Four Star Playhouse Episode Rating Graph

Willie Dante owns a bar and gambling house called Dante's Inferno. One night, the wife of an acquaintance tells Willie that her husband has threatened her. Willie comforts her and sends her home, but she turns up dead the next day.

An actor named Paul is out on an evening stroll when he sees a young woman attempting to jump off a bridge. After a struggle, he discovers her name is Amy and she is homeless. Paul believes $5 could mean the difference between decency & despair so he pays for Amy to stay in a hotel for the night, agreeing to meet her the next day. Amy is nowhere to be found when Paul returns. He worries and begins the search for this mysterious woman.

A military hero becomes circumspect as his wife expects their first child. In battle, he jumps into a protective hole instead of forging to the front of the line. His company nicknames him Yellowbelly, and he loses the respect of his men.

More interested in his career than in his duty as a physician, a noted doctor intentionally misdiagnoses a patient in an Asian city so he could get back to the U.S. and accept a major award. When his wife realizes that he abandoned a town needing his help to fight a Plague outbreak, she demands a divorce.

Fresh out of prison, blackmailer Gus Anderson intends to use Willie's casino to launder his victims' money. To insure his cooperation, Gus' thugs are holding one of Willie's waiters hostage. Glamorous singer Betty Maxwell shows up at Dante's, as scheduled, to lose at blackjack and avoid having a risqué photo of her mailed to the tabloids. Knowing that Lt. Waldo will but his casino yet again, Willie invites to cop over to watch Gus violate his parole.

Philip Benton is entertaining thoughts of moving on from his wife, who has been in a sanitarium for five years. Just as he is starting a new relationship with his secretary, he receives news that his wife is better and will be released.

Ruthless dictator Mendoza summons a priest when 300,000 people in his country announce that they will pray for him to die at 1:42 that day.

A teacher wanting to leave his unfulfilling job needs money to write the book he's dreamed of. A stranger enters and makes an unusual offer: $10,000 to take a physical for a dying man so he can get life insurance to take care of his widow when he passes on.

Emily is an invalid who needs a caretaker. Her husband leaves her home alone one day, and she begins to stew over the low regard that he has for her. He, on the other hand, resents the opportunities that he's missed because of Emily.

A police detective travels to Borneo looking for an American who murdered his wife for a huge insurance payoff. There are only three Americans there, all on a rubber plantation, but none fits the physical description. Once his cover is blown, the detective comes clean and tells the men he thinks none of them are his man. But he knows the killer is a wine connoisseur and he uses that to set a trap.

At a particularly vulnerable time in her life, Carol is wooed by charming David. They fall in love, but Carol then learns that David is married. He says that he will get divorced for her, but Carol is visited by David's wife.

Sheila and her brother engineer a gas leak to kill her husband so they can split the insurance money. Overhearing the plot is the husband's invalid father, but it's no concern because he can't speak or write. Sheila doesn't realize he is able to communicate with his nurse through his eyes.

An employee catches attractive Mrs. Raymond making a pass at Willie, then Mr. Raymond comes to the club with a gun to get even. Willie shoots him in self defense, but Willie is framed when Mr. Raymond's gun disappears.

While traveling alone in a train compartment, an elderly, wealthy, wheelchair-bound man (Cedric Hardwicke) is confronted by a younger man (David Niven), whom he had double-crossed over twenty years ago. The younger man, now bent on revenge, tells the elderly man that he intends to kill him when the train passes through an upcoming tunnel. A battle of wits ensues.

Upset that his 25 years of service for the company are unappreciated, Henri treats himself to an expensive night on the town, on the company's dime. He then comes to his senses, distraught that his embezzlement will be discovered.

When her long-time pin-boy retires, bowling proprietress hires the one guy who answers her want-ad right away. He turns out to be an escaped committed psychotic who, lonely and always lacking in the social skills, never received the nurturing of a friend [you think]. We know it but it takes some time before she becomes aware. While waiting for the police to come to apprehend him, she lets him walk her home through the park while lending him her sympathetic ear. Dealing with a psychotic might take some finesse. How will HE take it? And how will he take IT?

A wealthy woman separates from her fortune-hunting husband. She rents a swanky New York penthouse in a building so new that she is the only one living there. When she awakens from a nap, she finds herself trapped in the apartment. Her estranged husband and his girlfriend are after her money and are hoping this will drive her crazy.

Industrialist Fleet Mason, a workaholic who doesn't realize how many lives he effects with his stressed-out working habits. When he thinks his loving wife has hung up on him in disgust, he re-evaluates his life by taking an imaginary bus trip to Meadville"". The trip is to nowhere and is full of psychological imagery. In a smoke shrouded bus terminal he meets all the people in his life as total strangers. When he meets his wife and realizes she doesn't recognize him, he becomes despondent. Only when his father appears and guides him to the exit does he realize how he must alter his life.

In Hell, the administrating office is hopelessly out of date and incompetent, so Satan enlists the help of an exceptionally aggressive and heartless businessman to modernize the place. He installs an IBM system and soon it's the picture of efficiency, much, it turns out, to the businessman's regret.

A former sheriff, Will Sonnett, known for his fast draw shows up in Mesa to see an optometrist; he's become nearsighted and badly needs glasses. Also in town is a punk gunfighter who wants to make a name for himself. Knowing Sonnett has vision problems, he challenges the lawman to a duel.

