Overview of 'The Philco Television Playhouse' Season 1

Episode 1 - Dinner at Eight

Release Date: 1948-10-03

Social-climbing Mrs. Oliver Jordan, whose husband's firm is in financial trouble, feels obligated to reciprocate hospitality for a visiting British aristocratic couple by arranging a small dinner party. The guests are chosen both to impress--a faded stage star, a well-known if over-the-hill alcoholic actor--and to meet certain social obligations. This means the necessary inclusion of a philandering doctor and his wife, and a gauche, nouveau-riche couple who are loathed but powerful.

Episode 2 - Rebecca

Release Date: 1948-10-10

Brooding and moody Maxim deWinter returns from an extended trip to the continent with a young bride, less than a year after the tragic death of hi first wife, Rebecca. The staff of Manderley, his country home, including Mrs Danvers the housekeeper who rules over the house, are still devoted to their former mistress, the socialite Rebecca and they find it difficult to accept the new, shy Mrs deWinter who is inexperienced running a large home.

Episode 3 - Counsellor-at-Law

Release Date: 1948-10-17

An upscale Manhattan attorney torn between his greedy practices of insider trading and embezzlement and his desire to help the working-class Jews from his old neighborhood.

Episode 4 - Angel in the Wings

Release Date: 1948-10-24

An understudy for a stage show's star takes over when an accident circumvents the stars performance. The understudy takes over and brings down the house.

Episode 5 - Street Scene

Release Date: 1948-10-31

Abraham Kaplan lives with his family in a row house populated by a kaleidoscope of characters looking to break out of poverty. Kaplan's revolutionary, socialist views grate against some of his neighbors.

Episode 6 - This Thing Called Love

Release Date: 1948-11-07

A professional couple marry and the wife insists on celibacy for three months to see if they really are compatible or not. The husband tries to lure her with all kinds of excuses and tricks to the marital bed.

Episode 7 - Camille

Release Date: 1948-11-14

Camille, a beautiful courtesan and Armand Duval, a young man in the foreign service, are in love. Their relationship jeopardizes his career and prevents the marriage of his sister into a ""respectable"" family, if Duval marries Camille. Camille becomes ill and dies.

Episode 8 - An Inspector Calls

Release Date: 1948-11-21

When Inspector Goole calls unexpectedly on the prosperous Birling family, his startling revelations not only shatter the very foundations of their lives, but challenge us all to examine our consciences.

Episode 9 - I Like It Here

Release Date: 1948-11-28

Willie is a refugee who works as a houseman at a professor's home. He's a sweet and lovable man even when he's interfering in other people's lives. The Professor's daughter is in love with Brad, a young lawyer. Of course, Willie sees fit to give Brad all kinds of advice.

Episode 10 - Suspect

Release Date: 1948-12-05

20 years ago, a Scotswoman was accused of an ax murder and let off with the ignominious Scottish verdict of Not Proven. She changes her name and lives down her past, but when her son becomes engaged, his fiancée's godfather spots the mother and recognizes her. In his efforts to trap her, and hers not to be trapped trouble arises.

Episode 11 - Parlor Story

Release Date: 1948-12-12

An ambitious professor wants to become President of his university. He is soon caught up in the political opportunism of the State Governor, the wiles of an unscrupulous newspaper publisher and the parlor tricks of his own meddling wife.

Episode 12 - A Christmas Carol

Release Date: 1948-12-19

The skinflint Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve.

Episode 13 - The Old Lady Shows Her Medals

Release Date: 1948-12-26

The basement flat of Mrs Dowey, a Scottish charwoman who lives and works in London, during World War I, and Mrs Dowey and her guests - three other charwomen whom she has invited for tea - are discussing the tactics of trench warfare with the confidence of people who have never been near the Front.

Episode 14 - Ramshackle Inn

Release Date: 1949-01-02

An old maid librarian has saved her money for twenty years, in order to buy a hotel where she can meet interesting people. She purchases a strange rundown place near the ocean and gets what she bargains for.

