Playhouse 90 is an American televisionanthology drama series that aired onCBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 134 episodes. The show was produced atCBS Television City inLos Angeles, California. Since live anthology drama series of the mid-1950s usually were hour-long shows, the title highlighted the network's intention to present something unusual: a weekly series of hour-and-a-half-long dramas rather than 60-minute plays.
The producers of the show wereMartin Manulis,John Houseman, Russell Stoneman,Fred Coe,Arthur Penn, andHubbell Robinson. The leading director wasJohn Frankenheimer (27 episodes), followed byFranklin J. Schaffner (19 episodes). Other directors includedSidney Lumet,George Roy Hill,Delbert Mann, andRobert Mulligan.
WithAlex North's opening theme music, the series debuted October 4, 1956, withRod Serling'sadaptation ofPat Frank's novelForbidden Area starringCharlton Heston. The following week,Requiem for a Heavyweight, also scripted by Serling, received critical accolades and later dominated the1956 Emmys by winning awards in six categories, including best direction, best teleplay and best actor. Serling was given the firstPeabody Award for television writing. For many viewers, live television drama had moved to a loftier plateau.Playhouse 90 established a reputation as television's most distinguished anthology drama series and maintained a high standard for four seasons (with repeats in 1961).
From the start, productions were planned to be both live and filmed, with a filmed show every fourth Thursday to relieve the pressure of mounting the live telecasts. The first filmedPlayhouse 90 wasThe Country Husband (November 1, 1956) withBarbara Hale andFrank Lovejoy portraying a couple in a collapsing marriage. The filmed episodes were produced variously, byScreen Gems andCBS.
The ambitious series frequently featured critically acclaimed dramas, including the original television versions ofThe Miracle Worker (withTeresa Wright as Annie Sullivan), andThe Helen Morgan Story (with an Emmy toPolly Bergen for her performance in the title role),In the Presence of Mine Enemies (Rod Serling'sWarsaw ghetto drama starringCharles Laughton, withRobert Redford in an early role), and the original television version ofJudgment at Nuremberg, featuringMaximilian Schell,Werner Klemperer,Torben Meyer andOtto Waldis in the roles they would repeat in the 1961 film, but with an otherwise different cast, includingClaude Rains in theSpencer Tracy role andPaul Lukas in theBurt Lancaster role.
Playhouse 90 received manyEmmy Award nominations, and it later ranked #33 on theTV Guide 50 Greatest TV Shows of All Time. In 1997, the acclaimedRequiem for a Heavyweight was ranked #30 on theTV Guide 100 Greatest Episodes of All Time.[1] In 2013, theWriters Guild of America rankedPlayhouse 90 #65 on their list of the 101 Best Written TV Series.[2] In 2023,Variety rankedPlayhouse 90 as the nineteenth-greatest TV show of all time.[3]
Early on, in 1956,Playhouse 90 faced some controversy due to scheduling. It was thought by independent producers that, inPlayhouse 90's procurement, scheduling, and promotion decisions, major networks favored programs that they produced or, in which they had ownership interest. Worried about this issue, CBS suspended its plans for the series in fear that they had violated antitrust laws. Soon afterward, however, CBS received an oral opinion from its legal counsel that no laws had been violated, and the show continued.[4]
Writers for the series includedRobert Alan Aurthur,Rod Serling,Whitfield Cook,David E. Durston,Sumner Locke Elliott,Horton Foote,Frank D. Gilroy,Roger O. Hirson,A. E. Hotchner,Loring Mandel,Abby Mann,J. P. Miller, Jack E. Miller,Paul Monash, andLeslie Stevens. PlaywrightTad Mosel, who wrote four teleplays forPlayhouse 90, recalled, "My firstPlayhouse 90 wasGlamour...Glamour had come to television because CBS had built this magnificentTelevision City in Los Angeles... Television had come to deserve buildings for itself. This was a whole new idea, that you'd have a building for television.Playhouse 90 was one of the first shows to go into that mammoth building."
Between 1954 and 1960,John Frankenheimer directed 152 live television dramas, an average of one every two weeks. During the 1950s he was regarded as television's top directorial talent and much of his significant work was forPlayhouse 90, for which he directed 27 teleplays between 1956 and 1960. He began withForbidden Area (October 4, 1956), adapted by Serling from thePat Franknovel about Soviet sabotage, following withRendezvous in Black (October 25, 1956), adapted fromCornell Woolrich's novel of twisted revenge;Eloise (November 22, 1956), adapted fromthe book byKay Thompson andHilary Knight; andThe Family Nobody Wanted (December 20, 1956), from theHelen Doss book about a childless couple who adopt a dozen children of mixed ancestry, a book brought to television again in 1975.
AsPlayhouse 90 moved into 1957, Frankenheimer directed a science fiction drama,The Ninth Day (January 10, 1957), byHoward andDorothy Baker, about a small group ofWorld War III survivors, and a Serling adaptation,The Comedian (February 14, 1957), based on the short story byErnest Lehman, and starringMickey Rooney as an abrasive, manipulative television comedian. In later interviews, Frankenheimer expressed his admiration for Rooney's acting in this memorable drama. Akinescope ofThe Comedian survives and remains available for viewing at thePaley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.
