Producers' Showcase

{{Short description|American TV anthology series (1954–1957)}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}

{{Infobox television

| image = Producers Showcase Title.jpg

| caption =

| genre = Anthology

| creator =

| writer =

| director = Kirk Browning
Vincent J. Donehue
Clark Jones
Anatole Litvak
Delbert Mann
Arthur Penn
Otto Preminger
Alex Segal
William Wyler

| presenter =

| composer = Sammy Cahn and
Jimmy Van Heusen
Moose Charlap
Harry Sosnik

| country = United States

| language = English

| num_seasons = 3

| num_episodes = 37

| list_episodes =

| executive_producer = Fred Coe
Alvin Cooperman

| producer = John Bloch
Fred Coe
Alvin Cooperman
Sol Hurok
Edwin Lester
Anatole Litvak
Fred Rickey
Alex Segal
Henry Solomon
Herbert Sussan
Robert Whitehead

| runtime = 90 mins.

| company = Showcase Productions

| channel = NBC

| first_aired = {{Start date|1954|10|18}}

| last_aired = {{End date|1957|05|27}}

}}

Producers' Showcase is an American anthology television series that was telecast live during the 1950s in compatible color by NBC. With top talent, the 90-minute episodes, covering a wide variety of genres, aired under the title every fourth Monday at 8 pm ET for three seasons, beginning October 18, 1954. The final episode, the last of 37, was broadcast May 27, 1957.

Showcase Productions, Inc., packaged and produced the series, which received seven Emmy Awards, including the 1956 award for Best Dramatic Series.

Production

In 1953, stage producer Leland Hayward had the idea to create a 90-minute TV series, a series of color spectaculars to be broadcast monthly on NBC. Hayward was represented by Saul Jaffe of the Madison Avenue law firm Jaffe & Jaffe; Henry Jaffe, the firm's senior partner, was national counsel for the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, an organization he helped found. When illness forced Hayward to withdraw from the project, NBC partnered with Showcase Productions, an independent production company created by Henry and Saul Jaffe to produce the series. Producers' Showcase went on the air October 18, 1954.{{Citation needed |date=August 2023}}

The ambitious series presented a total of 37 live color programs, which included original musicals or plays, restaging of Broadway productions, great concert artists, and tribute programs. Producers' Showcase presented the first international show with live remote locations (Wide Wide World), and the first full-length Broadway production on color television (Peter Pan).

"Producers' Showcase has undoubtedly been a tremendous prestige presentation by the network with elaborate and worthy cultural productions," The New York Times published in 1957, the series' final year.Shepard, Richard F., "The Jaffes — Versatile TV Team"; The New York Times, February 3, 1957. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120607060052/http://www.producersshowcase.org/overview.html Overview], Showcase Productions, Inc.; archived 2012-06-07 from the original at the Internet Archive. Retrieved 2013-06-14.

Producers' Showcase received seven Emmy Awards, including the 1956 award for Best Dramatic Series.{{Citation needed |date=March 2021}}

=Premiere episode=

Director Otto Preminger was invited to produce and direct Tonight at 8.30, a trio of one-act plays by Noël Coward, for the series premiere. Red Peppers, Still Life, and Shadow Play were three of 10 plays comprising a cycle the playwright had written to be performed on stage over the course of three evenings, and under this umbrella title they were presented on Producers' Showcase. The cast included Ginger Rogers, Trevor Howard, Gig Young, Ilka Chase, and Gloria Vanderbilt. Preminger had no experience in television, but he welcomed the opportunity to work in the medium.Hirsch, Foster, Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King. New York: Alfred A. Knopf 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-375-41373-5}}, pp. 227-229

From the beginning, the director obviously was in trouble. He believed a television production was no different from a film and lit the sets and placed the cameras accordingly. He failed to understand that during the actual live broadcast, he would be working with a monitor, pushing buttons to signal which camera should be operating. Rogers in particular was nervous about her performance, and Preminger spent a considerable amount of time with her, but basically ignored the rest of the cast. Supporting player Larkin Ford later recalled he felt Preminger had no sense of Coward's work or how it should be played.

As the production entered its third week of rehearsals, a complete run-through still had not been accomplished. Three days prior to the broadcast, executive producer Fred Coe decided to take action. He privately fired Preminger and then simply told the cast and crew, "Mr. Preminger will not be with us. I will be with you through the presentation." Although they felt sorry a man of Preminger's stature had been dismissed for incompetence, they were relieved he was gone. When the show aired, Preminger introduced each act in a filmed segment, and he received sole credit as producer and director. It proved to be his first and last television venture.

File:Mary Martin Peter Pan.JPG

=''Peter Pan''=

One of the most memorable productions of the first season was telecast on March 7, 1955. Peter Pan, a recreation of the 1954 Broadway musical with all its original cast members, including Mary Martin as Peter Pan and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook, was so highly acclaimed by critics and well received by viewers, drawing the largest ratings for a single television program up to that time, that the program was restaged live with nearly the same cast in January 1956. A 1960 NBC revival of the production, first broadcast as a Christmas season special, was videotaped in color and later released on home video. By the time the 1960 version was made, the children had outgrown their roles and had to be replaced, but nearly all of the adult cast remained the same as those of the two earlier productions.