Episode 15 - Cyrano de Bergerac

Release Date: 1949-01-09

The poetry-spouting soldier with the oversized nose, Cyrano uses the handsome but inarticulate Christian as a conduit for his feelings, the ugly but eloquent Cyrano pours his heart out to the lovely Roxanne. And she, wooed by the beauty of the words, falls in love with Christian, not realizing that it is Cyrano whose voice has aroused her passion.

Episode 16 - Papa Is All

Release Date: 1949-01-16

Papa is an ugly tempered, overly strict, scrupulously religious Pennsylvanian Dutch, his wife and children rebel.

Episode 17 - Pride and Prejudice

Release Date: 1949-01-23

The trials of a woman trying to find husbands for her five daughters in 18th-century England.

Episode 18 - Dark Hammock

Release Date: 1949-01-30

In a remote part of Florida Coral Platt, a sinister woman has married a man considerably older than she. For reasons sufficient to her, she wants him out of the way and plans an ingenious though slow murder by poison. She has succeeded in making it seem that Marvin is dying through natural causes. However, she is forced unexpectedly to play hostess to two women who have come to Florida. The women stay longer than they planned because they have begun to suspect what Coral is up to. In a series of exciting scenes they discover just what is going on and prevent Marvin's death.

Episode 19 - The Late Christopher Bean

Release Date: 1949-02-06

Dr. Haggett and his family, who have some of Bean's canvases, suddenly realize their value, and become hard, selfish, and ill-tempered. It is Abby, the family servant, who ultimately holds them all in her power; she has one of the greatest paintings, which she cannot be persuaded into selling or giving away. She is the only one who really understood the artist -- besides, she had been married to him!

Episode 20 - The Story of Mary Surratt

Release Date: 1949-02-13

After the death of her husband Mary opened a boardinghouse to pay the debts owed by her husband. .. There she began a respectable boardinghouse business and met the man who would ultimately lead to her inglorious place in history - John Wilkes Booth.

Episode 21 - Twelfth Night

Release Date: 1949-02-20

Viola, a young woman who disguises herself as a man to work as a page in the court of Count Orsino. Orsino is hopelessly in love with a woman named Olivia, and soon Viola finds herself hopelessly in love with Orsino. But Orsino thinks she's a man, and her predicament worsens when she realizes that Olivia has fallen in love with her.

Episode 22 - St. Helena

Release Date: 1949-02-27

On St. Helena, the exiled emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is grim when his faithful Corscian attendant Cipriani dies. In his confinement he's suffering from a bad liver and a sulking mistress all this begins to weigh heavy on him as he continues to be haunted by spectres of his mistakes. He cannot forget, he says, that if he had not attacked so soon at Waterloo, he would have had 12,000 more men. The imperial manners gradually give way to those of a lonely and embittered country squire. Feeling death upon him at last, he hears that a comet has appeared in the sky.

Episode 23 - The Druid Circle

Release Date: 1949-03-06

An embittered professor comes near to wrecking the lives of a young man and young woman whose love for each other has been accidentally revealed to him through a letter written by the boy to the girl. The professor uses this to humiliate the young people, unconsciously venting upon them his own perverse cruelty for the disappointment suffered in his own life.

Episode 24 - Quality Street

Release Date: 1949-03-13

Because she's nearly 30 and still unwed, Phoebe Throssel is regarded as an over-the-hill spinster. Thus, when offered the opportunity for a reunion with Captain Brown, whom she hasn't seen in years, Phoebe desperately wants to rekindle his affections.

Episode 25 - Dinner at Antoine's

Release Date: 1949-03-20

The murder of a woman at a dinner party unveils a multitude of twists and turns as the murderer is uncovered.

Episode 26 - Becky Sharp

Release Date: 1949-03-27

A scheming illegitimate girl trying to claw her way up in English society. However, fate never seems to give her an even break.

Episode 27 - And Never Been Kissed

Release Date: 1949-04-03

A sixteen-year-old girl tries everything to attract the opposite sex.

Episode 28 - What Makes Sammy Run?

Release Date: 1949-04-10

The story of Sammy Glick, the man with a positive genius for being a heel, who runs through New York's East Side, through newspaper ranks and finally through Hollywood, leaving in his wake the wrecked careers of his associates; for this is his tragedy and his chief characteristic-his congenital incapacity for friendship.

