The Golden Age of TV Drama (1950's)

A collection of live and filmed American televison drama’s from various anthology programs of the 1950's. As a whole enjoyable as artifacts of their time, dramatically however a mixed bag. Productions such as ‘The Comedian’, directed by John Frankenhimer would have been Oscar worthy as a motion picture. In it Mikey Rooney gives what I would call the greatest performance of his career, as a self-centered television comedian who destroys the lives of those around him. On the other end of the spectrum the religiously themed disc 4 contained two ironically uninspired depictions of the life of Jesus, as well as a hackneyed ‘Letter to Loretta’, whose basic concept (child saved by vision of patron saint) has surely been done better else where. A lot of the productions seemed to have worthwhile actors performing in parts below their ability, like Edward G Robinson giving the only worthwhile performance in 'For the Defense'. Some of these low budget productions use there name star to good effect such as David Niven as a film critic, or Jack Palance giving a heck of a performance as the conflicted though ultimately boring Manolete in a tele-bio of the famed but ill fated bull fighter. I was disappointed that Palance’s 'Requiem for a Dream' was not included in this set, though there was a production featuring Michael Landon as an out of his league young boxer that I enjoyed. Ultimately the trash weighed down the gems so only 3 out of 5.