Additional Videography
SHADOW OF THE CLOAK
“The Last Performance”
January 10, 1952, DuMont, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Produced on The Storm, December 4, 1951
Produced by Roger Gerry; directed by Arnold Nocks
Cast: Michael Strong; Helmut Dantine
Synopsis: A nightclub performer is blackmailed into becoming a Russian spy. When his blackmailers attempt to force him to kill for them by threatening to kill his father, he must find a way to escape their control.
LUX VIDEO THEATRE
“The Face of Autumn”
November 3, 1952, CBS, 30 min.
Produced by Cal Kuhl; directed by Richard Goode
Cast: Pat O’Brien; Anne Seymour; Tony Canzoneri; Frank Campanella; Anna Berger
Synopsis: A boxing manager’s obsessive search for a championship contender takes a toll on his long-suffering wife.
“The Inn of Eagles”
January 26, 1953, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Expanded as “Bomber’s Moon,” produced on Playhouse 90, May 22, 1958
Produced by Cal Kuhl; directed by Richard Goode
Cast: MacDonald Carey; Maureen Hurley; Robert Keith Jr.; Victor Wood; Nicholas Joy; Marcel Hillaire
Synopsis: This is an early draft of what became Playhouse 90’s “Bomber’s Moon.”
“A Time for Heroes”
March 2, 1953, CBS, 30 min.
Produced by Cal Kuhl; directed by Fielder Cook
Cast: Dennis O’Keefe; Paul Tripp; Marian Seldes; Kenneth Walken; Jean Stapleton; Gene Steiner
Synopsis: Thirteen-year-old Martin Sloane must decide whether to remain with the aunt and uncle who have raised him as their own or leave with his untrustworthy father, who abandoned him ten years earlier.
“The Return of Socko Renard”
October 29, 1953, 30 min.
Produced by Cal Kuhl; directed by Richard Goode
Cast: Broderick Crawford; Irene Hervey; James Flavin; Lyle Talbot; Selmer Jackson; Nick Dennis; Benny Rubin; Charles Watts
Synopsis: A former all-American football player, down on his luck and working as a waiter, is unexpectedly confronted by his successful former classmates when his place of employment hosts a reunion of his graduating class.
HALLMARK HALL OF FAME
“I Lift My Lamp”
August 17, 1952, 30 min.
Devised and Directed by Albert McCleery
Cast: Maria Riva; Byron Sanders; Richard McMurray; Henry Sharp; Abby Lewis; Maurice Manson; Nat Frey; Herbert Ratner
Synopsis: A Czechoslovakian political refugee can free her father from a communist prison if she agrees to leave America and pledge allegiance to the communist regime.
“Man against Pain”
June 21, 1953, NBC, 30 min.
Devised and Directed by Albert McCleery
Cast: Tod Andrews; Patricia Breslin; Casey Allen; Gladys Klark; Edwin Cooper; Alan Devitt; Calvin Thomas; Marie Kenney; Edwin Hernly; Patty McCormack; James Rafferty; Vincent Van Lynn
Synopsis: The story of Dr. William Morton, the Boston dentist credited with developing surgical anesthesia.
“Yankee Roadblock: The Story of John Paulding”
October 17, 1954, NBC, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working title: “Incident on a September Morning”
Devised and directed by Albert McCleery
Teleplay by Rod Serling; story by Ted Wear
Cast: Lance Fuller; Jimmy Dobson; Clarence Straight
Synopsis: The story of John Paulding and two fellow patriots who intercepted a British spy in September 1780, leading to the unmasking of Benedict Arnold as a traitor and preventing him from sabotaging the American Revolution.
SUSPENSE
“Nightmare at Ground Zero”
August 18, 1953, CBS, 30 min.
