Four Star Playhouse Season 3, Episode 31: The House Always Wins

Man in the Cellar

A little girl who regularly talks to imaginary friends grows frustrated when her parents refuse to believe that there is a real man in the cellar.

30 min

Never Explain

A novice social worker is dispatched to the home of a widower who refuses to send his children to school.

30 min

Interlude

A young woman from a wealthy family is graduating from an exclusive school with neither her parents nor close friends attending. In her lonliness, she becomes infatuated with an older man, a divorced newspaper reporter.

30 min

The Wallet

A French waiter with more pride than money will not stand for his sickly wife to be admitted to a free public hospital. When a wealthy customer leaves behind a wallet containing thousands of dollars, the server takes it to upgrade his wife's medical care. Their son also becomes a thief to pay the bills.

30 min

The Adolescent

A school teacher on the disciplinery board, finds herself investigating her nephew's misconduct.

30 min

The Contest

The head of detectives runs into problems when he suspect his fiancé has committed murder.

30 min

Vote Of Confidence

A con man, recently released from prison, attempts to recoup his fortunes by convincing an heiress' secretary that he needs funds to run an orphanage.

30 min

My Own Dear Dragon

A successful playwright does his best to avoid reading the script written by his young new wife. She can't understand why he refuses to encourage her. At a party celebrating his 25th year in the theatre, he reveals the incident from his past that causes him to discourage her writing.

30 min

Marked Down

A woman who works at a fancy dress shop is determined to meet and marry the millionaire whose office is next door. Once she is asked out, she realizes that money doesn't make a person. Meanwhile, a young boy is buying a dress on layaway for his mother's birthday, but there's more to his story.

30 min

Meet A Lonely Man

An attractive young lady mistakes a lonely hotel desk clerk for a Texas oil millionaire she'd once met. Loving the attention she's lavishing on him, he plays along...until his big spending catches up with him.

30 min

Bourbon Street

A musician returns to New Orleans after breaking into the bigtime. Though his ex-wife deserted him, he is bent on revenge after receiving an anonymous letter telling him she committed suicide after being mistreated by her lover.

30 min

A Championship Affair

A renowned professional bridge champion (Boyer) returns to (openly) woo his long lost, but married, love (Miles). In circuitous fashion, his unselfish love leads him to (secretly) help her bridge-addicted husband (Ross Elliott) choose to finally gain success in life.

30 min

The Answer

A cynical Hollywood writer returns to his hometown. At a bar he meets a drunken, disillusioned playwright. The writer challenges the playwright to relate his play, which he does, holding the audience rapt in his gripping recital.

30 min

Go Ahead And Jump

Eddie, a cab driver, picks up a sad looking fare and brings him to a hotel where he witnesses the man being humiliated by his ex-wife. When the man asks to be taken to the middle of the biggest bridge, Eddie uses some every day, hard-nosed psychology, and a little lie, to make the man see that life is worth living.

30 min

A Bag Of Oranges

Believing her husband innocent of the crime he is to be executed for, his wife takes up a vigil the night of the scheduled execution at a nearby café. A curious reporter wonders about the bag of oranges she carries with her.

30 min

Stuffed Shirt

A seemingly cuckolded working-class husband (Boyer), in tropical setting, must resort to a life-risking ruse (in court) to rid himself of his bigamous, greedy and potentially blackmailing wife who would not otherwise reveal her own lack of virtuosity.

30 min

Breakfast in Bed

An artist is enticed away from his lucrative commercial advertising contracts by a young model who shows obvious disappointment that he is not striving to achieve his potential as a creative artist.

30 min

The Good Sister

A nun in German orphanage during World War II will is determined to marry her oldest orphan to an American serviceman in order to secure a future for her.

30 min

A Kiss for Mr. Lincoln

A young woman teaches her timid husband some things about love when he tries to show her the importance of supporting Abraham Lincoln for the Presidency.

