ellenirishellen-62962
Too bad we can't watch these instead of reality TV shows.Have watched House For Sale,A String Of Beads,The Island,among others,these three include George Macready,the man you love to hate back in the day.He was downright terrifying in House For Sale with Ida Lupino s his victim(he later said his was one of his favorite TV performances),a total SOB in The Island,who is redeemed after taught a lesson in humility by Niven and the threat of losing his wife to Niven,and String Of Beads with Ronald Colman/Angela Lansbury,Macready/and one of Nigel Bruce's last performances.String Of Beads Macready is a Count who commits a practical joke which leads to all kinds of fun,something I can imagine the actor capable of being a great deal of fun in real life.Love the ending for String Of Beads.These all need to be released to the public,not just a set here and there.Can't wait to watch more episodes.
bkoganbing
According to the Tony Thomas book on The Films Of Dick Powell although the company was named Four Star Productions only three stars ever invested on the producing end, David Niven, Charles Boyer, and Dick Powell. They never came up with a fourth though Ida Lupino kept them dangling for a while.Niven and Boyer were glad to let Powell run the business end of Four Star Productions. Powell himself eagerly embraced the new small screen medium of television, it was his firm belief that like Madonna you had to reinvent yourself periodically or become a has been in the entertainment business. So he went from crooning tenor in musicals to tough guy leading man to big time TV producer. Four Star Playhouse was one of many anthology series in those early television days of the Fifties and a source of good drama.Not to mention it was the first of many television series that Four Star Productions created. You'll find a lot of familiar names in the credits of Four Star Playhouse in front of and behind the camera. Powell had a good eye for spotting talent and gave a boost to a lot of careers. When Dick Powell died in early 1963 he was quite the tycoon, creating many shows under the Four Star banner. He even acted in several stories in Four Star and the Zane Grey Theater. Several Four Star shows have been put on YouTube and I urge you strongly to see them.
telegonus
This first television series produced by the company that became Four Star Productions was a surprisingly good, well written and directed show to have been produced on the west coast in the early fifties (the "quality" shows made in those days mostly emanated from New York, while the filmed shows made in Hollywood were mostly children and family fare such as Superman and The Lone Ranger, or else situation comedies). Four Star Theater was an attempt to make a first-class anthology series in Hollywood, and as such it succeeded. There were many outstanding episodes, and some highly gifted people worked on it from time to time, from writers of the caliber of Blake Edwards to such gifted directors as Robert Florey, Robert Aldrich and Tay Garnett. The shows ranged from mysteries to dramas to comedies; one never knew quite what to expect, which was part of the show's charm. I wish that some cable network would-rerun them,--they probably won't, since they're all filmed in black and white--or that they'll be reissued on tape or DVD. It's a show well worth looking for.
Single-Black-Male
Although Ida Lupino was not that interesting to look at, her themes of loneliness and singleness made a valuable contribution to later projects such as 'The Twilight Zone' and 'Thriller'. I can't say that I enjoyed this particular project, or any of her projects leading up to 1959. She was probably a better writer than actress.
