Watch The Philco Television Playhouse (1948) Online!
The Philco Television Playhouse is an American anthology series that was broadcast live on NBC from 1948 to 1955. Produced by Fred Coe, the series was sponsored by Philco. It was one of the most respected dramatic shows of the Golden Age of Television, winning a 1954 Peabody Award and receiving eight Emmy nominations between 1951 and 1956.
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Episode 1 - What Every Woman Knows
Release Date: 1949-09-04A Victorian Scotswoman of far-reaching ambition. Using her supposedly frail feminine wiles, she maneuvers her fatuous husband into a successful political career. He rises to a parliamentary seat, never quite realizing that he hasn't done it alone.
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Episode 2 - Pride's Castle
Release Date: 1949-09-11Pride Dawson was one of those "Robber Barons", who started out his life in rags and turned his life to riches and women. His contempt for human decency or moral restraint left him ruthless and corrupt. He falls for Sharon O'Neill who is a woman filled with so much goodness in her soul, as much as he has evil in his.
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Episode 3 - The Little Sister
Release Date: 1949-09-18A woman from Kansas comes to Marlowe to help find her missing brother.
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Episode 4 - The Lonely
Release Date: 1949-09-25An engaged Air Force lieutenant goes on a ten-day furlough to Scotland with a female friend. Their understanding is that the trip will be purely platonic; instead, they fall madly in love. At his first opportunity, the lieutenant flies back to America to break the news to his fiancé and family.
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Episode 5 - The Queen Bee
Release Date: 1949-10-02A conniving and devious Southern socialite who manipulates the lives of those around her with tragic results.
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Episode 6 - Something's Got to Give
Release Date: 1949-10-09A couple of New England housewives disrupt their marriages by becoming an early morning radio team.
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Episode 7 - The Last Tycoon
Release Date: 1949-10-16A 1930's brilliant and efficient movie mogul and the story behind the Hollywood Dream Factory.
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Episode 8 - Because of the Lockwoods
Release Date: 1949-10-23The Lockwoods are patronising toward their former neighbours, the Hunters, who are now living in the poorer district in town. The Hunters are saved from despair from the help of a young junk dealer named Oliver Read, who teaches the Lockwoods a lesson in humanity.
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Episode 9 - Damion's Daughter
Release Date: 1949-10-30A theater owner's daughter discovers his father's true nature and is shaken by the discovery. She moments jealousy backstage to expose him.
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Episode 10 - The House of Seven Gables
Release Date: 1949-11-06With the ownership of Seven Gables, the opulent family estate, at stake, a man frames his brother for murder.
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Episode 11 - The Promise
Release Date: 1949-11-13A husband and wife are drifting apart due to different goals in their individual careers.
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Episode 12 - Medical Meeting
Release Date: 1949-11-20 -
Episode 13 - The Wonderful Mrs. Ingram
Release Date: 1949-11-27A female psychiatrist visits the home of a famous woman novelist and discovers unhappiness aplenty. She learns the novelist's ambitions and vanity are causes of the trouble.
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Episode 14 - Mist on the Waters
Release Date: 1949-12-04Blackmail terrorizes a couple because of an accident which was a terrible tragedy.
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Episode 15 - The Beautiful Bequest
Release Date: 1949-12-11The story of a spoiled and jilted young novelist of intellectual pretensions, who is freshened up and made marketable and happy again by design of his sporting publisher.
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Episode 16 - The Strange Christmas Dinner
Release Date: 1949-12-18A modern day Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to close his store on Christmas Day.
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Episode 17 - In Beauty Like the Night
Release Date: 1949-12-25A British pilot who lost his sight during the Second World War deals with the problems caused by the injury.
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Episode 18 - Little Boy Lost
Release Date: 1950-01-01An English poet searches for his son whom he has never seen. The child disappeared shortly after his mother was killed by the Gestapo.
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Episode 19 - Bethel Merriday
Release Date: 1950-01-08A small-town girl named Bethel Merriday is determined to become an actress.
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Episode 20 - Murder at the Stork Club
Release Date: 1950-01-15A wealthy matron is murdered at the Stork Club and the suspect list is growing.
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Episode 21 - The Marriages
Release Date: 1950-01-22In England in the 1890s, Colonel Chart, a widower with four children, falls in love with a charming, wealthy American widow, Mrs. Churchley, but his 27-year-old spinster daughter Adela contrives to ruin the relationship. She also turns two of the other three children against their intended stepmother and spoils the widow's plans to help Adela's brother Godfrey out of an unpleasant situation.
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Episode 22 - Uncle Dynamite
Release Date: 1950-01-29Uncle Fred wants Pongo to marry Sally Painter, an unsuccessful American sculptor. They had been engaged but she broke it off when Pongo refused to smuggle jewellery into America for a friend of hers.
