Bretaigne Windust
Directing
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Ernest Bretaigne Windust (January 20, 1906 – March 19, 1960) was a US-based French-born theater, film, and television director. Career Planning to become an actor, Windust co-founded with Charles Leatherbee the University Players in 1928 on Cape Cod in Falmouth, Massachusetts. The company lasted five years and included later luminaries Joshua Logan, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, Mildred Natwick, Eleanor Phelps, Barbara O'Neil, Myron McCormick, Kent Smith, and Aleta Freel. Windust directed more often than he acted. Though he began his association with the Theatre Guild in Manhattan as an assistant stage manager in 1929, he maintained his position as a director of the University Players in the off-season when they performed on Cape Cod through the summer of 1932. Indeed, he quit the Theatre Guild briefly during the winter season of 1931-32 to direct the University Players through its 18-week winter season in Baltimore. Windust's first major Broadway hit was Life With Father, the Russel Crouse/Howard Lindsay play based on the memoirs of Clarence Day, Jr., a distant relative on Windust's mother's side. (At 3,224 performances, it held the record for the longest-running Broadway production for many years.) In quick succession, he followed with Arsenic and Old Lace and Strip for Action, giving him three hits running on Broadway at the same time. In 1947, Windust relocated to Hollywood, where he worked as the dialogue director on Stallion Road starring Ronald Reagan. His film directing career included two 1948 Bette Davis vehicles, the melodramatic Winter Meeting and the screwball comedy June Bride. The latter part of his career was spent working in the television division of Universal, directing episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Wagon Train, Leave It to Beaver, and Bachelor Father, in addition to the Thanksgiving 1957 special The Pied Piper of Hamelin, later released as a feature film.
Known For
An inquisitive and often naïve boy, Theodore 'The Beaver' Cleaver, has adventures at home, in school, and around his suburban neighborhood. The show also starred Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont as Beaver's parents, June and Ward Cleaver, and Tony Dow as Beaver's brother Wally. The show has attained an iconic status in the US, with the Cleavers exemplifying the idealized suburban family of the mid-20th century.
Leave It to Beaver
A television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock featuring dramas, thrillers, and mysteries.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Lt. Frank Ballinger is a no-nonsense plain clothes cop in the elite M Squad Division. The Squad's task is to root out organised crime and corruption in America's Second City, Chicago.
M Squad
Startime, an anthology of drama, comedy and variety, was one of the first American television shows broadcast in color.
Startime
Bachelor Father is an American sitcom starring John Forsythe, Noreen Corcoran, and Sammee Tong. The series first premiered on CBS in September 1957 before moving to NBC for the third season in 1959. The series' fifth and final season aired on ABC from 1961 to 1962. A total of 157 episodes were aired. The series was based on "A New Girl in His Life", which aired on General Electric Theater on May 26, 1957. Bachelor Father is the only primetime series ever to run in consecutive years on the three major televisions networks.
Bachelor Father
Markham is a CBS drama television series starring Ray Milland, which aired during the 1958-1959 and 1959-1960 seasons following Gunsmoke on Saturday nights, under the sponsorship of the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. Milland played private investigator and attorney Roy Markham. In that Markham had been a successful lawyer, he had the leisure to take detective cases based on his own interest. His fees could vary from the very considerable to his wealthier and corporate clients to nothing for those who desperately needed his services but had few financial means. Markham's cases could take him almost anywhere in the world, although he was based in New York City. In the early episodes of this program, Markham had an assistant, John Riggs, but the Riggs character was written out after only a few programs had aired, leaving Markham to solve crimes solo. Dayton Lummis appeared as Howard Fulton in the 1959 episode entitled "The Father". Elen Willard made her acting debut as Deidre Waugh in the 1960 segment "The Bad Spell". Prior to Markham, Milland played the lead role from 1953-1954 in a CBS sitcom, Meet Mr. McNutley, the story of a college professor at fictitious Lynnhaven College, an all-girls institution. For the second season, 1954–1955, the program was renamed The Ray Milland Show.
Markham
A young woman living in Manhattan pretends to be the mother of an infant in order to get a seat on the subway.
Pretty Baby
After years of investigation, Assistant District Attorney Martin Ferguson has managed to build a solid case against an elusive gangster whose top lieutenant is about to testify.
The Enforcer
Romance at a murder trial with a pair of sequestered jurors who are the only ones who think that the woman in the dock is innocent. Separated from their normal lives, jurors Terry Scott and David Campbell start to fall in love.
Perfect Strangers
American spy James Bond must outsmart card wiz and crime boss LeChiffre while monitoring his actions.
Casino Royale
A magazine's staff, including bickering ex-lovers Linda and Carey, cover an Indiana wedding, which goes slightly wrong.
June Bride
The singing, rhyming citizens of Hamelin hope to win a competition with rival towns for royal recognition. To this end, the mayor outlaws play (which is a bit hard on the children) and refuses to help a rival town when it's flooded. But rats (seen only as shadows), fleeing the flood, invade Hamelin in droves; a magical piper, whose music only children (and rats) can hear, strikes a bargain...which, once the rats are gone, the Mayor and council renege on, to their subsequent regret.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
A repressed poetess and an embittered war hero help each other cope with their problems.
Winter Meeting
Two short films released together under a collective title. The first, "Secret Sharer", directed by John Brahm and starring James Mason, is based on a short story by Joseph Conrad. The second tale, "Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", directed by Bretaigne Windust and starring Robert Preston, is adapted from Stephen Crane's short story.
Face to Face
A policeman discovers during a case that he is investigating himself. His wife has witnessed a terrorist attack committed by her lover.