The Best Episodes of Schlitz Playhouse of Stars
Every episode of Schlitz Playhouse of Stars ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Schlitz Playhouse of Stars!
Schlitz Playhouse of Stars is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to Schlitz Playhouse, beginning with the fall 1957 season.
Top Episode Ratings Summary
The best episode of "Schlitz Playhouse of Stars" is "The Long Shot", rated 9.6/10 from 10 user votes. It was directed by Ted Post and written by Frederic Dannay. "The Long Shot" aired on 10/9/1953 and is rated 1.2 point(s) higher than the second highest rated, "Midnight Haul".
9.6/10 10 votes#1 - The Long Shot
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 10/9/1953
After three other cargo planes have mysteriously disappeared, an army air corps crew is informed that their plane is carrying a hidden time bomb. Since a powerful storm has made visibility virtually nil, the airmen desperately search their craft for the explosives. The Episode was Directed by Ted Post and stars Charles Bronson as Sgt. Roy Smith, and Pitt Herbert as Rouke.
Director: Ted Post
Writer: Frederic Dannay
- 8.4/10 10 votes
#2 - Midnight Haul
Season 4 Episode 10 - Aired 11/12/1954
A driver tries to find out why his trucks are being stolen
Director: Gerald Mayer
Writer: N/A
- 8.4/10 250 votes
#3 - The Restless Gun
Season 6 Episode 26 - Aired 3/29/1957
On the trail to visit his old friend Dan, former gunfighter Britt Ponset meets an escaped murderer nursing a grudge and plotting to kill Dan. Britt's job now is to warn Dan and help him prepare for the inevitable showdown.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.4/10 12 votes
#4 - Bluebeard's Seventh Wife
Season 7 Episode 24 - Aired 3/21/1958
A disappointed suitor is accused of playing cop when he voices doubts about a former girlfriend's choice of a husband.
Director: Paul Henreid
Writer: N/A
- 8.3/10 10 votes
#5 - Medicine Woman
Season 2 Episode 35 - Aired 5/1/1953
Smug Sam Bentley, a builder of high rise construction projects, is inconvenienced by a doctor's parked car. He decides to give him a piece of his mind, only to find the doctor is a lady. Instead of an argument, they get romantic. Things go well until one of her patients is hurt at one of his work sites.
Director: Roy Kellino
Writer: N/A
- 8.3/10 9 votes
#6 - How the Brigadier Won His Medal
Season 3 Episode 44 - Aired 7/2/1954
Napoleon sends one of his Brigadiers (Claude Dauphin) on a special mission to the King of Spain.
Director: Jus Addiss
Writer: N/A
- 8.3/10 9 votes
#7 - Boling Point
Season 5 Episode 46 - Aired 8/17/1956
A hard-hitting crime reporter discovers that his wife once worked for a gambling ring.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.3/10 10 votes
#8 - False Impression
Season 8 Episode 7 - Aired 11/7/1958
A crippled dental technician falls in love with a pretty girl who refuses to have anything to do with him. He decides to steal a fortune in jewels in order to force the girl to overlook his physical handicap and marry him.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.2/10 83 votes
#9 - The Unlighted Road
Season 4 Episode 35 - Aired 5/6/1955
Young Jeff Latham stops at a roadside diner and ends up working there. After meeting a nice local girl, everything seems to be going his way. Things get complicated when he unwittingly gets involved with criminals working out of the diner.
Director: Jus Addiss
Writer: N/A
- 8.2/10 12 votes
#10 - A Light in the Desert
Season 6 Episode 12 - Aired 12/21/1956
A doctor saves a mother, dying in childbirth, and restores his own soul in the process.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.2/10 20 votes
#11 - Neighbors
Season 7 Episode 11 - Aired 12/6/1957
A home-loving man's marriage has become a dull routine until he becomes interested in a young widow who moves next door.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.2/10 9 votes
#12 - The Trouble With Ruth
Season 8 Episode 5 - Aired 10/24/1958
Not even her husband knows that Ruth Elliot is a kleptomaniac. But hoodlum Joseph Libo finds out about her illness and threatens to tell her husband unless she helps him carry out a robbery.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/10 17 votes
#13 - The Ledge
Season 2 Episode 43 - Aired 6/26/1953
A young artist who's come to the big city loses heart when he experiences vision problems. Despite reassurance from his doctor that his eyes will improve, he becomes disheartened and climbs out onto a window ledge. The doctor, a cop, and a young woman who knows his case all work to coax him back inside.