A reformed card sharp is recruited to unmask a suspected poker cheat among a group of wealthy gamblers. He finds it difficult to be impartial when the suspect enthusiastically befriends him.

A 100-year-old woman who recalls her romance with a desperado during the days of the old West.

A WWII captain must oversee an execution he doesn't want to happen.

Valerie is a world famous movie actress who just bombed on her first attempt at live acting on Broadway. She goes to Ben, renowned acting instructor, to teach her how to be a live actress. He refuses unless she can succeed at a challenge.

Two cops transporting prisoner Cookie decide on a layover in the city of Westover, temporarily placing Cookie in the local jail while they freshen up elsewhere. Cookie devises a plot to snooker the locals into releasing him.

Uncle Fred descends upon a suburban home, completely disrupts the lives of the family by his eccentric behaviour, and brings two young lovers together. His unwilling accomplice, and a horrified spectator of this chaos, is his nephew, Pongo.

A man is assigned to force a small-town newspaper out of existence.

Man invents a wife, then accused of murdering her.

A doctor encounters suspicion and a dark secret when he rents a house in Cuba.

A famous author gets embroiled in an unusual situation when he offers to drive a young Mexican girl to her ranch.

Englishman must retrieve his hat after visiting his love.

A bank employee mails a letter to his boss confessing to stealing $7000 and includes the stocks he bought with the money. As he puts a gun to his head, he sees in the paper that the stocks' worth have gone through the roof. Now he wants to live and goes on a frantic chase to get the letter back from the post office before it gets delivered.

Ted Parker enlists his friend Addy, a famous art expert, into an elaborate ruse to portray his budding love interest as a break-out artist, despite her lack of talent.

An engaged couple and the woman's former suitor take shelter in an abandoned house, too late to notice an unexploded bomb. Their retreat is cut off by a cave-in, and they must defuse the bomb with instructions delivered over a phone line.

A little girl who regularly talks to imaginary friends grows frustrated when her parents refuse to believe that there is a real man in the cellar.

A French waiter with more pride than money will not stand for his sickly wife to be admitted to a free public hospital. When a wealthy customer leaves behind a wallet containing thousands of dollars, the server takes it to upgrade his wife's medical care. Their son also becomes a thief to pay the bills.

An artist is enticed away from his lucrative commercial advertising contracts by a young model who shows obvious disappointment that he is not striving to achieve his potential as a creative artist.

Chicago television newsman Dave Sheridan (Dick Powell) arrives in a small Ohio town, Hadenville, where Richard Fulton has just been lynched. The chief of police (Edward R. Platt) tells Sheridan he confessed to killing sweet old Mrs. Winslow and the town went wild. Sheridan plans on doing a piece exposing how sick the town is. Hotel clerk Carol (Jean Howell) wants him to give the town a "fair trial".

After falling for a medical student, a New York City psychiatrist travels to her family ranch to announce their engagement. Her father hates city slickers and expect her to marry a rancher to run the estate. To win his woman's hand, Henry's challenged to ride an unbroken stallion known as a "killer." He puts his professional skills to work on the horse.

A complex web of deception is revealed during the investigation of the assassination of a police official. In a foreign country during the Cold War, an American doctor is accused to being a spy and targeted for murder, but the wrong man is killed. But, perhaps, the right man died after all.

A woman's loneliness leads her to re-experience her long repressed (20-year old) pain-associated memories (albeit benign themselves). The mystery: is she (Oberon) insane (hallucinations or phantasms?), will her busy businessman husband (Stevens) rediscover his more nurturing side (in other words will he ever finally land the account), and will a therapist (Beaumont) help bring it all together for the better and for us to make good sense of it?

A particularly bad review causes a Broadway actress to scheme to humiliate the drama critic.

A milquetoast employee at a novelty company is overlooked by everyone from his boss to the woman he crushes on. But after being suckered by a shady tailor into getting a shockingly garish suit, he's whistled at by woman and mistaken for a gangster. His newly found self-confidence fits him well.

A woman is surprised when her fiancé turns out to have been married before.

The chancellor of a foreign university gives newspaperman Frank Carstairs a document to smuggle out of the country. He anticipates being charged with treason by the totalitarian government and he wants the free world to know he did not willingly join their side. Meanwhile, Frank carries on an affair with a sexy foreign spy who seems to be playing both sides of the fence.

An undercover agent is dispatched to the anti-communist underground to search for an important contact. But when he's caught by the red Chinese, he's tortured in various ways for important information by a mysterious renegade white man who leads them known by the nom de guerre "Sampan Joe".

Ted attacks old enemy Walter in a fit of rage. Stunned at the realization that Walter is dead, he hears a woman on the phone who overheard their conversation. Ted needs to find this woman and keep her from telling the police anything.

An experienced writer is in the middle of a professional slump when he is inspired by the story of an old long lost friend. While his career is reviving, he seems to be hindering the acting prospects of his novice young girlfriend.

Five people, one a murderer, are trapped on subway.

Rebellious physician on an island in the South Pacific.

A reformed pickpocket in Paris obtains the purse of an attractive woman. He reads a letter telling about her dying son, and he decides to grant the boy's wish to meet his father.

William encounters an old acquaintance, John Dwerrihouse, on a train with 75,000 pounds. Only later did William learn that Dwerrihouse had disappeared four months earlier after embezzling 75,000 pounds from the train company.