Motorola TV Hour, The – Nostalgia Central

1 9 5 3 – 1 9 5 4 (USA)
16 x 60 minute episodes

Airing every other week (alternating with the US Steel Hour), ABC-TV’s Motorola TV Hour was a worthy addition to the hour-long drama ranks, displaying a commendable versatility, along with a penchant for name players, and even venturing into the difficult realm of fantasy.

‘Brandenburg Gate’ – an updated take on Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities set in modern-day Berlin – was the story of a not-quite-believable modern Sidney Carton who gave his life to save his true love’s husband. Jack Palance played both male leads (an American newspaperman and a German political leader) opposite Maria Riva.

‘At Ease’ was a comedy tailor-made for Brian Donlevy, who played a Regular Army topkick shanghaied into being headmaster of a small military school, and got away with it quite nicely. The play was written by Rod Serling.

As a complete change of pace, not always evident in some of the better-known dramatic shows, The Motorola TV Hour also presented James Thurber’s ‘The Thirteen Clocks’, a pleasant little fantasy enormously enhanced by the presence of Sir Cedric Hardwicke, a past master of the miming art.

While this show suffered somewhat from a paucity of sets, Hardwicke and Basil Rathbone (pictured) more than carried it.

Other episodes included ‘The Family Man ‘, a comedy about a Washington correspondent whose quest for promotion is complicated by the pranks of his teenage daughter and her young suitors; ‘The Muldoon Matter’, where a happy-go-lucky drifter changes a small town with his cheerful attitude,  and ‘Atomic Attack’, in which a family living 50 miles away tries to flee from the fallout of an atomic bomb that has fallen on New York City.

Featured in the sixteen episodes were actors including Jack Warden, Roger Moore, Walter Matthau, Tony Randall, Eddie Albert, Lee Marvin, Brian Keith, Charles Ruggles, Helen Hayes, Elaine Stritch and Ed Begley.

Episodes

Outlaw’s Reckoning | Westward the Sun | Brandenburg Gate | At Ease | The Thirteen Clocks | The Last Days of Hitler | Side by Side | A Dash of Bitters | The Muldoon Matter | The Family Man | Nightmare in Algiers | The Sins of the Fathers | Black Chiffon | Love Song | Atomic Attack | Chivalry at Howling Creek

Video