Produced by Martin Manulis; directed by Robert Stevens
Cast: O. Z. Whitehead; Louise Larabee; Calvin Thomas; Lonnie Chapman; Pat Hingle; Robert Wiley; Henry Garrett; Cy Chermak; Norman Shelley
Synopsis: A former puppeteer, hired by the US Army to create a supply of mannequins to serve as stand-ins for people at an A-bomb test site, decides to get rid of his domineering wife by substituting her for one of the mannequins.
STUDIO ONE
“Buffalo Bill Is Dead”
November 23, 1953, CBS, 60 min.
Produced by Felix Jackson; directed by Franklin Schaffner
Cast: Anthony Ross; Carole Mathews; Richard Wendley; William Harrigan
Synopsis: See chapter 3
“Herman Came by Bomber”
February 1, 1954, 60 min.
Produced by Felix Jackson; directed by Franklin Schaffner
Cast: Paul Langton; Gwen Anderson; John Shellie; Paul Lilly; Harry Bergman; Roland Wood; Frederic Downs; and introducing: Stephen Meininger as Herman
Synopsis: See videography 3
MOTOROLA TELEVISION HOUR
“At Ease”
December 15, 1953, ABC, 60 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working title: “Taps Played on a Bugle”
Produced by Herbert Brodkin; directed by Donald Richardson
Cast: Brian Donleavy; Madge Evans; Horace MacMahon
Synopsis: Through extraordinary circumstances, a gruff, unsophisticated military man becomes headmaster of a prestigious military academy, much to the chagrin of the school’s blue-blooded board of directors.
“The Happy Headline”
December 25, 1953, NBC, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Early draft produced on the radio series Grand Central Station as “The Welcome Home” (a.k.a. “The Impostor”), December 31, 1949
Produced by Martin Horrell; directed by Garry Simpson and Don Appell Teleplay by Jesse Sandler; story by Rod Serling
Cast: James Costigan; Edith Meiser; Richard Bishop; Robert Middleton
Synopsis: Shortly before Christmas, a newspaper reporter is mistaken for a wealthy couple’s son who had been kidnapped twenty-one years earlier.
CHRYSLER MEDALLION THEATRE
“The Quiet Village”
August 22, 1953, CBS, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Recycled as “A Man with a Vengeance,” General Electric Theater, May 15, 1955, July 1, 1956
Produced and staged by William Spier; directed by Seymour Robbie
Cast: Robert Preston; Rod Steiger
Synopsis: A successful director uses his status to torment a struggling actor who once slighted him.
“They Call Them the Meek”
December 26, 1953, CBS, 30 min.
Produced by Mort Abrahams; directed by Don Medford
Cast: Thomas Gomez; Gene Raymond
Synopsis: During Christmas season, a successful but lonely businessman encounters a former love and gets a look at what his life might have been like if he hadn’t dedicated his life to only material success.
THE PHILIP MORRIS PLAYHOUSE
“A Walk in the Night”
February 18, 1954, CBS, 30 min.
Produced and directed by Charles Martin
Teleplay by Rod Serling and Verne Jay
Cast: Chester Morris
Synopsis: After investigating the murder of his partner, who had recently beaten him out for a promotion, a detective must accept the unavoidable conclusion that he killed his partner during an episode of sleepwalking.
“The Worthy Opponent”
August 24, 1954, ABC, 60 min.
Produced by Herbert Brodkin; directed by Donald Richardson
Television Play by Rod Serling (as Rod Sterling, in error)
Cast: Charles Coburn; Thomas Gomez; Charles Aidman; Phyllis Love; Parker Fennelly; Joseph Sweeney; George Mitchell; Marsha Caldwell
Synopsis: A young attorney is convinced to run for mayor of his small town, opposing his friend and longtime mentor.
TELLTALE CLUE
“The Case of Operation Death”
September 2, 1954, CBS, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working title: “Operation: Murder”
Produced and Directed by Charles Martin
Cast: Anthony Ross; Mildred Dunnock; Philip Bourneuf; Joy Hodges; William Johnstone; Luis Van Rooten; Chuck Webster; Myrtle Ferguson; Nat Frey
Synopsis: While performing brain surgery, a world-renowned surgeon drops dead from a bullet wound that must have been inflicted just minutes before he entered the operating room. Investigating the crime, detective Captain Richard Hale uncovers the murderer: a grieving mother whose son died during one of the surgeon’s previous operations.
