7.3/1034 votes#1 - Finale
Season 2 Episode 1 - Aired 9/24/1953
Steve Carlyle is an actor who can't find work because his famous nearly identical cousin Roger takes measures to keep him from getting any parts that would gain Steve any public exposure, because Roger knows that Steve is a better actor.
Director: Roy Kellino
Writer: Seeleg Lester
- 7.6/1051 votes
#2 - The Squeeze
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 10/1/1953
Another of the great Willie Dante stories. Stan, the son of the DA, is a secret gambler. He loses big in Willie's joint and pays by check. Stan's pretty sister shows up to ask Willie's help. Deras, a gangster up before the Grand Jury, wants to get hold of Stan's check to blackmail the DA. He shows up at Dante's and Willie turns over the check at gunpoint. Never to be out-witted, Willie has Lt. Waldo waiting in the wings to get the checks back, have Deras arrested, and win Stan's sister.
Director: Robert Aldrich
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/1040 votes
#3 - A Place Of His Own
Season 2 Episode 3 - Aired 10/8/1953
The Commander, a mildly brain injured war hero, lives with his greedy family. All he wants is his own house, while all they want is to preserve their failing wealth, at all costs. When Frank, his younger brother, kills a man over a gambling debt, the family convinces Claude that he is the one that did it. He takes the blame, but instead of being arrested, he is given a $10,000 reward because the dead man was a most wanted criminal.
Director: Robert Florey
Writer: N/A
- 6.4/1030 votes
#4 - Love At Sea
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 10/15/1953
A journalist's wife who, while alone on a sea voyage, becomes the center of male attention.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.2/1061 votes
#5 - The Witness
Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 10/22/1953
A suave attorney is hired to defend a man on trial for robbery and murder. The attorney finds the real culprit and solves the mystery in the courtroom.
Director: Robert Aldrich
Writer: Seeleg Lester
- 6.4/1026 votes
#6 - A Matter Of Advice
Season 2 Episode 6 - Aired 10/29/1953
Weary Dr. Gentry gets no rest from his irritating patients. The pediatrician deals with ill-mannered kids and parents who can't make a move without checking with him first. An evening out with his wife to watch their oldest daughter star in "Romeo and Juliet" becomes a disaster when a panicked new mother interrupts the balcony scene with a silly phone call.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.1/1037 votes
#7 - Out of the Night
Season 2 Episode 7 - Aired 11/5/1953
A newspaper reporter is intrigued as to why a woman hired a dive team to retrieve her purse from the Chicago River.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.5/1032 votes
#8 - Moorings
Season 2 Episode 8 - Aired 11/12/1953
A sickly aging shipping magnate falls in love with a blind mother.
Director: Robert Florey
Writer: N/A
- 7.3/1026 votes
#9 - The Hard Way
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 11/19/1953
Vic breaks the bank at Willie's gambling hall, and Willie unknowingly pays him off with counterfeit money. When Vic threatens him, Willie convinces him that they've both been duped, and they cooperate to track down the real culprit.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.3/1028 votes
#10 - For Art`s Sake
Season 2 Episode 10 - Aired 11/26/1953
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.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.0/1056 votes
#11 - The Girl On The Park Bench
Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 12/3/1953
A beautiful, intelligent, and politically savvy young woman takes up residency in the city park to protest the Mayor's decision to end rent control on apartments. The comically ornery mayor seems to have met his match! Sparks fly as the Mayor dispatches the city's handsome attorney in an attempt to oust the young woman, who gives her a friendly warning that she will get evicted and lose in court. The tables get turned as the woman proves she is also good at law, but after some very interesting negotiations, all's well that ends well.
