Bruce MacFarlane

Alcoa Theatre is a half-hour American anthology series telecast on NBC at 9:30 pm on alternate Monday nights from October 7, 1957 to September 16, 1960. The program also aired under the title Turn of Fate, with the stories depicting the difficulties faced by individuals who are suddenly thrust into unexpected and perilous dangers. Alcoa Theatre was syndicated together with Goodyear Theatre as Award Theatre. In 1955, The Alcoa Hour premiered in a one-hour format aired on Sunday nights, but it was reduced to 30 minutes, retitled Alcoa Theatre, and moved to Monday evening in 1957. The show employed an alternating rotating company of actors: David Niven, Robert Ryan, Jane Powell, Jack Lemmon and Charles Boyer. Each appeared in dramatic and light comedic roles through the first season.

Torchy Blane and Steve McBride try to nab a gangster by tracking his moll.

Two millennia ago, a Lybian king has a basilisk (snake-shaped dragon), which petrifies people, subjected to the same fate with a golden scepter during a solar eclipse. Both these and several victims are dug up by modern archaeologist Harrison 'Harry' McColl's expedition. Despite a cryptic warning from tribal locals, everything goes to his Colorado university's museum. It's all exhibited during another eclipse, which leads to the monster reviving. Harry and some of his friends must try to petrify the monster again.

Gangster and cop killer Jack Martin is on the run from the law, and hides out in a small town. Low on funds, he engineers a clever bank robbery that yields him a big bundle. Now he has not only the cops and the FBI after him, but also the local crime boss, who's outraged that an outsider can pull off a heist like that in his territory and not cut him in on it.

The father of a star football player at Annapolis wants his son to follow the family pattern and join the Marines.

Dan Frazier is a U. S. Border Patrolman on the California-Mexico border whose hot temper and ready-fists keep him in trouble, both of which indirectly lead to the death of a fellow trooper. He resigns from the force in order to find out who was responsible. He believes it was a gang of smugglers, engaged in smuggling illegal aliens into the United States from Mexico, and in order to get inside the gang he fakes smuggling activities.

After being mistaken for Scotland Yard detectives, two vaudevillians (Michael Whalen, Chick Chandler) try to solve a murder in a Midwestern town.

After Pat Garrett kills Billy the Kid, Billy's look-alike Roy Rogers arrives and is mistaken for him. Although a murderer, Billy was on the side of the homesteaders against the large ranchers. As Billy's death is unknown, Roy gets Garrett to let him pose as Billy to continue the fight, but without the killing.

A Texas Ranger (Roy Rogers) and his pals come out of forced retirement to do what the cavalry cannot.

A recently retired fire captain suffers from boredom, until one of his friends is killed battling an arson fire. It becomes his purpose in life to track down the arsonist. As he gets closer to finding the killer, things become dangerous for him and his family.

Trying to get into a big Broadway show, a nightclub singer pretends she's a glamorous foreign star.