Notes: Gore Vidal, who wrote for many of the same series as Serling during the Golden Age of Television, once suggested that this series was so bad that he and Serling used pseudonyms when writing for it.1 Vidal may have, but Serling did not. Judging by this dreadful script, perhaps he should have.
DANGER
CBS
“One for the Angels”
September 14, 1954, 30 min.
Alternate Titles/Productions/Publications:
1. Produced on The Storm in 1951 as “The Pitch”
2. Rewritten and produced on The Twilight Zone, October 10, 1959
3. 60-minute version, unproduced (rejected by Studio One)
Directed by Byron Paul
Synopsis: See chapter 2
NBC
“A Great Man Is Dying”
Aired in fifteen-minute installments on January 31, February 1, February 2, February 3, February 4, 1955
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working titles: “A Long Time till Dawn” and “A Great Man Lay Dying”
Produced by Wilbur Stark and Jerry Layne Productions
Synopsis: A reporter prepares to write an obituary for a dying man, William Bock, who was once a legend in local politics. Researching Bock’s life, the reporter is disturbed to discover that this wealthy, important man is going to die without a single friend or family member to mourn him.
“A Long Time till Dawn”
Aired in fifteen-minute installments on March 21, March 22, March 23, March 24, March 25, 1955
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Previously produced on Kraft Theatre, November 11, 1953
2. Working title: “Night unto Morning”
Produced by Wilbur Stark and Jerry Layne Productions
Synopsis: See Kraft Theatre, “A Long Time till Dawn,” November 11, 1953
ARMSTRONG CIRCLE THEATRE
“Save Me from Treason”
January 4, 1955, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working Titles: “The Brave Ones” and “The House of Wembley”
Produced by David Susskind; directed by William Corrigan
Cast: Ed Begley; Mildred Dunnock; Frank Aletter
Synopsis: In a Korean POW camp, an American soldier considers remaining in North Korea. He loves America, but he hates his father even more. All he can think about is how much it would hurt the old man’s reputation if his son, whom the man has always berated and belittled, were a traitor.
APPOINTMENT WITH ADVENTURE
“The Fateful Pilgrimage”
April 17, 1955, CBS, 30 min.
Produced and directed by Robert Stevens
Cast: Theodore Bikel; Viveca Lindfors; William Prince; George Macready; Martin Kosleck; Olga Fabian
Synopsis: A World War II veteran returns to Germany eleven years after the war, searching for the woman who cared for him after he was wounded.
GENERAL ELECTRIC THEATER
“A Man with a Vengeance”
May 15, 1955, CBS, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Previously produced as “The Quiet Village,” Chrysler Medallion Theatre, August 22, 1953
2. Repeat performance, July 1, 1956
Produced by Mort Abrahams; directed by Don Medford
Cast: Barry Sullivan; Luther Adler; Neva Patterson; George Voskovec
Synopsis: This is an edited, retitled version of “The Quiet Village,” Chrysler Medallion Theatre, August 22, 1953. It was performed yet again on July 1, 1956, with a different cast.
STAR TONIGHT
“Strength of Steel”
June 16, 1955, ABC, 30 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Previously produced as Act 3 of Kraft Theatre’s “Next of Kin,” April 8, 1953
Directed by Harry Herrmann
Cast: Frederic Tozere; Anne Edwards; Wyatt Cooper
Synopsis: See Kraft Theatre, “Next of Kin,” April 8, 1953
FIRESIDE THEATRE
“The Director”
September 13, 1955, NBC, 30 min.
