Frances Dee

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.

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.

The most glittering, expensive, and exhausting videotaping session in television history took place Friday February 19, 1982 at New York's Radio City Music Hall. The event, for which ticket-buyers paid up to $1,000 a seat (tax-deductible as a contribution to the Actors' Fund) was billed as "The Night of 100 Stars" but, actually, around 230 stars took part. And most of the audience of 5,800 had no idea in advance that they were paying to see a TV taping, complete with long waits for set and costume changes, tape rewinding, and the like. Executive producer Alexander Cohen estimated that the 5,800 Radio City Music Hall seats sold out at prices ranging from $25 to $1,000. The show itself cost about $4 million to produce and was expected to yield around $2 million for the new addition to the Actors Fund retirement home in Englewood, N. J. ABC is reputed to have paid more than $5 million for the television rights.

Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Looks at the stereotype-breaking films of the period from 1929, when movies entered the sound era, until 1934 when the Hays Code virtually neutered film content. No longer portrayed as virgins or vamps, the liberated female of the pre-code films had dimensions. Good girls had lovers and babies and held down jobs, while the bad girls were cast in a sympathetic light. And they did it all without apology.

The title refers to the business of affable, ambitious bail bondsman (and politically-connected grifter) Bill Bailey, who, in the course of his work, crosses paths with every kind of offender there is, from first-time defendants to career criminals.

In early 19th century England, ambitious and ruthless orphan Rebecca Sharp advances from the position of governess to the heights of British society. The first feature length film to use three-strip Technicolor.

Virginia, who studies at a boarding school for upper-class girls, falls in love with a medical intern who works as a waiter for a living. Both the director of the school and her mother oppose such a relationship.

This documentary revisits the making of Gone with the Wind via archival footage, screen tests, insightful interviews and rare film footage.

A young man finds himself attracted to a cold and unfeeling waitress who may ultimately destroy them both.

King Louis XI masquerades as a commoner in Paris, seeking out the treachery he is sure lurks in his kingdom. At a local tavern, he overhears the brash poet François Villon extolling why he would be a better king. Annoyed yet intrigued, the King bestows on Villon the title of Grand Constable. Soon Villon begins work and falls for a lovely lady-in-waiting, but then must flee execution when the King turns on him.

In the 1840s, Ramsey MacKay, the driver for the struggling Wells Fargo mail and freight company, will secure an important contract if he delivers fresh oysters to Buffalo from New York City. When he rescues Justine Pryor and her mother, who are stranded in a broken wagon on his route, he doesn't let them slow him down and gives the ladies an exhilirating ride into Buffalo. He arrives in time to obtain the contract and is then sent by company president Henry Wells to St. Louis to establish a branch office.

A nurse in the Caribbean turns to voodoo in hopes of curing her patient, a mindless woman whose husband she's fallen in love with.

Steady, dependable Coast Guard Lieutenant Raymond "Ray" Dower and reckless aviator Thomas "Speed" Bradshaw are the closest of friends. Ray saves the life of Captain Tobias Bliss, tramp steamer skipper, in a daring rescue at sea. Speed flies the injured man back to the base hospital, where the two officers later visit him. There Ray meets Nancy Bliss, Bliss' grand-daughter, and falls in love with her. Speed meets her at a dance and urges Ray to propose before some other guy does. Ray is assigned to flood rescue duty, and Speed and Nancy start going out together and discover they are in love.

An elderly business tycoon, believed to be dying, decides to give a million dollars each to eight strangers chosen at random from the phone directory.

David gives his wife, Joyce, an unexpected—and unpleasant—surprise when he suddenly demands a divorce. When she then learns that David has taken up with a younger woman, Joyce decides to make the most of this separation by taking a solo trip to the Caribbean. However, just before diving into a vacation fling, she runs into Emily, an old chum whose own divorce has left her embittered. Joyce then debates giving married life one last chance.

An Iowa drugstore owner becomes embittered when his son is killed in World War II. The druggist believes that the boy's life was cut short before he had an opportunity to truly appreciate his existence.

A bucolic lawyer takes on big-city corruption, setting out to prove that an above-suspicion politician is actually a crook - all while falling in love with the politician's daughter.

Dr. Eli Watt, a widower, comes to a small town, considering himself a failure in his attempt to have a meaningful career in New York. He raises his son Jimmy as well as Letty, a baby whose mother has died in childbirth and whose father blames Watt and abandons the child. Watt dreams of returning to do research studies, but always something gets in the way: an epidemic, his children's needs, or the needs of his generally ungrateful patients. Only with the passing years does he come to find that his future isn't over and his past isn't quite the failure he believed.

Lora Moore, the club champion, loses a golf match to a woman from another golf club. Then Jerry Downs, a handsome golf pro, and his goofy friend, Jack Martin, show up. Lora takes him on as her golf teacher to work on her putt. She falls for him, but so do several other women. Meanwhile Angie Howard, Lora's friend, chases after Jack. A lot of silliness ensues.