AfterThe Last Tycoon (March 14, 1957), adapted from theF. Scott Fitzgeraldnovel about a film studio head, Frankenheimer followed withTad Mosel'sIf You Knew Elizabeth (April 11, 1957) about an ambitious college professor; another Fitzgerald adaptation,Winter Dreams (May 23, 1957), dramatizing a romantic triangle;Clash by Night (June 13, 1957), withKim Stanley in an adaptation of theClifford Odetsplay; andThe Fabulous Irishman (June 27, 1957), a biographical drama tracing events in the life ofRobert Briscoe. Frankenheimer used a fake bull's head jutting into the frame when he stagedThe Death of Manolete (September 12, 1957), Barnaby Conrad's drama about the death ofthe legendary bullfighter, a production later ranked by Frankenheimer as one of his worst.
Robert Alan Aurthur's script forA Sound of Different Drummers (October 3, 1957) borrowed so heavily fromRay Bradbury'sFahrenheit 451 that Bradbury sued.[5]The Troublemakers (November 21, 1957) wasGeorge Bellak's adaptation of his own 1956 play about a campus newspaper editor killed by other students. Frankenheimer ended the year withThe Thundering Wave (December 12, 1957), starringJames and Pamela Mason in an Aurthur drama about an acting couple who agree to do a play together despite their separation.
Frankenheimer kicked off 1958 withThe Last Man (January 9, 1958), anAaron Spelling revenge drama, followed byThe Violent Heart (February 6, 1958) from theDaphne du Maurier story of romance on the French Riviera,Rumors of Evening (May 1, 1958) about a World War II pilot obsessed with a USO entertainer, and Serling'sBomber's Moon (May 22, 1958) about a World War II pilot accused of cowardice.A Town Has Turned to Dust (June 19, 1958), a Serling drama about an 1870lynching of an innocent Mexican in a southwestern town, was based on theEmmett Till case.
InThe New York Times for October 3, 1958, the day afterJ. P. Miller'sDays of Wine and Roses was telecast,Jack Gould wrote a rave review with much praise for the writer, director and cast:
Old Man (November 20, 1958) was adapted byHorton Foote fromWilliam Faulkner'sstory set during the1927 Mississippi River flood.Face of a Hero (January 1, 1959), based on thePierre Boulle novel, starredJack Lemmon, who took this play to Broadway for a run of 36 performances during October to November 1960. The following year, Frankenheimer began withThe Blue Men (January 15, 1959), anAlvin Boretz drama about the trial of a police detective who refused to make an arrest.A. E. Hotchner adaptedErnest Hemingway'sFor Whom the Bell Tolls into a two-partformat (March 12 and March 19, 1959).Journey to the Day (April 22, 1960) was aRoger Hirson drama about group therapy.
Playhouse 90 began as a live series, making a transition to tape in 1957. Kevin Dowler, writing for the Museum of Broadcast Communications, noted:
Normally, the program was telecast in black-and-white, but on Christmas night, 1958, it offered a color production ofTchaikovsky'sThe Nutcracker, starring theNew York City Ballet and choreographed byGeorge Balanchine. The program (hosted byJune Lockhart) was presented live, rather than on videotape, however, and it was long thought to have survived only on a black-and-whitekinescope version. In 2021, the color videotape version was uploaded toYouTube.[8][9]
| Season | Time Slot |
|---|---|
| 1 (1956–1957) | Thursday at 9:30 pm ET |
| 2 (1957–1958) | |
| 3 (1958–1959) | |
| 4 (1959–1960) | Thursday at 9:30 pm (October 1, 1959 - January 21, 1960) Tuesday at 9:30 pm (February 9, 1960; March 22, 1960) Wednesday at 8:00 pm (February 24, 1960; May 18, 1960) Monday at 9:30 pm (March 7, 1960; May 2, 1960) Sunday at 9:30 pm (April 3, 1960) Friday at 9:30 pm (April 22, 1960) |
Several teleplays in the series were filmed later as theatrical motion pictures, includingRequiem for a Heavyweight,The Helen Morgan Story,Days of Wine and Roses, andJudgment at Nuremberg.Seven Against the Wall was scripted byHoward Browne, who later reworked his teleplay into the screenplay forRoger Corman's 1967 movie,The St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Three of the actors in thePlayhouse 90 production reprised their roles for the Corman film:Celia Lovsky,Milton Frome, andFrank Silvera.
An indifferently receivedtelevision movie production ofIn the Presence of Mine Enemies, starringArmin Mueller-Stahl in theCharles Laughton role, was shown on cable television in 1997 byShowtime.
In 1991, film directorFrancis Ford Coppola was planning a revival of the show calledPlayhouse '90s.[11] It was initially set to air in spring 1992 with Coppola directing the first teleplay "Top of the Ninth", centering on livebaseball.[12][13] By 1994, it was reported that after years ofdevelopment limbo, CBS would air "Top of the Ninth" on a Sunday in April,[14] though this never occurred.Spike Lee andJules Pfeiffer had also written and were going to direct future episodes.[15]
Media related toPlayhouse 90 at Wikimedia Commons
