All Seasons

Season 1 - Hollywood Television Theatre

  • S01E01 The Andersonville Trial

    A dramatization of the 1865 war-crimes trial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia.

  • S01E01 The Andersonville Trial

    • May 17, 1970
    • PBS

    A dramatization of the 1865 war-crimes trial of Henry Wirz, commandant of the notorious Confederate POW camp at Andersonville, Georgia.

  • S01E02 Big Fish, Little Fish

    • January 5, 1971
    • PBS

    Twenty years ago, William was considered a brilliant young academic, but he was involved in a scandal. Now, he scrapes a mediocre living working for a publishing firm.

  • S01E03 The Andersonville Trial

    • February 2, 1971
    • PBS

    repeat of the Pilot episode

  • S01E04 Montserrat

    • March 2, 1971
    • PBS

    The story is set during the South American Wars of Independence. Simón Bolivar, the liberator, has escaped from Spanish custody with the aid of an idealistic Spanish officer, Captain Montserrat. The Spanish commander, Colonel Izquierdo ('left' in Spanish), threatens Montserrat with torture to find out where Bolivar can be recaptured. Izquierdo decides that this will probably not yield the information he wants and instead has six entirely innocent people brought into headquarters: The six are Salas Ina, a prosperous businessman; Arnaldo Lujan, a wood carver who makes the statues of the saints, Matilde, a mother who left two small children at home alone while she went to market; Juan Salcedo Alvarez, an actor from Cádiz; Felisa, a pretty girl whom Izquierdo finds attractive, but she only wants more to eat and the death of the Spaniards; and Ricardo, a boy who only wants to know that Bolivar is safe. Izquierdo tells these six people that they have precisely one hour to persuade Montserrat

  • S01E05 Poet Game

    • April 6, 1971
    • PBS

    A hard-drinking poet (Sir Anthony Hopkins) awaits his fortieth birthday.

  • S01E06 U.S.A.

    • May 4, 1971
    • PBS

Season 2

  • S02E01 The Typists

    • October 7, 1971

    Law student Paul Cunningham arrives for his first day at a job typing advertisements where he meets supervising typist Miss Sylvia Payton, a day evolves fragmentedly showing many days of their relationship, indicated by costume changes for flashforwards and flashbacks as they learn more about each other and hint on and off about romance, despite the fact that Paul is married with children.

  • S02E02 The Police

    • October 14, 1971

  • S02E03 Lemonade

    • October 21, 1971

    A pair of Peoria matrons set up competing lemonade stands by the highway which they have spiked with alcohol. Neither sells anything but they sample each other's wares and pass the time talking of their families.

  • S02E04 Birdbath

    • October 28, 1971

  • S02E05 Beginning to End

    • November 4, 1971

  • S02E06 Enemies

    • November 11, 1971

    A simple play about a retired gentleman (Ned Glass), set in his ways and very proud that he has reached an age that he can lord it over those whom he feels "under'" him. He is waited upon by an elderly waiter at his favorite restaurant (Sam Jaffe) and he, as is his way, treats his server as his underling. But something happens between the two. Slowly, as the two exchange life-stories, the retired gentleman realizes the emptiness of his life.

  • S02E07 Neighbors

    • November 18, 1971

    Racial tensions come out of the woodwork when an upper-class white couple puts their suburban home on the market and the listing draws a pair of equally well-to-do African American buyers from Harlem. Fielder Cook directs this Broadway staging of playwright Arkady Leokum's exploration of lingering racial prejudice in 1970s America.

  • S02E08 The Standwells: About Love

    • November 25, 1971

  • S02E09 The Bread and Puppet Theatre

    • December 2, 1971

  • S02E10 Young Marrieds at Play

    • December 9, 1971

  • S02E11 The Picture

    • December 16, 1971

  • S02E12 The Plot to Overthrow Christmas

    • December 23, 1971

  • S02E13 Day of Absence

    • December 30, 1971

  • S02E14 Chekhov Live from Hollywood

    • January 3, 1972

    "The Marriage" and "The Boor"

  • S02E15 The Scarecrow

    • January 10, 1972

    Just before the Salem witch trials, an embittered old woman, who's learned witchcraft, and brings a scarecrow to life, as part of her revenge on the judge who was once her lover.

  • S02E16 A Viewer's Guide to Samuel Beckett

    • February 28, 1972

    special shown before a repeat of Beginning to End)

  • S02E17 Awake and Sing

    • March 6, 1972

    Water Matthau heads the cast of this television re-creation of Clifford Odet's 1935 Broadway play-the full length work performed on the commercial stage by the legendary Group Theatre. This portrait of a Jewish family in a Bronx tenement perfectly captures the spirit of the depression years, and is suffused with details of character and place that combine to be affecting even now. The Bergers burdened by fanatical difficulties have taken in a boarder - Moe Axelrod "Mathew Matthau"-who lost a leg in World War I. Cynical and outspoken, Moe adds a spark to the somewhat accepting lives of the Bergers. The family fights to survive on sixteen dollars a week while the intellectual, Marxist leaning grandfather "brilliantly played by famed Yiddish theatre star, Leo Fuchs" tries futilely to spur his family to action with the junction, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust." -Isaiah 26:19

  • S02E18 Invitation to March

    • March 30, 1972