Playhouse 90 Season 3, Episode 7: Heart of Darkness

The Plot to Kill Stalin

In late 1952, an aging and increasingly paranoid Stalin puts in motion a purge against his doctors, with anti-Semitic overtones. His lackeys, including Khrushchev, Molotov and Beria, fear it will spread to the Politburo, and plan to strike first.

90 min

Days of Wine and Roses

An alcoholic falls in love with and gets married to a young woman, whom he systematically addicts to booze so they can share his "passion" together.

90 min

The Time of Your Life

William Saroyan's Pulitzer Prize-winning play revolves around the denizens of a San Francisco bar in 1939. Lonely, lovelorn, weary or cynical, the characters drift in and out of the bar and each other's lives, giving voice to Saroyan's philosophies as they randomly comment about the impending world war, the beauty of art, and traditional notions of good and evil.

90 min

The Long March

90 min

Shadows Tremble

An elderly immigrant tries to buy an old house in New England and is opposed by snobbish locals.

90 min

Word from a Sealed-Off Box

A courier for the Dutch Resistance is captured by the Nazis.

90 min

Old Man

To fight a Mississippi flood in 1927, a prison farm releases some convicts.

90 min

The Return of Ansel Gibbs

After years in retirement, Ansel Gibbs is asked to return to government service.

90 min

Free Weekend

90 min

Seven Against the Wall

The story of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929.

90 min

The Nutcracker

This telecast of George Balanchine's famous production was broadcast only four years after it was premiered by the New York City Ballet. This was the only episode of the series televised in color.

90 min

Face of a Hero

90 min

The Wings of the Dove

An impoverished woman who has been forced to choose between a privileged life with her wealthy aunt and her journalist lover, befriends an American heiress. When she discovers the heiress is attracted to her own lover and is dying, she sees a chance to have both the privileged life she cannot give up and the lover she cannot live without.

90 min

The Blue Men

90 min

The Velvet Alley

Ernie Pandish has tried to be a writer for years and has never made much money out of it. But now he seems likely to hit the big-time.

90 min

A Quiet Game of Cards

A few friends meet each weekend for a quiet game of cards. But they're bored with poker and, in trying to find another diversion, gradually find themselves plotting a hypothetical murder. It is hypothetical, isn't it?

90 min

Child of Our Time

War deprives Tanguy of his childhood. When his mother returns to Spain to oppose the Franco regime, he is left in Nazi-occupied Marseilles, France.

90 min

The Second Man

90 min

The Raider

A corporate raider plans a hostile takeover. To stall him, pressure is put on a scientist to rush through a new type of engine before all necessary tests have been completed.

90 min

The Ding-A-Ling Girl

A housewife is offered a Hollywood contract. She'd rather stay home, but her husband has ambitions for her.

90 min

Made in Japan

A young soldier in occupied Japan after World War II falls in love with a lovely Japanese girl, but is horrified about what his prejudiced family in Philadelphia will think if he takes her home with him.

90 min

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Part 1

During the Spanish Civil War, an American allied with the Republicans finds romance during a desperate mission to blow up a strategically important bridge.

90 min

For Whom the Bell Tolls: Part 2

The completion of the mission has tragic consequences.

90 min

A Trip to Paradise

90 min

In Lonely Expectation

90 min

The Day Before Atlanta

90 min

Judgment at Nuremberg

In the later stages of the Nuremberg Trials, four German judges are accused of perverting the course of justice.

90 min

A Corner of the Garden

90 min

Dark December

During World War II, an army doctor struggles to convert a Franciscan monastery into a field hospital.

90 min

Diary of a Nurse

The daily emergencies and stresses of a major city's hospital ward as seen through the eyes of nurse Gail Lucas.

90 min

A Marriage of Strangers

Marry in haste, repent at leisure? Well, maybe.

90 min

Out of Dust

On a cattle drive across the prairie, the sons of a wealthy cattle baron plot his death.

90 min

The Rank and File

A powerful union leader is interrogated by a Senate committee. Testifying before a Senate, William Kilcoyne tells the story of his career. He began as a factory worker and his shrewdness and ambition carried him up through the ranks to his present position as head of a large union.

90 min

The Killers of Mussolini

As the Salo Republic crumbles around him, Mussolini, along with his mistress and several of his ministers flee with retreating Nazi soldiers, but are caught at the town of Dongo by red partisans. All are brutally executed without trial.

90 min

Project Immortality

Key defense scientist Doner has cancer. Schramm is assigned to code Doner's thinking into a computer. He gets to know him as a friend, a husband and father. The project is successful, but he now knows identity is not programmable.

90 min

Dark as the Night

A British politician finds himself open to blackmail because of the indiscretion of his American wife.

90 min

The Second Happiest Day

A man about to be married recalls the day his life changed permanently.

90 min