Production
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience, including special guest appearances by colleagues, friends and family. Edwards revived the show in 1971-72, while Joseph Campanella hosted a version in 1983. Edwards returned for some specials in the late 1980s, before his death in 2005. The show originated as a radio show on NBC Radio airing from 1948 to 1952.
Two young men, one rich, one middle class, both in love with the same woman, become US Air Corps fighter pilots and, eventually, heroic flying aces during World War I. Devoted best friends, their mutual love of the girl eventually threatens their bond. Meanwhile, a hometown girl who's the lovestruck lifelong next door neighbor of one of them pines away.
When his mother dies, young Peter Ibbetson leaves Paris and his best friend, Mary, behind to live with a severe uncle in England. Years later, Peter is an architect with little time for women, until he begins a project with the Duke and Duchess of Towers. When Peter and the duchess become great friends, she reveals that she is Mary — but the duke soon suspects his wife of infidelity and challenges Peter to a duel, threatening the pair's second chance.
A tale of the World War I love affair, begun in Italy, between American ambulance driver Lt. Frederic Henry and British nurse Catherine Barkley. Eventually separated by Frederic's transfer, tremendous challenges and difficult decisions face each as the war rages on.
Bold performer Tira works as dancing beauty and lion tamer at a fair. Out of an urgent financial need, she agrees to a risky new number: she'll put her head into the lion's mouth! With this attraction, the circus makes it to New York and Tira can pursue her dearest occupation — flirting with rich men and accepting expensive presents.
A former Imperial Russian general and cousin of the Czar ends up in Hollywood as an extra in a movie directed by a former revolutionary.
A lost film. A wealthy young man's marriage to a mountain girl he meets while hunting is disastrous until she abandons him and later reappears incognito as a tutored and sophisticated woman.
Young Gloria O'Connell falls in love with her neighbor, James Oliver. She is sent to a small town to stay with her three spinster aunts, while James becomes a newspaper reporter and arranges to write a story on the town and its large old-maid population. James pursues overweight "Hippo" Harger, a rival for Gloria's affections, and challenges him to a duel. When James' newspaper story appears, the disgruntled old maids hunt down the author. In a fit of anger, Gloria decides to marry "Hippo," but James rescues her at the office of the justice of the peace. The youthful lovers continue their relationship with their parents' understanding.
Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men: one that is good and one that is evil. He believes that by separating the two, man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes. When he discontinues use of the drug, it is already too late.
An unfortunate marriage and a bogus Count are the ingredients for this musical.
The queen of Egypt barges the Nile and flirts with Mark Antony and Julius Caesar.
Andrew Bullivant, a retired lawyer known as "Grumpy" for his irascibility, calls on all his experience and powers of deduction to expose Chamberlin Jarvis as the thief of a valuable diamond being transported by Ernest Heron. A gardenia is the clue; and Virginia Bullivant, Ernest's sweetheart, is Jarvis' unwitting dupe.
Grizel is the daughter of the Painted Lady, who believes that her lover will one day return. Grizel is ostracized by the other children of the town. Tommy and his sister come to the town. Tommy is friendly, but Elspeth keeps her distance. When the Painted Lady dies, Dr. Gemmell makes Grizel his housekeeper. Time passes and after the doctor dies, Grizel, who is now twenty-one years old, loves Tommy, who is an author in London. Tommy visits the town but cannot decide whether he loves Grizel. Grizel knows that Tommy does not love her, and after he returns to London her unhappiness leads to insanity. Tommy returns and marries Grizel, although he believes that she will hate him when she gets better. After two years under Tommy's care, she regains her sanity. After Tommy lets her know that he cared for her out of his love for her; not for pity, Grizel is happy.
Curious penguins investigate an abandoned cabin, heedless of their mother's warning that "curiosity killed the cat."
Elephants disrupt the lives of a family deep in the jungles of Northern Siam, and an entire village.
An old-fashioned "Burlesk" variety show, mostly animated with a live-action performance of "I'm Playing with Fire" by the Watson Sisters.
Zaza is an actress and the favorite at an open-air theater in a small French town. When diplomat Bernard Dufresne comes to the village, he stays away for fear he will fall for her. But during one performance, while Zaza is singing on a swing, her rival cuts the rope and she falls. Zaza is badly injured and she makes Dufresne's acquaintance. A romance quickly springs up and he installs her in a villa. Their happiness is marred, however, when his wife appears.
A beautiful temptress re-kindles an old romance while trying to escape her past during a tension-packed train journey.
American multi-millionaire Michael Brandon marries his eighth wife, Nicole, the daughter of a broke French Marquis. But she doesn't want to be only a number in the line of his ex-wives and undertakes her own strategy to tame him.
Shortly after the United States enters World War I in 1917, a Broadway actress agrees to let a naive soldier court her in order to impress his friends, but a real romance soon begins.
