The Philco Television Playhouse (1948)
The Philco Television Playhouse is an American anthology series that was broadcast live on NBC from 1948 to 1955. Produced by Fred Coe, the series was sponsored by Philco. It was one of the most respected dramatic shows of the Golden Age of Television, winning a 1954 Peabody Award and receiving eight Emmy nominations between 1951 and 1956.
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Episode 1 - Marcia Akers
Release Date: 1951-10-21A young woman has an unhealthy desire to get ahead, climbing the social ladder and stepping on people along the way. She's set to marry a wealthy man--just what's always wanted--when she finds herself in love with a "regular guy".
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Episode 2 - The Education of a Fullback
Release Date: 1951-11-04A comedy on the foibles of campus activities about a professor who can't understand why a football hero shouldn't be given an unsatisfactory grade especially when he slept thru the classes.
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Episode 3 - A Little Night Music
Release Date: 1951-11-18Elizabeth Chapin is the belle of the town who is now approaching 40 as a spinster music teacher.
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Episode 4 - Incident at Golden's Creek
Release Date: 1951-12-02An Iron Curtain delegation is marooned in a small mid-western town.
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Episode 5 - Perspective
Release Date: 1951-12-16The play suggested by the career of Hans VanMergeren called the master art forger.
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Episode 6 - The Sisters
Release Date: 1951-12-30The lives of two sisters are disrupted by a psychopath who appears claiming to be their godson.
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Episode 7 - Without Fear or Favor
Release Date: 1952-01-13Modern day corruption investigations (film of the Kefauver investigation is shown) has a parallel in 1870s New York, where the New York Times crusades against the crooks in City Hall headed by Boss Tweed and his thieving cronies, which included judges, police officials and even the Mayor.
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Episode 8 - Segment
Release Date: 1952-01-27During a convention, a visiting family takes a hotel room. The father and Mother get ready while the daughter leaves. The wife nagging pushes the man over the edge and he is determined to kill her after he makes her listen to his list of reasons she's been cruel to him. Meanwhile police try to talk him out of it, and watch him with a television camera across the street.
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Episode 9 - Rich Boy
Release Date: 1952-02-10This well-received adaptation of the 1924 F. Scott Fitzgerald short story starred Gene Lyons as rich playboy Anson Hunter, who realizes too late that he has wasted his life by allowing the one woman he truly loved (Kelly) to slip out of his grasp.
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Episode 10 - Tender Age
Release Date: 1952-02-24The tragic aspects of the so-called "lost generation" of the 20's is told.
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Episode 11 - Dusty Portrait
Release Date: 1952-03-09A tragic story of an innocent victim of justice based entirely on circumstantial evidence.
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Episode 12 - The Best Laid Schemes
Release Date: 1952-03-23Boy can we relate to this PLOT TWIST from back in the 40's. Doctors are helpless in dealing with an epidemic that hits New York City. The answer is provided by an exterminator.
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Episode 13 - The Room Next Door
Release Date: 1952-04-05A social-climbing couple scheme to find a mate for their unromantic inclined daughter. She however prefers an unstable piano player over an established member of the tea and crumpet set, things build up with a tragic ending.
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Episode 14 - The Basket Weaver
Release Date: 1952-04-19The story of the marine assault on Iwo Jima leads a former veteran into a crackup with a bullying personality increased by a personal crisis.
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Episode 15 - We Were Children
Release Date: 1952-05-04A close knit family learns that a man who was the son of their family gardener is related to them thru an indiscretion.
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Episode 16 - A Cowboy for Chris
Release Date: 1952-05-18A little boy's infatuation for a cowboy who boards at his home and another boarder who attempts to disillusion the child.
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Episode 17 - A Man's Game
Release Date: 1952-06-01A big league manager travels to Alabama to scout catcher Chub Evans but signs Evans' fireball pitching sister instead.
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Episode 18 - Flight into Darkness
Release Date: 1952-06-15A psychological drama about two brothers obsessed with the idea that he is going insane and later that his brother, a doctor is going to murder him.
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Episode 19 - The Monument
Release Date: 1952-06-29A reporter has undertaken the biography of a Confederate general to get the authentic version of his heroism at Bull Run.
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Episode 20 - A Letter to Mr. Priest
Release Date: 1952-07-13The camera becomes you and you become the narrator as the camera becomes a person and unfolds the story. Nelson Olmsted is the voice.
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Episode 21 - Bratt Farrar
Release Date: 1952-07-27No Not Brett Favre- Brat Farrar has been carefully coached to assume the identity of Patrick Ashby, heir to the Ashby fortune who disappeared when he was 13.
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Episode 22 - The Five Fathers of Pepi
Release Date: 1952-08-10A young war orphan is taken in by five men living along the Italian Riviera. Their hope is to find a wealthy American couple who will adopt Pepi and give him a proper upbringing. When the time comes to give the tyke up.
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Episode 23 - Three Sundays
Release Date: 1952-08-24A criminal brings scandal to the family of a dead intelligence officer but eventually confesses his shoddy motives for creating the affair and absolves the dead man.
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Episode 24 - The Last Hour
Release Date: 1952-09-07A woman is on trial for espionage and has but a few hours to prove her innocence.
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Episode 25 - Holiday Song
Release Date: 1952-09-14The night before Rosh Hashonah, a cantor suffers a spiritual crisis. That same night, he is sent by someone to see a rabbi out in Brooklyn, A mysterious train station attendant gives him directions after which he stops a woman from committing suicide because she is despondent over the death of her husband in the war. On his way home, the cantor meets up with the husband. He thought his wife had died. The cantor reunites them. After trying to find the station guard, the cantor learns that no one has ever worked there fitting the man's description. thus the cantor realizes that some sort of 'celestial conductor' must have had a hand in the matter. His faith restored, the cantor is able to resume his life's work.