Director: Hal Walker
Writer: William Bowers
- 7.0/1022 votes
#12 - The Room
Season 2 Episode 12 - Aired 12/10/1953
A doctor encounters suspicion and a dark secret when he rents a house in Cuba.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.3/1023 votes
#13 - A Man Of The World
Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 12/17/1953
Predictable Andy Bush is taking a train to his annual three week vacation without his wife. A young woman in trouble approaches him and asks him to help her by pretending to be her husband.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.1/1060 votes
#14 - The Gift
Season 2 Episode 14 - Aired 12/24/1953
Businessman Carl Baxter is a good boss for 364 days a year, but his memories of his estrangement with his son causes his mood to change at Christmas.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/1055 votes
#15 - House For Sale
Season 2 Episode 15 - Aired 12/31/1953
A woman visits an isolated house expecting to meet with the realtor. Instead, she encounters a murderer who's escaped from a mental hospital. When a couple drops in to tour the home, she tries to escape with them, but they refuse to believe her story of a killer with a body in the fireplace.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 6.3/1017 votes
#16 - The Test
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 1/7/1954
A test pilot learns that it's possible that his sick daughter could have polio, just before he tests a new military plane.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.0/1022 votes
#17 - The Bad Streak
Season 2 Episode 17 - Aired 1/14/1954
An honest professional casino owner runs into bad luck with impending insolvency or sale of his property. He also runs into his ""long-lost"" never forgotten misdirected son who is obsessed to better his hated father at gambling for having abandoned (rejected) him in infancy when it was all the doing of his guardian, one-time socialite, protective maternal grandmother who has fallen from her lofty position as well. Honor, love and pride play their roles.
Director: Robert Aldrich
Writer: N/A
- 7.2/1067 votes
#18 - A String of Beads
Season 2 Episode 18 - Aired 1/21/1954
Joan Robinson works as a governess for a wealthy family. She attends a party thrown by her employer and, although she is an attractive young woman, she is completely ignored until one of the guests, Count Borselli, appraises the beads she is wearing as a valuable string of pearls. She proteststo no avail, knowing they are imitations. Her whole life changes. She is invited to parties, and wooed by a fortune hunter. When it's finally learned that the beads are worthless, she is fired and her suitor loses interest. The count admits that, provoked by the snobbish socialites, he deliberatly lied about the beads. In the end, he and the governess fall in love.
Director: William Cameron Menzies
Writer: Don Ettlinger
- NaN/100 votes
#19 - Indian Taker
Season 2 Episode 19 - Aired 1/28/1954
A comedy of errors about an insurance executive’s wife. At a party, the impulse suddenly comes over her and she proceeds to steal the jewels of all wealthy guests, who happen to be insured by her husband’s firm.
Director: Blake Edwards
Writer: N/A
- 6.9/1022 votes
#20 - Second Dawn
Season 2 Episode 20 - Aired 2/4/1954
A blind man has a chance for surgery to restore his sight, but it may last for just a few minutes.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.0/1048 votes
#21 - The Gun
Season 2 Episode 21 - Aired 2/11/1954
A police detective returns home to his family one morning only to have his meal interrupted by a constant stream of people: the milkman, his neighbor, the postman, the grocery boy, and a salesman. Afterwards, he finds that his gun is missing. In a panic that slowly turns to paranoia, he realizes that each of the visitors had said something that makes them a suspect.
Director: Frank McDonald
Writer: N/A
- 8.1/1041 votes
#22 - The Bomb
Season 2 Episode 22 - Aired 2/18/1954
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.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.3/1054 votes
#23 - Meet McGraw: Long Count
Season 2 Episode 23 - Aired 2/25/1954
McGraw, a private eye, is hired by Lila Lamont to protect her from her threatening husband Louis.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/1036 votes
#24 - Detective`s Holiday
Season 2 Episode 24 - Aired 3/4/1954
A detective (Dick Powell) takes a trip to a cabin in the woods to get away from it all. A man, his wife, and his two kids entertain him. When one of the kids let's it slip that their step-mother just got her blond hair, the detective predicts she is running from the law and decides to check it out.
Director: Blake Edwards
Writer: N/A
- 7.5/1027 votes
#25 - Operation In Money
Season 2 Episode 25 - Aired 3/11/1954
The chief teller of a bank openly embezzles a large sum of money to extort a pay raise from the bank's board of directors.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Four Star Playhouse Season 2
Every episode of Four Star Playhouse Season 2 ranked from best to worst. Discover the Best Episodes of Four Star Playhouse Season 2!
Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company;...
Genres:DramaComedy
Network:CBS
Season 2 Ratings Summary
"Finale" is the best rated episode of "Four Star Playhouse" season 2. It scored 7.3/10 based on 34 votes. Directed by Roy Kellino and written by Seeleg Lester, it aired on 9/24/1953. This episode is rated 0.3 points higher than the second-best, "The Squeeze".