Acting
Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.
On New Year's Eve 1946, Sheila Page kills her husband Barney. She wishes that she could relive 1946 and avoid the mistakes that she made throughout the year. Her wish comes true but cheating fate proves more difficult than she anticipated.
Captain Clive Branch, United States Marine Corps, is stationed at a Marine base in Haiti, and is having affairs with two women, Brenda Ritchie and Helen Arnold, each of whom is married to a Marine Captain. One of the husbands is murdered, and Branch, Helen and Brenda each find themselves high on the list of suspects.
An uncompromising, visionary architect struggles to maintain his integrity and individualism despite personal, professional and economic pressures to conform to popular standards.
Lawyer Joe Morse wants to consolidate all the small-time numbers racket operators into one big powerful operation. But his elder brother Leo is one of these small-time operators who wants to stay that way, preferring not to deal with the gangsters who dominate the big-time.
A series of misunderstandings leads to a chorus girl traveling to Paris to represent the American theater, where she falls in love with a befuddled bureaucrat.
A war veteran suffering from amnesia, returns to Los Angeles from a San Francisco veterans hospital hoping to learn who he is and discovers his criminal past.
In flashback from a 'Rebecca'-style beginning: Ellen Foster, visiting her aunt on the California coast, meets neighbor Jeff Cohalan and his ultramodern clifftop house. Ellen is strongly attracted to Jeff, who's being plagued by unexplainable accidents, major and minor. Bad luck, persecution...or paranoia? Warned that Jeff could be dangerous, Ellen fears that he's in danger, as the menacing atmosphere darkens.
Cowboy Ross McEwen arrives in town. He asks the banker for a loan of $2000. When the banker asks about securing a loan that large, McEwen shows him his six-gun collateral. The banker hands over the money in exchange for an I.O.U., signed "Jefferson Davis". McEwen rides out of town and catches a train, but not before being bitten by a rattler. On the train, a nurse, Miss Hollister, tends to his wound. A posse searches the train, but McEwen manages to escape notice. However a mysterious Mexican has taken note of the cowboy, and that loudmouthed brat is still nosing around. Who will be the first to claim the reward for the robber's capture?
A mad doctor named Zanoff uses a drug to bring himself back from the dead after his execution in prison. Dick Tracy sets out to capture Zanoff before he can put his criminal gang back together again.
"Kilroy Was Here" was a popular expression during World War II, but it's not much fun to John J. Kilroy, who has to try to live with all the jokes and wisecracks regarding his name.
Johnny One-Eye was adapted from one of Damon Runyon's lesser-known stories. Martin Martin and Dane Cory were former partners in crime who have long since split up. When a new district attorney puts the heat on, Cory, anxious to save his own hide, accuses Martin of an unsolved murder. Holed up in abandoned house, Martin is befriended by a little girl and her dog. It so happens that the girl is the daughter of the crusading DA, and thereby hangs the rest of this tale.
Joe Branch, reputed to be the son of Jesse James, comes riding into Coffeyville Kansas, looking for proof one way or the other regarding the question of who his father was.
Escaped Prisoner 39013 impersonates the rich and influential Horace Granville, allowing him to create a variety of disasters. Fortunately, he is thwarted repeatedly by three daring circus daredevils.
A doctor testing drugs on convicts gets mixed up in a murder investigation.
A Montana lawyer gets distracted after moving to California with his wife and children.
A perfumed message provides the only clue for a blind detective bent on clearing a man accused of murder.
Mildred Harker loses custody of her child in a messy divorce settlement. Leaving her hometown in disgrace, Mildred heads to New York, where after a crash course in the school of hard knocks she joins the chorus of a Ziegfeld-like musical revue. Now a full-fledged gold-digger, she enjoys the favors of backstage johnnies and elderly sugar daddies, but finally finds true love in the form of Park Avenue socialite Ted Willing.
Milton Haskins, a math genius known for his infallibility with numbers, quits his job with an insurance company when he discovers he made a mistake, and hooks up with a traveling carnival. His knowledge of mathematics makes him a natural as an assistant at the wheel of fortune. His fiancée begs him to return to his job but he refuses, so she joins the carnival and becomes a striptease artist. When Milton attempts to drag her off the stage, a brawling mêlée breaks out and the entire troupe is arrested by the local police. The carnival is sold but Milton reveals that the new owner has conspired to defraud the insurance company. The insurance company has to accept the carnival in lieu of the money owed, and they allow Milton and his fiancée, Vivian, to stay with and help run the carnival.
A small-town girl who's made it big in New York as a fashion model returns home, only to find that her somewhat dotty uncle has mortgaged his boarding house to the hilt. In her efforts to help him keep his boarding house, she becomes involved with a handsome young minister and his superior, an older bishop.