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Episode 23 - The Sudden Guest
Release Date: 1950-02-05A New England spinster Miss Leckton disregards her neighbours' cry for help and assistance during a hurricane. She resents the intrusion, especially since her neighbours happen to be Jews.
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Episode 24 - Ann Rutledge
Release Date: 1950-02-12The short life of Ann Rutledge, Abraham Lincoln's one true love who passed away at age 22 of typhoid fever.
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Episode 25 - A Letter to Mr. Priest
Release Date: 1950-02-19An attorney, voted most likely to succeed in college, looks back on his life.
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Episode 26 - Hometown
Release Date: 1950-02-26Mitchell Hickok, an author from the country, comes to New York for a publicity build-up for his book. He meets a glamorous woman, who introduces him to the nightlife of Manhattan. He soon tires of cafés, cocktail parties, and public appearances, and returns to his simple way of living in the country and Eileen, his childhood sweetheart.
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Episode 27 - The Life of Vincent Van Gogh
Release Date: 1950-03-05The tragic life story of the tormented artist.
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Episode 28 - The Uncertain Molly Collicutt
Release Date: 1950-03-12A flirtatious woman has a difficult time settling down to her marital responsibilities.
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Episode 29 - The Trial of Steven Kent
Release Date: 1950-03-19A jury foreman seeks to wreak personal vengeance on the murder defendant.
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Episode 30 - The Second Oldest Profession
Release Date: 1950-03-26An idealistic newspaper editor battles with his stubborn publisher.
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Episode 31 - Nocturne
Release Date: 1950-04-02In London in 1910, two sisters, Jenny and Emmy Blanchard, must support and care for their widowed, invalid father. Jenny, the younger, pretty sister, seeks to escape from the depressing reality of her poverty-stricken home, while Emmy, the older, plain sister, finds comfort and eventual happiness by serving their ailing father. At the end, both are engaged: Jenny will marry Keith Reddington and Emmy will wed Alf Rylett.
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Episode 32 - Dirty Eddie
Release Date: 1950-04-09Dirty Eddie is a sleek black pig with a fat movie contract and Hollywood isn't too happy about it.
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Episode 33 - The End is Known
Release Date: 1950-04-16A department store tycoon comes home and is nearly hit by a falling body. He then learns the suicide jumped from his apartment. A mystery surrounds a suicide.
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Episode 34 - The Man in the Black Hat
Release Date: 1950-04-23A gambler has nothing to lose as his shady past with women and cards catch up to him.
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Episode 35 - The American
Release Date: 1950-04-30An American travelling in Europe finds clashes between the two cultures.
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Episode 36 - The Feast
Release Date: 1950-05-07A seaside resort hotel brings together an odd assortment of people: a frustrated married couple, four young lovers, children and an grouchy old miser.
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Episode 37 - Brat Farrar
Release Date: 1950-05-14Identical twins concoct a plan to defraud an insurance company and collect a large sum of cash.
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Episode 38 - The Charmed Circle
Release Date: 1950-05-21A poverty-ridden student feels out-of-place among his wealthy fraternity brothers. He eventually falls in love with a rich girl and leads a revolt against the President of the fraternity house.
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Episode 39 - Semmelweis
Release Date: 1950-05-28Story of the great physician who saved millions of lives due to his discovery of the cause of childbed fever (puerperal fever) and eliminated its danger by prescribing the absolute sterlization of all instruments and the cleanliness of all persons coming in contact with the mother.
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Episode 40 - Sense and Sensibility
Release Date: 1950-06-04Sisters left poor by the death of the family matriarch search for suitable husbands in Georgian England.
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Episode 41 - The Bump on Brannigan's Head
Release Date: 1950-06-11A bonk on the head turns a grouchy hothead into the sweetest man in town. Brannigan runs for mayor of his small town--and wins--with his "love everybody" campaign. He even wins over the crooked newspaper publisher.
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Episode 42 - Anything Can Happen
Release Date: 1950-06-18A Russian emigrant to America finds a new language, and strange manners bewildering but tries mightily to adapt to his new homeland.
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Episode 43 - Hear My Heart Speak
Release Date: 1950-06-25A shell-shocked WWI ex-soldier is unable to speak though doctors say the problem isn't physical. Tired of completing with his overbearing, doting mother, the woman he loves begins to withdraw from his life. It's then that he regains his ability to talk.
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Episode 44 - The Reluctant Landlord
Release Date: 1950-07-02Georgi, a kindly and honest immigrant from the Georgian area of Russia, experiences many difficulties as he tries to adapt to his adopted country. He works hard to make a place for himself in America, all the while fighting with the English language and the strange customs of an alien people.
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Episode 45 - The Tentacles
Release Date: 1950-07-09A young wife fights to free her husband from the control of his manipulative and controlling father.