Produced by William Asher; directed by Herschel Daugherty
Cast: James Barton; Jack Carson; Nancy Gates
Synopsis: Kimball Landers is one of the most highly acclaimed young directors in television. One reason he’s had so much success is that he is a single-minded machine, committed to his job to the disregard of human sentiment. But when he coaches a struggling actor to give a brilliant performance, Landers proves that he isn’t a heartless machine after all.
UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR
“Incident in an Alley”
November 24, 1955, CBS, 60 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Produced and released as a feature film, May 16, 1965, screenplay by Harold Medford and Owen Harris
2. Working titles: “Line of Duty” and “Shot in the Dark”
Produced by the Theatre Guild; directed by Sidney Lumet
Cast: Farley Granger; Cameron Prud’Homme; Edward Binns; Don Hanmer; Lori March; Peg Hillias; Vivian Mason; Alan Hewitt
Synopsis: After shooting and killing an innocent teenager, a police officer must face the possibility that this tragedy occurred partly because of a tragedy in his past.
THE CATHOLIC HOUR
“Beloved Outcaste”
April 15, 1956, NBC, 30 min.
Produced by Doris Ann; directed by Martin Hoade
Written by Rod Serling, based on Father Albert S. Foley’s book
Cast: Fred Fitzgerald
Synopsis: Born into slavery in 1830, James A. Healy becomes the first African American bishop in the history of the Catholic Church in 1875.
Notes: Oddly enough, Serling’s original one-hour script needed to be cut in half because the dramatic portion of The Catholic Hour was only a half hour long.
MATINEE THEATRE
“The Cause”
May 12, 1958, NBC, 60 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Produced on The Storm, March 22, 1952
2. Produced as a stage play in Cincinnati, summer 1951 Directed by Albert McCleery
Cast: Lois Smith; Richard Crenna; Sidney Blacker; Johnny Crawford; Kent Smith
Synopsis: On a neglected southern farm in June 1865, one old man refuses to accept that the Civil War is over and the Confederacy is dead.
PURSUIT
“The Last Night of August”
December 17, 1958, CBS, 60 min.
Produced by Peter Kortner; directed by Paul Stanley
Cast: Franchot Tone; Dennis Hopper; Cameron Mitchell; Jimmy Baird; Lyle Bettger; Leo Fuchs; Whitney Blake; Dick Wessel; Gordon Gebert Jr.
Synopsis: After one of his sons is shot dead by police, a grieving father reflects on what has led to this tragedy.
Notes: “The Last Night of August” is essentially a combination of two prior plays: “You Be the Bad Guy,” first broadcast on Lux Video Theatre, August 18, 1952, and “A Long Time till Dawn,” Kraft Theatre, November 11, 1953.
PLAYHOUSE 90
“Panic Button”
November 28, 1957, CBS, 90 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Produced on West German television as “Der Entscheidende Augenblick,” November 2, 1961
Produced by Martin Manulis; directed by Franklin Schaffner
Cast: Robert Stack; Vera Miles; Lee J. Cobb; Leif Erickson; Marian Seldes
Synopsis: An airline pilot faces an investigation after his plane crashes, killing eleven people onboard.
BOB HOPE PRESENTS THE CHRYSLER THEATRE
“A Killing at Sundial”
October 4, 1963, NBC, 60 min.
Produced by Dick Berg; directed by Alex Segal
Cast: Stuart Whitman; Angie Dickinson; Melvyn Douglas; Joseph Calleia; Robert Emhardt; Bryan O’Byrne; Malcolm Atterbury; Rex Holman; Jim Boles; George Mitchell
Synopsis: When Billy Cole was last in the town of Sundial, the young Chippewa Indian had been employed scrubbing toilets at a local saloon. When he returns after ten years away, Billy is a very wealthy man. He’s also very angry. His father lies buried in an unmarked grave, the victim of what could be described as a lynching, and Billy seeks revenge against the man he holds responsible.
