking into a computer. He gets to know him as a friend, a husband and father. The project is successful, but he now knows identity is not programmable.
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Episode 37 - Dark as the Night
Release Date: 1959-06-18A British politician finds himself open to blackmail because of the indiscretion of his American wife.
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Episode 38 - The Second Happiest Day
Release Date: 1959-06-25A man about to be married recalls the day his life changed permanently.