Director: Ted Post
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/10 14 votes
#14 - Closed Door
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 11/27/1953
A heartless businessman has spent the last three weeks in a single room of his home. He's developed a psychosomatic affliction which makes it unable for him to turn the room's doorknob. He refuses to leave until he can open the door himself, and refuses psychiatric help. A family with a sick child takes refuge in his home during a severe storm against his wishes.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/10 10 votes
#15 - The Long Trail
Season 4 Episode 11 - Aired 11/19/1954
Texas Ranger Walden accepts the hospitality of an Oregon sheriff and his daughter while on the trail of a man wanted for murder. He learns his quarry, Sam Gates, is nearby and the sheriff agrees to help him fulfill the order of the law. Several locals ask the ranger to reconsider arresting Gates because he was only acting in self defense. Plus, he's now a family man, married to the sheriff's daughter.
Director: Jus Addiss
Writer: George Bruce
- 8.0/10 8 votes
#16 - False Alarm
Season 7 Episode 37 - Aired 8/15/1958
A honest cab driver who has fallen on hard times joins a gang planning to commit an armored car robbery.
Director: John Brahm
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/10 8 votes
#17 - No Second Helping
Season 7 Episode 9 - Aired 11/22/1957
A wife finds a letter in the pocket of her suave husband and learns he's been seeing a young woman. She suspects he's been cheating, but he says she's the daughter of a friend and simply reminds him of his youth. The wife decides to get to the bottom of it all by having the "chick" join them for dinner.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/10 10 votes
#18 - The Governess
Season 2 Episode 31 - Aired 4/3/1953
Quite sentimental story of an old woman looking back on her life as a governess. Though now she's seemingly been forgotten by her past charges, the deep feelings this woman felt for her "children" never will.
Director: Rod Amateau
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/10 16 votes
#19 - The General's Boots
Season 3 Episode 47 - Aired 7/23/1954
A martinet of a general, one of his former officers, and a middle aged plane passenger find themselves in a liferaft with only one canteen of water.
Director: Roy Kellino
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/10 21 votes
#20 - Clothes Make the Man
Season 6 Episode 27 - Aired 4/5/1957
A mousy little button salesman gets thrown out of his hotel when it is taken over by a new chain, because he wore outlandish clothes.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/10 12 votes
#21 - Storm Warnings
Season 2 Episode 45 - Aired 7/10/1953
Wanda is married to one of the operators of a small Alaskan cargo airline. She sends a note to her husband's partner, Vic, suggesting a rendezvous. When the letter goes missing, Vic is convinced his partner knows about their affair and feeding him deadly landing instructions via radio during a storm.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.6/10 10 votes
#22 - The Black Mate
Season 3 Episode 42 - Aired 6/18/1954
No-nonsense sailor Bunter signs on as first mate on a sailing ship helmed by an eccentric skipper. The Captain is a firm believer in spiritualism which Bunter dismisses as idiotic superstition. But one strange night, Bunter falls on the deck, saying he's seen a ghost. The next morning, his hair is completely white.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/10 12 votes
#23 - Storm Swept
Season 3 Episode 14 - Aired 12/4/1953
The wife of a fugitive from the law escapes with him to a far away island. Their tiny refuge becomes the scene of great emotional and physical upheaval with the arrival of a mysterious detective and a tropical storm.
Director: Roy Kellino
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/10 10 votes
#24 - I Shot a Prowler
Season 7 Episode 25 - Aired 3/28/1958
While her husband is away on a business trip, a lonely housewife becomes infatuated with another man. When he threatens her with exposure unless she gives him a large sum of money, she searches frantically for a solution to her problem.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.4/10 17 votes
#25 - The Town That Slept With the Lights On
Season 7 Episode 31 - Aired 5/16/1958
A New York City reporter arrives in a small town where two recent murders have the locals terrified. Vigilantes have decided that a man from the wrong side of the tracks is the killer. The police chief, however, believes there's a big secret in the town that points to the guilty party.
Director: Edmond O'Brien
Writer: N/A