This production also marked the first time that any version of Peter Pan had been performed on television.

=Notable appearances=

File:Bacall, Bogart, Fonda.jpg|Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and Henry Fonda rehearsing The Petrified Forest (1955)

File:William Holden 1955.JPG|William Holden in Dateline II (1955)

File:Mary Martin Peter Pan Producers Showcase 1956.jpg|Mary Martin in Peter Pan (1956)

File:Katharine Cornell Barretts of Wimpole Street on television 1956.JPG|Katharine Cornell in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1956)

File:Louis armstrong producers showcase 1956.JPG|Louis Armstrong in The Lord Don't Play Favorites (1956)

File:Audrey Hepburn Mel Ferrer Mayerling 1957.jpg|Mel Ferrer and Audrey Hepburn in Mayerling (1957)

File:Mayerling 1957.jpg|Raymond Massey, Diana Wynyard (seated), Judith Evelyn, Mel Ferrer, and Audrey Hepburn in Mayerling (1957)

File:John Neville Claire Bloom Romeo and Juliet 1957.JPG|John Neville and Claire Bloom in Romeo and Juliet (1957)

File:Margot Fonteyn Cinderella 1957.jpg|Margot Fonteyn in Cinderella (1957)

File:Mickey Rooney Mr. Broadway 1957.JPG|Mickey Rooney in Mr. Broadway (1957)

=Additional productions=

=''Wide Wide World''=

Producers' Showcase served as the springboard for the live documentary series Wide Wide World. Conceived by network head Pat Weaver and hosted by Dave Garroway, the show was introduced on Showcase on June 27, 1955. The premiere episode, featuring entertainment from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, was the first international North American telecast in the history of the medium. It received a regular Sunday afternoon time slot the following October.

Episodes

These 37 episodes comprise the Producers' Showcase library:[https://web.archive.org/web/20120607060047/http://www.producersshowcase.org/list.html Producers' Showcase library], Showcase Productions, Inc.; archived 2012-06-07 from the original at the Internet Archive. Retrieved 2013-06-13.

class="wikitable"

!align="center"|#

!align="center"|Date

!align="center"|Title

!align="center"|Director

!align="center"|Selected Cast

1

|Oct. 18, 1954

|Tonight at 8.30

|Otto Preminger

|Ginger Rogers, Martyn Green, Trevor Howard

2

|Nov. 15, 1954

|State of the Union

|Arthur Penn

|Joseph Cotten, Margaret Sullavan

3

|Dec. 13, 1954

|Dateline

|Alan Handley

|John Daly (host)

4

|Jan. 7, 1955

|Call to Freedom

|

|Alexander Scourby (narrator), Martha Mödl

5

|Jan. 10, 1955

|Yellow Jack

|Delbert Mann

|Broderick Crawford as Walter Reed

6

|Feb. 7, 1955

|The Women

|Vincent J. Donehue

|Ruth Hussey, Shelley Winters

7

|March 7, 1955

|Peter Pan

|Clark Jones

|Mary Martin, Cyril Ritchard

8

|April 4, 1955

|Reunion in Vienna

|Vincent J. Donehue

|Greer Garson, Brian Aherne

9

|April 4, 1955

|The King and Mrs. Candle

|Arthur Penn

|Cyril Ritchard, Joan Greenwood

10

|May 2, 1955

|Darkness at Noon

|Delbert Mann

|Lee J. Cobb

11

|May 30, 1955

|The Petrified Forest

|Delbert Mann

|Humphrey Bogart, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall

12

|June 27, 1955

|Wide Wide World

|Dick Schneider

|Dave Garroway (host)

13

|July 25, 1955

|The Fourposter

|Clark Jones

|Hume Cronyn, Jessica Tandy

14

|Sept. 11, 1955

|The Skin of Our Teeth

|Vincent J. Donehue

|Mary Martin, Helen Hayes

15

|Sept. 19, 1955

|Our Town

|Delbert Mann

|Paul Newman, Eva Marie Saint, Frank Sinatra

16

|Oct. 17, 1955

|Cyrano de Bergerac

|Kirk Browning

|José Ferrer, Claire Bloom

17

|Nov. 15, 1955

|Dateline II

|Alan Handley

|John Wayne, Peggy Lee

18

|Dec. 14, 1955

|The Sleeping Beauty

|Clark Jones

|Margot Fonteyn, Michael Somes

19

|Jan. 3, 1956

|Peter Pan

|Clark Jones

|Mary Martin, Cyril Ritchard

20

|Jan. 30, 1956

|Festival of Music

|Kirk Browning

|Charles Laughton (host)

