Adventure
Escape: Treasure, Inc. (CBS, 1950)—A couple has turned a tropical island retreat into a laundromat for greed, until Eddie (Frank Lovejoy) rethinks everything—including his wife (Mary Lansing). It works better than you might suspect. Clyde: John Hoyt. Brewer: Harry Bartell. Additional cast: Eileen Flint, Paul Frees. Director: Norman Macdonnell. Music: Del Castillio. Writer: Les Crutchfield, from a story by John and Gwen Bagney .
Comedy
The Great Gildersleeve: Sabotage (NBC, 1943)—Gildersleeve's (Harold Peary) sacrastic joy at finally receiving the gas masks promised the water department for only too long becomes muted when he fears a fire at the town arms plant and a key valve failing at the water plant were sabotaged. Leroy: Walter Tetley. Birdie: Lillian Randolph. Bessie: Pauline Drake. Jackson: Arthur Q. Bryan. Chief Gates: Ken Christy. Leila: Shirley Mitchell. Hooker: Earle Ross. Peavey: Richard LeGrand. Announcer: Ken Carpenter. Music: Claude Sweetin Orchestra. Director: Cecil Underwood. Writers: John Whedon, Sam Moore.
The Great Gildersleeve: A Shower for Marjorie (NBC, 1951)—The 21st episode of the show's post-Harold Peary era finds Uncle Mort (Willard Waterman) tricking a neighbour (guest Cathy Lewis) into tossing niece Marjorie (Mary Lee Robb) a baby shower. Waterman may be a pleasant if less accented sound-alike but he simply isn’t the great Gildersleeve, as though anyone else could have been, and for all the new production polish it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that things weren’t always too smooth in the original translation. Leroy: Walter Tetley. Hooker: Earle Ross. Birdie: Lillian Randolph. Additional cast: Richard LeGrand, Gale Gordon. Announcer: John Hiestand. Director: Possibly Karl Gruener. Music: Robert Armbruster. Writers: Paul West, Andy White.
The Marriage: Getting to Know Bobby Logan (NBC, 1954)—That’s what Liz and Ben (Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn) are doing with out-of-town daughter Emily’s (Denise Alexander) boyfriend (William Redfield), a slightly nervous type wrangling over his coming post-graduation life and his parents’ actual or alleged plans for him. Here's a good reason why people think this series deserved better. Announcer: Bob Denton. Director: Edward King. Writer: Ernest Kinoy.
Our Miss Brooks: Foreign Teachers (CBS; AFRTS rebroadcast, 1954)—Connie (Eve Arden) and Conklin (Gale Gordon) are threatened with their jobs after they boot out of the school a pair of particularly snooty visiting teachers from abroad, when school superintendent Stone (Herb Butterfield) warns them a visiting Washington education dignitary has compelled similar firings in other districts. Walter: Richard Crenna. Boynton: Robert Rockwell. Harriet: Gloria McMillan. Announcer: Unknown. Music: Wilbur Hatch. Writer/director: Al Lewis.
Drama/Dramatic Anthology
Lux Radio Theater: Clarence (CBS, 1938)—The Booth Tarkington farce—once made into a silent film (1922) long since lost—gets a strikingly straightforward performance from Bob Burns, Gayle Patrick, and Thomas Mitchell, in the story of a scientist (Burns) working as a wealthy family's handyman with whom all the household women fall in love, even as all the household men fall for governess Sabra Jones (Patrick). Henry Wheeler: Thomas Mitchell. Mrs. Wheeler: Irene Pringle. Bobby: Johnny Downs. Cora: Jane Bryan. Host/producer: Cecil B. DeMille. Music: Louis Silvers. Derived from the screen scenario by Clara Beranger.
Family Theater: A Star for Helen (Mutual, 1951)—Softly troubling tale of a tenement janitor (Walter Brennan) who learns how easy it isn't to honour thy father and thy mother, a lesson he draws from a favourite tenant's (Betty Lynn) growing pains around her widowed mother's deepening burial in the bottle. Credit the company in general and Brennan in particular for applying just the right amount of understatement to keep it from devolving to maudlin cliché. Additional cast: Unknown. Announcer: Tony La Frano. Director: Possibly Mel Williamson. Writers: Fr. Patrick Peyton, True Boardman.
Mystery/Thriller
Suspense: My Dear Niece (CBS, 1946)—A widow (Dame Mae Witty), working as a home-based publishing secretary, writes her niece about the murder plot that sprang out of her agreement to host a promising new author secretly. Standard series effectiveness. Additional cast: Wally Maher. Announcer: Truman Bradley. Music: Bernard Herrmann, Lucien Moraweck. Sound: BerneSurrey. Writer/director: William Spier.
Western
Gunsmoke: The Old Lady (CBS, 1953)—She’s an embittered widow (Jeanette Nolan) who fires on Matt (William Conrad) and Chester (Parley Baer), who are on their way back to Dodge and stop to water their horses, and the shooting surprises them until they learn too much about her shiftless son—and herself. You've heard better from this series but that's no denigration. Kitty: Georgia Ellis. Doc: Howard McNear. Director: Norman Macdonnell. Music: Rex Khoury. Writer: Kathleen Hite.
The Six Shooter: Helen Bricker (NBC, 1954)—The entire town of Yellow Crest wants to run off prodigal daughter Helen Bricker (Lillian Buyeff), who's returned to town still married to Billy Stark ( )—scheduled to be hanged in another town, having turned into a notorious bank robber and killer in the years following their marriage—and Ponset (James Stewart) tries to save his bitter old acquaintance Helen from a threatened firebombing. Postmaster: Parley Baer. Buck: Herb Vigran. Additional cast: Ken Christy, Will Wright. Announcer: John Wald. Music: Basil Adlam. Director: Jack Johnstone. Writer: Frank Burt.
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