“It’s Mental Work”
December 20, 1963, 60 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Working title: “A Note of Blues for the Morning”
Produced by Dick Berg; directed by Alex North
Teleplay by Rod Serling; adapted from a short story by John O’Hara
Cast: Lee J. Cobb; Harry Guardino; Gena Rowlands; Stanley Adams; Mary Wickes; Larry Blake; George N. Neise; Archie Moore
Synopsis: A drifter has a chance to buy the bar in which he works, but the owner’s beautiful young girlfriend complicates the situation.
March 27, 1964, 60 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Expanded version released as a feature film, The Movie Maker, in 1967
Produced by Dick Berg; directed by Ron Winston
Cast: Rod Steiger; Robert Culp; Sally Kellerman; James Dunn; Anna Lee; Wood-row Parfrey; Simon Scott; Sharon Farrell; Scott Elliott; Leon Belasco
Synopsis: See chapter 3
Notes: Three years after it was broadcast on Chrysler Theatre, an expanded version of “A Slow Fade to Black” was released as a feature film, The Movie Maker. Universal Studios, looking for ways to capitalize on unsold pilots and one-hour anthology dramas it owned, decided to write and shoot additional material so that several of these television productions could be sold as features. “A Slow Fade to Black” was expanded in this way. To write these additional scenes, Universal assigned an inexperienced writer, Stephen Bochco, who went on to create Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue, among other critically acclaimed series (he also wrote “Quarantine,” an episode of CBS’s Twilight Zone 1986 reboot). According to Bochco, “The first professional writing credit I ever received was for an episode of The Chrysler Theatre, in which I expanded a one-hour drama into a two-hour movie by writing backstory for all the primary characters…. I was so naive about the business that it didn’t even occur to me that my name was going to be on the screen.” Not until after he saw the finished film did he realize that not only did he now have a professional writing credit, he shared it with Rod Serling. Bochco “was so embarrassed for my name to be up there with his, having taken a wonderful hour drama that he wrote and essentially butchered the damn thing.” Bochco never did get a reaction to the end result from Serling: “Never met him. Thank God—he probably would’ve killed me.”2
“The Command”
May 22, 1964, 60 min.
Alternate titles/productions/publications:
1. Produced on Studio One as “The Strike”
Directed by Fielder Cook
Written by Rod Serling, based on his play, “The Strike”
Cast: Robert Stack; Andrew Duggan; Edward Binns; Milton Selzer; Robert Walker
Synopsis: See Videography 3
“Exit from a Plane in Flight”
January 22, 1965, 60 min.
Alternate Titles/Productions/Publications:
1. Working title: “A Certain Sky Revisited”
Directed by Ron Winston
Cast: Hugh O’Brian; Lloyd Bridges; Sorrell Brooke; Constance Towers; Noah Keen; Rockne Tarkington
Synopsis: Twenty years after his discharge from service, a vain Hollywood actor volunteers to jump out of an airplane with a platoon of paratroopers.
Notes: On April 1, 1964, nearly twenty years after leaving the military, thirty-nine-year-old Rod Serling parachuted out of an airplane from two thousand feet in the air over Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He had been invited to do so by the 82nd Airborne Division as well as by a friend and fellow paratrooper William Lindau, and he couldn’t refuse: “I had to prove I wasn’t old.”3 Though the majority of Serling’s writing contains autobiographical elements, “Exit from a Plane in Flight” surely represents his most literal (and most contemporaneous) connection between a script and an actual experience. Unlike his fictional counterpart, however, Serling made the jump.
INSIGHT
“The Hate Syndrome”
May 13, 1966, 60 min.
Produced by James Loren; directed by Marc Daniels
Cast: Eduard Franz; James Beggs; Harold Stone; Davis Roberts; Lincoln Demyan
Synopsis: After a violent altercation, a seventy-seven-year-old Hebrew school teacher is determined to redeem a former student who, in a fit of self-loathing, renounced his Jewish heritage and joined the American Fascist Party.
PRUDENTIAL’S ON STAGE
“Certain Honorable Men”
September 12, 1968, NBC, 97 min.