Episode 29 - Mr. Mergenthwirker's Lobblies

Release Date: 1949-04-17

Only Mr. Mergenthwirker, a person pure of heart, can see the lobblies, which are invisible fairy-like creatures.

Episode 30 - Burlesque

Release Date: 1949-04-24

Vaudevillians Skid and Bonnie are partners onstage and off -- until success comes to Skip. He develops an oversized ego and a taste for booze, which alienates Bonnie. But his friends struggle to help him redeem himself.

Episode 31 - Macbeth

Release Date: 1949-05-01

Scottish nobleman who prompted by his own prophecy and ambitions, kills a king to wear his crown.

Episode 32 - Romeo and Juliet

Release Date: 1949-05-15

Star crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet are doomed from the start by the hatred of their families.

Episode 33 - This Time, Next Year

Release Date: 1949-06-05

The ghost of Ulysses S. Grant materialises every year at Grant's Tomb.

Episode 34 - It Pays to Advertise

Release Date: 1949-06-12

With the aide of his secretary and an ad man, he creates an enormously popular product and cant keep up with the demand.

Episode 35 - Summer Formal

Release Date: 1949-06-19

A charming young girl comes to live in a household of an elderly priest. Jenny, 18, is the precise opposite of the kind of smart sophisticated young miss that puzzles and exasperates Father Moynihan. The plot is concerned with the priest's clumsy endeavors to make Jenny attractive to the boys.

Episode 36 - Jenny Kissed Me

Release Date: 1949-06-26

A charming young girl comes to live in a household of an elderly priest. The 18-year-old Jenny is the precise opposite of the kind of smart sophisticated young miss that puzzles and exasperates Father Moynihan. The priest makes clumsy endeavours to make Jenny attractive to the boys.

Episode 37 - Dark of the Moon

Release Date: 1949-07-03

A witch boy named John who falls in love with a beautiful girl named Barbara Allen. John has a conjure woman turn him into a human. The only condition of the spell is that Barbara must remain faithful to John for one full year after they are married. If Barbara is not faithful, then John will turn back into a witch boy.

Episode 38 - For Love or Money

Release Date: 1949-07-10

A young woman shows up during a thunderstorm at the country home of a famous actor.

Episode 39 - The Five Lives of Richard Gordon

Release Date: 1949-07-17

Katie Gordon, Richard's long suffering wife, has put up with his shenanigans to the point where she seeks a divorce. Her restless and bored spouse just keeps finding himself in hot water.

Episode 40 - You Touched Me!

Release Date: 1949-07-24

The adopted son of a drunken former sea captain returns to the household as an adult. He asks the old man for his eldest daughter's hand in marriage. Everyone believes it's an attempt to secure an inheritance.

Episode 41 - The Fourth Wall

Release Date: 1949-07-31

The life of a middle-aged couple has become to complacent and empty.

Episode 42 - Enter Madame

Release Date: 1949-08-07

A grand opera prima donna who practically deserts her husband to follow her career, even though she loves her better half. While the pampered pet of a suite of servants and receiving the homage of operatic mad foreigners, she believes he is sitting at home in Boston immersed in his work. Instead he has fallen for a designing widow and has about decided to divorce his songbird wife.

Episode 43 - A Murder Has Been Arranged

Release Date: 1949-08-14

A ghost story set in a theatre, legend claims a dumb woman will appear on stage and reveal the identity of a murderer.

Episode 44 - Pretty Little Parlor

Release Date: 1949-08-21

A little soirée is interrupted by a murder and the guests are all suspect in the pretty little parlor.

Episode 45 - Three Cornered Moon

Release Date: 1949-08-28

Nellie Rimpleger tries to hold together her eccentric family (including her children, saucy daughter Elizabeth, law student Kenneth, and Eddie, a would-be actor) after they lose their fortune in the stock-market crash. While Elizabeth works in a shoe factory and tries to help her brothers find jobs, she falls in love with a melancholy writer, but marries a wealthy doctor.