21

|Feb. 28, 1956

|Bloomer Girl

|Alex Segal

|Barbara Cook, Keith Andes

22

|March 5, 1956

|Caesar and Cleopatra

|Kirk Browning

|Cedric Hardwicke, Claire Bloom

23

|April 2, 1956

|The Barretts of Wimpole Street

|Vincent J. Donehue

|Katharine Cornell, Anthony Quayle

24

|April 30, 1956

|Dodsworth

|Alex Segal

|Fredric March, Claire Trevor

25

|June 25, 1956

|Happy Birthday

|Alex Segal

|Betty Field, Barry Nelson

26

|July 23, 1956

|Rosalinda

|Bob Banner

|Cyril Ritchard, Jean Fenn

27

|Sept. 17, 1956

|The Lord Don't Play Favorites

|Clark Jones

|Louis Armstrong, Buster Keaton, Kay Starr

28

|Oct. 15, 1956

|The Letter

|William Wyler

|Siobhán McKenna, John Mills

29

|Nov. 12, 1956

|Jack and the Beanstalk

|Clark Jones

|Billy Gilbert, Joel Grey

30

|Dec. 10, 1956

|Festival of Music II

|Kirk Browning

|José Ferrer (host)

31

|Feb. 3, 1957

|Ruggles of Red Gap

|Clark Jones

|Garry Moore (host), Michael Redgrave

32

|Feb. 4, 1957

|Mayerling

|Anatole Litvak

|Audrey Hepburn, Mel Ferrer

33

|March 4, 1957

|Romeo and Juliet

| Clark Jones

|Claire Bloom, John Neville

34

|April 1, 1957

|The Great Sebastians

|Franklin J. Schaffner

|Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne

35

| April 29, 1957

|Cinderella

|Clark Jones

|Margot Fonteyn, Michael Somes

36

|May 11, 1957

|Mr. Broadway

|Sidney Lumet

|Mickey Rooney as George M. Cohan

37

|May 27, 1957

|Festival of Magic

|Charles S. Dubin

|Ernie Kovacs (host)

Reception

Producers' Showcase averaged a 36.5 percent audience share.[https://web.archive.org/web/20120607060112/http://www.producersshowcase.org/production.html Production value], Showcase Productions, Inc.; archived 2012-06-07 from the original at the Internet Archive. Retrieved 2013-06-13. Sixty-five million viewers watched the first presentation of Peter Pan,Shales, Tom, "The Timeless Magic of 'Peter Pan'"; The Washington Post, March 16, 1989 garnering a 68.3 audience share that made it the highest-rated episode in the series. The restaged Peter Pan earned a 54.9 share; and The Petrified Forest earned a 50.6 share. The series had this level of success even though its last third aired opposite I Love Lucy, the highest or second-highest rated series on television during the three seasons Producers' Showcase was broadcast.

=Awards=

Presenters' Showcase received the following awards and nominations from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.[http://www.emmys.com/nominations Official Primetime Emmy Awards Search]; accessed October 17, 2011

class="wikitable"

|+ Primetime Emmy Awards

!align="center"|Year

!align="center"|Category

!align="center"|Recipient

!align="center"|Outcome

rowspan="17"|1956|Best Actress – Single Role

|Mary Martin, Peter Pan

|{{Won}}

Best Art Direction – Live Series

|Otis Riggs

|{{Won}}

Best Dramatic Series

|Producers' Showcase

|{{Won}}

Best Musical Contribution

|Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, "Love and Marriage" (song), Our Town

|{{Won}}

Best Producer – Live Series

|Fred Coe

|{{Won}}

Best Single Program of the Year

|Peter Pan

|{{Won}}

Best Actor – Single Performance

|José Ferrer, Cyrano de Bergerac

|{{Nom}}

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

|Cyril Ritchard, Peter Pan

|{{Nom}}

Best Actress – Single Role

|Eva Marie Saint, Our Town

|{{Nom}}

Best Actress – Single Role

|Jessica Tandy, The Fourposter

|{{Nom}}

Best Choreographer

|Jerome Robbins, Peter Pan

|{{Nom}}

Best Director – Live Series

|Clark Jones, Peter Pan

|{{Nom}}

Best Director – Live Series

|Delbert Mann, Our Town

|{{Nom}}

Best Musical Contribution

|Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, Our Town

|{{Nom}}

Best Musical Contribution

|Nelson Riddle, Our Town

|{{Nom}}

Best Single Program of the Year

|The Sleeping Beauty

|{{Nom}}

Best Television Adaptation

|David Shaw, Our Town

|{{Nom}}

rowspan="3"|1957|Best Single Performance by an Actress

|Claire Trevor, Dodsworth

|{{Won}}

Best Live Camera Work

|Producers' Showcase

|{{Nom}}

Best Single Performance by an Actor

|Fredric March, Dodsworth

|{{Nom}}

Home media

Video Artists International [http://www.vaimusic.com/] has formed joint ventures with Showcase Productions, Inc. for the release of a number of Producers' Showcase programs, as well as Showcase programs from other "Golden Age of Television" series, complete with their commercial announcements, on DVD: Festival of Music (#4244), Festival of Music II (#4245), The Sleeping Beauty (#4295) and Cinderella (#4296). Although these episodes were broadcast live and in color, the kinescope process by which they were preserved is black-and-white.

References

{{reflist}}