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.
In 1850s Louisiana, the willfulness of a tempestuous Southern belle threatens to destroy all who care for her.
An English charwoman, believing herself protected by a magic eye amulet, travels to Nazi Germany to personally assassinate Adolf Hitler.
Christabel Caine has the face of angel and the heart of a swamp rat. She'll step on anyone to get what she wants, including her own family. A master of manipulation, she covertly breaks off the engagement of her trusting cousin, Donna, to her fabulously wealthy beau, Curtis Carey. Once married to Curtis herself, Christabel continues her affair with novelist Nick Bradley, who knows she's evil, but loves her anyway.
Unable to get work in her home country, Laurine Lynne (Beverly Roberts) travels to Vienna where her press agent, Joe Craig (Allyn Joslyn), convinces her to marry royalty. The lucky fellow is Prince Rupert (Patric Knowles), an impoverished nobleman now working as a waiter. Do the two of them fall in love despite this marriage of convenience?
In 1943, several people enter, re-enter, and exit the difficult life of a Midwestern family whose patriarch has been called up to war, leaving behind his wife and two teen daughters.
When two US cavalrymen transporting a gold shipment get killed, US Army Intelligence investigator John Haven goes undercover to a mining and logging town to find the killers.
Bob Hope is a stressed out talk show host who is sent on a vacation to Arizona on doctor's orders and has to play Sherlock Holmes with his wife, the lovely Eva Marie Saint, to solve a series of murders that has Bob as the prime suspect.
A man who has been railroaded into prison is framed for the murder of a fellow inmate and must prove his innocence.
Two strangers, a man and a woman, are framed for a jewel robbery and thrown in jail. After they get out, they join forces to track down the real thieves.
Blondie and Dagwood are about to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary but this happy occasion is marred when the bumbling Dagwood gets himself involved in a scheme that is promising financial ruin for the Bumstead family.
When newlyweds visit Las Vegas, the wife's shady past comes to the surface.
A Navy veteran with one leg fights to make himself a success.
Torchy Blane solves a murder and smuggling case during a round-the-world flight.
George Gommery enjoys slipping up to town to see some little actress, and never suspects that his wife can play the same game just as well as he can. Or at least, he never suspects until he tells his wife that her lover is engaged to the woman whom he has been entertaining in London.
Story of three buddies at the Virginia Military Institute. Cadet Bing Edwards is secretly married and soon to be a father.
On a stormy night, the mute servant to an ailing matriarch is stalked by a serial killer.
An 1890s New Orleans heiress tries to buy a married doctor's love with her tainted family fortune.
In PRC's Follies Girl, Wendy Barrie plays dress designer Anne Merriday, who becomes the object of middle-aged millionaire J. B. Hamlin's (J.C. Nugent) affections. To save his dad from throwing his life away on a supposed golddigger, Hamlin's son, Army private Jerry Hamlin (Gordon Oliver), begins courting Anne-and, of course, falls genuinely in love with her himself. Meanwhile, the rogueish J.B. tries to mount a Broadway burlesque show, with costumes designed by Our Heroine.
Twenty years earlier, Mary Cabot had lost contact with her infant daughter Justine. Now a grown woman, Justine accidentally shoots a man who'd impugned the reputation of her mother, whom she's never met. As luck would have it, the presiding judge at Justine's trial is none other than Mary Cabot.
