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.
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
A romantic drifter gets caught between a corrupt tycoon and his voluptuous wife.
An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.
In Brooklyn circa 1900, the Nolans manage to enjoy life on pennies despite great poverty and Papa's alcoholism. We come to know these people well through big and little troubles: Aunt Sissy's scandalous succession of "husbands"; the removal of the one tree visible from their tenement; and young Francie's desire to transfer to a better school...if irresponsible Papa can get his act together.
Dick is faced with a series of brutal murders in which the victims, all from different social and economic backgrounds, are viciously slashed to pieces. Suspects abound but Tracy, getting a clue that there will be 15 murders in all, must find the common thread among the victims before more are killed.
After young Mary Gibson discovers that her older sister Jacqueline has disappeared, she leaves her boarding school and heads to New York City to track down her sibling. But Mary gets drawn deeper into the mystery.
In New York, Sheila Bennet and her spouse, Matt Krane, are trying to unload a trove of rare jewels they smuggled into America from Cuba, but the police are hot on the couple's trail. Meanwhile, government officials begin a desperate search for an unknown individual who is infecting the city with smallpox.
A woman uses a deck of cards to predict death within 24 hours for a stranger sitting at a bar, then tries to help him remember who he is based on items in his pockets.
Lupe Vélez plays a dual role, twin sisters Rita and Elaine. After escaping a torpedoed ship, Rita shows up in Manhattan, where she takes the place of her Broadway-star twin sister Elaine, who's having problems with her marriage and needs to make a getaway. Neither Elaine's husband or Rita's saxophone-player boyfriend are aware of the switch.
A theatre critic teams up with a cop to investigate the murder of a Broadway actor.
Lucky Jordan is a gangster living in New York City and when he's drafted into the army, he tries to escape duty by using an old con woman named Annie to convince the draft board he's needed at home. When that fails, Jordan is sent to boot camp, but he doesn't stay there long. He takes a beautiful USO worker hostage and flees back to New York. There, he learns that a rival gangster is plotting against America.
Charlie Dugan is a quick-thinking boss of a traveling circus playing small towns in Missouri and Kansas.
Story of a boy and his horse. Mike is the horse and is owned by Speck and his best friend Jimmy, together they have a paper route, on which they deliver papers to customers via a wagon pulled by Mike. Recently a horse track has been built in the area and attracts horse breeder and racer Colonel Whiteny. He takes out a subscription for delivery and meets Mike and Speck & Jimmy. Clever Jimmy talks both the Colonel and Speck into taking on the Colonel's pure bred race horses at the track with comedic results.
In this musical showcase, two aspiring stars attempt to wow a pair of talent scouts with their stellar abilities. Songs include "My Heart Isn't in It" (Jack Lawrence), "It's Love, Love, Love" (Mack David, Joan Whitney, Alex Kramer), "When They Ask about You" (Sammy Stept), "Jumpin' at the Jubilee" (Ben Carter, Mayes Marshall), "Taking Care of You" (Lou Brown, Harry Akst), "Where Am I Without You?" (Don Raye, Gene De Paul), "Two Hearts in the Dark" (Dave Franklin), "Somewhere This Side of Heaven," "Ezekiel Saw the Wheel."
In this 1946 All Star Comedy (production number 8434) remake of 1935's "I Don't Remember" short starring Harry Langdon, Sterling Holloway is on his way to make an installment payment on his furniture when a crony talks him into buying an Irish Sweepstakes ticket, and when Sterling's furniture is repossesed, he paints pictures of furniture on his walls to relieve the bareness. He wins the sweepstakes but has forgotten where the winning stub is.
After discovering his star dancer is expecting and can't perform, film producer H.W. Workman and his publicist concoct a scheme to stage a college dance contest to find a new star.
The heiress to a powerful newspaper owner gets a job at the paper under an assumed name and helps break up a blackmail racket.
The adventures of a boy and his dog in a small town.
Fugitive Nazis threaten to take over the Wyoming range in this Three Mesqueteers outing, which also warns about the danger of blithely assuming that every German-American is a fifth columnist. Which is exactly what rancher Clem Parker (Hal Price) does when learning that a couple of escaped Axis war criminals may be heading towards the local valley.
