Schlitz Playhouse of Stars Season 8, Episode 34: Hostage

A Thing to Fight For

A peace-loving Civil War veteran seeks refuge from the violence of war as overseer on a Florida plantation.

The Best House in the Valley

The Hasty Hanging

A man and his wife are sentenced to hang without a trial.

The Four

The Trouble With Ruth

Not even her husband knows that Ruth Elliot is a kleptomaniac. But hoodlum Joseph Libo finds out about her illness and threatens to tell her husband unless she helps him carry out a robbery.

The Connoisseur

False Impression

A crippled dental technician falls in love with a pretty girl who refuses to have anything to do with him. He decides to steal a fortune in jewels in order to force the girl to overlook his physical handicap and marry him.

A Game of Hate

Last Edition

Newspaper editor Sheldon Black is being shoved aside for the publisher's slimy protégé, Dean Lowell, who passed Black's ideas off as his own. Before exiting, Black orders Lowell to cover the execution of a condemned man that Lowell was friends with in the war. If the reptile Lowell had been willing to soil his "war hero" reputation and testify, he could have saved the man from the electric chair. Instead, he remains quiet and turns in quite a news story.

Coney Island Winter

Third Son

The youngest brother is torn between whether to follow in the footsteps of his brother who is a frontier marshal or the other one who is a dashing gambler.

Drive a Desert Road

No Answer

A swindler who's known for separating rich widows from their money is the lead suspect in the murder of this latest "pigeon." His alibi seems pretty air tight: he was with the investigating cop when the murder supposedly took place.

Small Wonder

A Fistful of Love

Drama of a prizefighter's battle for survival.

The Deadly Guest

You Can't Win 'Em All

A professional football player refuses to admit that his playing days are over.

And Practically Strangers

From childhood Alan Mitchell has always felt his abilities and achievements overshadowed by those of his younger brother Hugh. When Hugh requisitions Alan to work with him on a nuclear bomb project it puts an additional strain on their already tense relationship.

Death Trap

The Man Who Had No Friends

Champion Barry Brannon retires from a successful career as a fighter and goes into the restaurant business with his long-time manager, Charlie. When Barry proposes to his girl, he finds that she is in love with Charlie.

Various Temptations

On the Brink

Story of an intense hatred between father and son.

Stand-In for Murder

Ivy League

After 30 years in the Marine Corps, Bull Mitchell retires and enrolls as a college freshman.

Frederick

The Salted Mine

In the Old West, a beautiful mine owner hires a detective to discover if she has been swindled when she bought a mine.

The Dreamer

This Will Do Nicely

The Case of the Two Sisters

Boy on a Fence

Mirror, Mirror

The Rumor

The guys of the billing department at Brittanica Insurance heard that one of them is about to be let go. After breaking up with his girlfriend-of-the-week, office playboy Eddie shoots off his mouth and says he's gonna quit and leave town. Of course, he reconsiders as soon as he meets another woman.

The Miss and the Missiles

Cowboy Five Seven

This dramatization was about a typical day in the lives of the men of SAC, was made by Stewart, a reserve officer in the air force, at Westover (Mass.) Air Base. No professional actors are used; officers and enlisted men and their families portray themselves.

A Ballad to Die By

Rancher Anna Carrick hires singing cowboy Johnny Guitar to play at her wedding. Johnny soon learns that Anna is to marry a killer against her will.