An attorney, voted most likely to succeed in college, looks back on his life.

A Letter to Mr. Priest

Bert Lytell

Delbert Mann

Hometown

Ann Rutledge

A Victorian Scotswoman of far-reaching ambition. Using her supposedly frail feminine wiles, she maneuvers her fatuous husband into a successful political career. He rises to a parliamentary seat, never quite realizing that he hasn't done it alone.

What Every Woman Knows

Pride Dawson was one of those "Robber Barons", who started out his life in rags and turned his life to riches and women. His contempt for human decency or moral restraint left him ruthless and corrupt. He falls for Sharon O'Neill who is a woman filled with so much goodness in her soul, as much as he has evil in his.

Pride's Castle

A woman from Kansas comes to Marlowe to help find her missing brother.

The Little Sister

An engaged Air Force lieutenant goes on a ten-day furlough to Scotland with a female friend. Their understanding is that the trip will be purely platonic; instead, they fall madly in love. At his first opportunity, the lieutenant flies back to America to break the news to his fiancé and family.

The Lonely

A conniving and devious  Southern socialite who manipulates the lives of those around her with tragic results.

The Queen Bee

A couple of New England housewives disrupt their marriages by becoming an early morning radio team.

Something's Got to Give

A 1930's brilliant and efficient movie mogul and the story behind the Hollywood Dream Factory.

The Last Tycoon

The Lockwoods are patronising toward their former neighbours, the Hunters, who are now living in the poorer district in town. The Hunters are saved from despair from the help of a young junk dealer named Oliver Read, who teaches the Lockwoods a lesson in humanity.

Because of the Lockwoods

A theater owner's daughter discovers his father's true nature and is shaken by the discovery. She moments jealousy backstage to expose him.

Damion's Daughter

With the ownership of Seven Gables, the opulent family estate, at stake, a man frames his brother for murder.

The House of Seven Gables

A husband and wife are drifting apart due to different goals in their individual careers.

The Promise

Medical Meeting

A female psychiatrist visits the home of a famous woman novelist and discovers unhappiness aplenty. She learns the novelist's ambitions and vanity are causes of the trouble.

The Wonderful Mrs. Ingram

Blackmail terrorizes a couple because of an accident which was a terrible tragedy.

Mist on the Waters

The story of a spoiled and jilted young novelist of intellectual pretensions, who is freshened up and made marketable and happy again by design of his sporting publisher.

The Beautiful Bequest

A modern day Ebenezer Scrooge refuses to close his store on Christmas Day.

The Strange Christmas Dinner

A British pilot who lost his sight during the Second World War deals with the problems caused by the injury.

In Beauty Like the Night

An English poet searches for his son whom he has never seen. The child disappeared shortly after his mother was killed by the Gestapo.

Little Boy Lost

A small-town girl named Bethel Merriday is determined to become an actress.

Bethel Merriday

A wealthy matron is murdered at the Stork Club and the suspect list is growing.

Murder at the Stork Club

In England in the 1890s, Colonel Chart, a widower with four children, falls in love with a charming, wealthy American widow, Mrs. Churchley, but his 27-year-old spinster daughter Adela contrives to ruin the relationship. She also turns two of the other three children against their intended stepmother and spoils the widow's plans to help Adela's brother Godfrey out of an unpleasant situation.

The Marriages

Uncle Fred wants Pongo to marry Sally Painter, an unsuccessful American sculptor. They had been engaged but she broke it off when Pongo refused to smuggle jewellery into America for a friend of hers.

Uncle Dynamite

A New England spinster Miss Leckton disregards her neighbours' cry for help and assistance during a hurricane. She resents the intrusion, especially since her neighbours happen to be Jews.

The Sudden Guest

The short life of Ann Rutledge,  Abraham Lincoln's one true love who passed

away at age 22 of typhoid fever.

Mitchell Hickok, an author from the country, comes to New York for a publicity build-up for his book. He meets a glamorous woman, who introduces him to the nightlife of Manhattan. He soon tires of cafés, cocktail parties, and public appearances, and returns to his simple way of living in the country and Eileen, his childhood sweetheart.

The tragic life story of the tormented artist.

The Life of Vincent Van Gogh

A flirtatious woman has a difficult time settling down to her marital responsibilities.

The Uncertain Molly Collicutt

A jury foreman seeks to wreak personal vengeance on the murder defendant.

The Trial of Steven Kent

An idealistic newspaper editor battles with his stubborn publisher.

The Second Oldest Profession

In London in 1910, two sisters, Jenny and Emmy Blanchard, must support and care for their widowed, invalid father. Jenny, the younger, pretty sister, seeks to escape from the depressing reality of her poverty-stricken home, while Emmy, the older, plain sister, finds comfort and eventual happiness by serving their ailing father. At the end, both are engaged: Jenny will marry Keith Reddington and Emmy will wed Alf Rylett.

Nocturne

Dirty Eddie is a sleek black pig with a fat movie contract and Hollywood isn't too happy about it.

Dirty Eddie

A department store tycoon comes home and is nearly hit by a falling body. He then learns the suicide jumped from his apartment. A mystery surrounds a suicide.

The End is Known

A gambler has nothing to lose as his shady past with women and cards catch up to him.

The Man in the Black Hat

An American travelling in Europe finds clashes between the two cultures.

The American

A seaside resort hotel brings together an odd assortment of people: a frustrated married couple, four young lovers, children and an grouchy old miser.

The Feast

Identical twins concoct a plan to defraud an insurance company and collect a large sum of cash.

Brat Farrar

A poverty-ridden student feels out-of-place among his wealthy fraternity brothers. He eventually falls in love with a rich girl and leads a revolt against the President of the fraternity house.

The Charmed Circle

Story of the great physician who saved millions of lives due to his discovery of the cause of childbed fever (puerperal fever) and eliminated its danger by prescribing the absolute sterlization of all instruments and the cleanliness of all persons coming in contact with the mother.

Semmelweis

Sisters left poor by the death of the family matriarch search for suitable husbands in Georgian England.

Sense and Sensibility

A bonk on the head turns a grouchy hothead into the sweetest man in town. Brannigan runs for mayor of his small town--and wins--with his "love everybody" campaign. He even wins over the crooked newspaper publisher.

The Bump on Brannigan's Head

A Russian emigrant to America finds a new language, and strange manners bewildering but tries mightily to adapt to his new homeland.

Anything Can Happen

A shell-shocked WWI ex-soldier is unable to speak though doctors say the problem isn't physical. Tired of completing with his overbearing, doting mother, the woman he loves begins to withdraw from his life. It's then that he regains his ability to talk.

Hear My Heart Speak

Georgi, a kindly and honest immigrant from the Georgian area of Russia, experiences many difficulties as he tries to adapt to his adopted country. He works hard to make a place for himself in America, all the while fighting with the English language and the strange customs of an alien people.

The Reluctant Landlord

A young wife fights to free her husband from the control of his manipulative and controlling father.

The Tentacles

The Philco Television Playhouse is an American anthology series that was broadcast live on NBC from 1948 to 1955. Produced by Fred Coe, the series was sponsored by Philco. It was one of the most respected dramatic shows of the Golden Age of Television, winning a 1954 Peabody Award and receiving eight Emmy nominations between 1951 and 1956.

A Letter to Mr. Priest

Seasons8

Season 2 Episodes45

Cast1

Crew1

Discussion

Episode Summary