Acting
The cases of master criminal defense attorney Perry Mason and his staff who handled the most difficult of cases in the aid of the innocent.
An anthology series containing drama, psychological thriller, fantasy, science fiction, suspense, and/or horror, often concluding with a macabre or unexpected twist.
Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond is an American anthology series created by Merwin Gerard. The original series ran for three seasons on ABC from January 1959 to July 1961.
Simon Templar is The Saint, a handsome, sophisticated, debonair, modern-day Robin Hood who recovers ill-gotten wealth and redistributes it to those in need.
The Islanders is an American adventure television series which aired on ABC from 1960 to 1961, starring William Reynolds, James Philbrook, and Diane Brewster. At the beginning of the series, Sandy Wade and Zack Malloy, co-owners of a Grumman Goose amphibious aircraft, start their one-plane airline in the Moluccas or Spice Islands of the southeastern Pacific Ocean. Throughout the series they experience a variety of adventures where seemingly harmless charter flights put them into danger. They are frequently aided in their endeavours by the unusually-named Wilhelmina ”Steamboat Willy” Vanderveer and Shipwreck Callighan. The Islanders, primarily sponsored by Liggett & Myers' Chesterfield cigarettes, aired at 9:30 Eastern time on Sunday evenings opposite The Jack Benny Program and Candid Camera on CBS and the second half of The Dinah Shore Show and the last season of The Loretta Young Show on NBC. William Reynolds stated in an interview, "The series went from being sort of like a Terry and the Pirates or a Maverick type of concept to becoming just a bunch of people skulking around. It wasn't very good." After The Islanders, Philbrook co-starred in the 1962-1963 season as a magazine publisher and the love interest of Loretta Young in her short-lived The New Loretta Young Show, which aired Mondays on CBS. Reynolds went on to star in two other ABC series,The Gallant Men, a World War II series, and The FBI with Efrem Zimbalist, Jr..
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.
Thriller is an American anthology television series that aired during the 1960–61 and 1961–62 seasons on NBC. The show featured host Boris Karloff introducing a mix of self-contained, macabre weird-horror and morbid, hitchockian crime stories, in some of which he also starred.
Sugarfoot is an American western television series that aired on ABC from 1957 to 1961. The series stars Will Hutchins as Tom Brewster, an Easterner who comes to the Oklahoma Territory to become a lawyer. Jack Elam is cast in occasional episodes as sidekick Toothy Thompson. Brewster was a correspondence-school student whose apparent lack of cowboy skills earned him the nickname "Sugarfoot", a designation even below that of a tenderfoot.
Private Eyes Tom Lopaka and Tracy Steele are based out of Hawaiian Village Resort where they work both hotel security and are hired by others to look into various matters. They're helped by their trusty right-hand man Kazuo Kim who runs a taxi company and is always eager to help them.
Stu Bailey and Jeff Spencer are the wisecracking, womanizing private-detective heroes of this Warner Brothers drama. They work out of an office located at 77 Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, California, right next door to a snazzy restaurant where Kookie works as a valet. The finger-snapping, slang-talking Kookie occasionally helps Stu and Jeff with their cases, and eventually becomes a full-fledged member of the detective agency. Rex Randolph and J.R. Hale also join the firm, and Suzanne is their leggy secretary.
You Are There is an American historical educational television and radio series broadcast over the CBS Radio and CBS Television networks.
The Adventures of Jim Bowie is an American Western television series that aired on ABC from 1956 to 1958. Its setting was the 1830s-era Louisiana Territory. The series was an adaptation of the book Tempered Blade, by Monte Barrett. The series stars Scott Forbes as the real-life adventurer Jim Bowie. The series initially portrayed Jim Bowie as something of an outdoors-man, riding his horse through the wilderness near his home in Opelousas, where he would stumble across someone needing his assistance. He was aided by the Bowie Knife, his ever-present weapon. He designed it in the first episode, The Birth of the Blade.
Garrison's Gorillas is an ABC TV series broadcast from 1967 to 1968; a total of 26 hour-long episodes were produced. It was inspired by the 1967 film The Dirty Dozen, which featured a similar scenario of training Allied prisoners for World War II military missions. Garrison's Gorillas was canceled at the close of its first season and replaced by The Mod Squad in 1968. It managed to gather a cult following in China in the 1980s.
Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse is an American television anthology series produced by Desilu Productions. The show ran on CBS television between 1958 and 1960. Two of its 48 episodes served as pilots for the 1950s television series The Twilight Zone and The Untouchables.
The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok is an American Western television series which ran for eight seasons from 1951 through 1958. The Screen Gems series began in syndication, but ran on CBS from 1955 through 1958, and, at the same time, on ABC from 1957 through 1958.
Cavalcade of America is an anthology drama series that was sponsored by the DuPont Company, although it occasionally presented a musical, such as an adaptation of Show Boat, and condensed biographies of popular composers. It was initially broadcast on radio from 1935 to 1953, and later on television from 1952 to 1957. Originally on CBS, the series pioneered the use of anthology drama for company audio advertising. Cavalcade of America documented historical events using stories of individual courage, initiative and achievement, often with feel-good dramatizations of the human spirit's triumph against all odds. This was consistent with DuPont's overall conservative philosophy and legacy as an American company dating back to 1802. The company's motto, "Maker of better things for better living through chemistry," was read at the beginning of each program, and the dramas emphasized humanitarian progress, particularly improvements in the lives of women, often through technological innovation.
Lux Video Theatre is an American anthology series that was produced from 1950 until 1959. The series presented both comedy and drama in original teleplays, as well as abridged adaptations of films and plays.
When her American lover visits London, a wealthy woman’s jealous husband hatches a plan to murder her and inherit her fortune.
The Loner is an American western series that ran for less than one season on CBS from 1965 to 1966, under the alternate sponsorship of Philip Morris and Procter & Gamble.
Sir Francis Drake was a British adventure television series starring Terence Morgan as Sir Francis Drake, commander of the sailing ship the Golden Hind. As well as battles at sea, sword fights, the series also deals with intrigue at Elizabeth's court, often caused by Spaniard, Mendoza.