Produced by Alan Landsburg; directed by Alex Segal
Cast: Van Heflin; Peter Fonda; Pat Hingle; Alexandra Isles; Hiram Sherman; Will Geer; Staats Cotsworth; Dorothy Stickney; Loring Smith; Robert Milli
Synopsis: Sixty-year-old US senator Champ Donahue is forced to resign in disgrace for ethics violations, which are brought to light by a young politician whom Donahue had once mentored.
Notes: “Certain Honorable Men” was the first in a series of five NBC specials aired under the umbrella title Prudential’s On Stage. In an unusual move, NBC allowed these live-to-tape dramas to run overtime if necessary, and “Honorable Men” exceeded its ninety-minute time slot by seven minutes.
Feature film, Premiere: July 19, 1972
Produced by Lee Rich; directed by Joseph Sargent
Story and Screenplay by Rod Serling, based on Irving Wallace’s novel
Cast: James Earl Jones; Martin Balsam; Burgess Meredith; William Windom; Barbara Rush; Lew Ayres; George Stanford Brown; Janet Maclachlan; Martin E. Brooks; Patric Knowles; Robert DoQui; Anne Seymour; Reginald Fenderson; Jack Benny
Synopsis: While on a diplomatic tour of Germany, the president of the United States, the Speaker of the House, and fifty other American and German dignitaries are killed when a five-hundred-year-old building collapses on them. The vice president has recently suffered a stroke and is physically and mentally incapacitated, and he refuses to take the oath of office. The next man in line is the president pro tem of the Senate, Douglass Dilman. Overnight, the former professor becomes the first black US president.
Notes: The Man was produced as a made-for-television movie. After completing production, however, The Candidate, a political drama starring Robert Redford, was released in theaters to excellent reviews and box office success. Encouraged by this and by the fact that 1972 was an election year, ABC floated the idea of releasing the film theatrically. Most of those involved opposed this idea, arguing that the film had been specifically formatted for television. The low budget, condensed shooting schedule, length, and scope of its story and its direction had all been geared toward the small screen. Regardless, Paramount purchased the film for theatrical release. The film debuted on July 19, 1972, and was critically panned as superficial and politically simplistic. Several critics noted that its television roots were too apparent.
In condensing Wallace’s massive novel into a ninety-minute film, Serling eliminated the novel’s climax, which finds Dilman facing an impeachment trial. This decision also eliminated many of the political machinations leading to this event, which streamlined the plot but also contributed to the perception of superficiality.
Despite the film’s significant divergence from his novel, Irving Wallace declared that Serling had done “a commendable job. He condensed and changed it around a lot, but he has kept the basic feeling of The Man. I think it represents the best job of adapting my books for the screen that has yet been done.”4
To determine his on-screen credit for the film, Serling addressed his changes to Wallace’s novel in a letter to the Writers Guild of America:
In September of 1970 I took on the assignment to write a two-hour television motion picture to be based on the Irving Wallace novel, The Man. I had access to a previous adaptation … but I retained nothing at all from this beyond character names. From the novel itself I retained only the most fundamental premise … that of a black man fortuitously chosen to serve as President of the U.S. Beyond this premise, I submit that the script, its plot line and its dramatic incidents are all my own creation.5
The Writers Guild agreed with Serling’s assessment and gave him both a “Story by” credit and a “Screenplay by” credit, a relatively rare occurrence for screenplays based on novels.
THE OATH
ABC
“The Sad and Lonely Sundays”
August 26, 1976, 60 min.
Produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg; directed by James Goldstone
Cast: Jack Albertson; Will Geer; Ed Flanders; Eddie Firestone; Sam Jaffe; Doreen Lang; Dorothy Tristan; Jeff Corey; Dori Brenner; Bert Remsen; Jason Wingreen; Barbara Dodd; Jon Cedar; Gene Tyburn
Synopsis: See chapter 3.