30 min

Fair Trial

Chicago television newsman Dave Sheridan (Dick Powell) arrives in a small Ohio town, Hadenville, where Richard Fulton has just been lynched. The chief of police (Edward R. Platt) tells Sheridan he confessed to killing sweet old Mrs. Winslow and the town went wild. Sheridan plans on doing a piece exposing how sick the town is. Hotel clerk Carol (Jean Howell) wants him to give the town a "fair trial".

30 min

The Wild Bunch

After a charmer sweeps a pretty widow off her feet and marries her in haste, she confesses that she has money and three children. He has no problem with the money, but the thought of instant fatherhood gives him pause.

30 min

Tusitala

The true story of Robert Louis Stevenson's stay on the island of Tahiti. The islanders have come to revere him as Tusitala-Teller of Tales. They believe he is magical and powerful. When the two opposing chiefs of the island plan war against one another out of petty jealousy, Tusitala uses his wits to convince both chiefs to make peace and save the tranquility of the island.

30 min

The Returning

An American professor in Japan falls in love with a half-breed former student in 1941. He is fired for violating school policy, so he returns to America, resolved to bring his intended to America once settled. World War II intervenes.

30 min

Eddie`s Place

Ellen is released from a punitive work farm without means, but Eddie befriends her and gives her a job at his restaurant. She wants to go straight, but Eddie pressures her to cover for some of his own shady activities.

30 min

Henry And The Psychopathic Horse

After falling for a medical student, a New York City psychiatrist travels to her family ranch to announce their engagement. Her father hates city slickers and expect her to marry a rancher to run the estate. To win his woman's hand, Henry's challenged to ride an unbroken stallion known as a "killer." He puts his professional skills to work on the horse.

30 min

Night At Lark Cottage

A woman with no companion other than her young daughter knows that an escaped convict is on his way to kill her.

The Girl On The Bridge

After drawing and painting an unknown young woman he met on a bridge near his vacation retreat, an artist (Dick Powell) is desperate to find her again when the painting begins calling to him.

30 min

The Collar

The night before the military plans to massacre a warring tribe of Blackfoot Indians, an imprisoned and tortured priest comes out from the tribe to ask for mercy.

30 min

Madeira, Madeira

The untimely death of his artist friend causes a failing writer to visit the widow to pay his condolences and pursue suspicions about her. When he arrives, the cheerful widow presents him with an offer he finds both puzzling and attractive. His acceptance leads him to the discovery of the fate of his friend.

30 min

With All My Heart

An overweight woman watches her doctor boyfriend marry someone else.

30 min

Uncle Fred Flits By

Uncle Fred descends upon a suburban home, completely disrupts the lives of the family by his eccentric behaviour, and brings two young lovers together. His unwilling accomplice, and a horrified spectator of this chaos, is his nephew, Pongo.

30 min

Alias Mr. Hepp

Frank Hepp has made his career charming rich, unhappy women out of their fortunes. His parole officer orders him avoid all women, but he can't help himself when a single wealthy woman moves in next door. Mr. Hepp's plan to fleece his new victim runs afoul when he actually falls for her.

30 min

Trudy

A young woman is planning her wedding to a groom whom no one believes exists outside her own wishful dreams.

30 min

Broken Journey

Two cops transporting prisoner Cookie decide on a layover in the city of Westover, temporarily placing Cookie in the local jail while they freshen up elsewhere. Cookie devises a plot to snooker the locals into releasing him.

30 min

The Executioner

A complex web of deception is revealed during the investigation of the assassination of a police official. In a foreign country during the Cold War, an American doctor is accused to being a spy and targeted for murder, but the wrong man is killed. But, perhaps, the right man died after all.

30 min

The Frightened Woman

A woman's loneliness leads her to re-experience her long repressed (20-year old) pain-associated memories (albeit benign themselves). The mystery: is she (Oberon) insane (hallucinations or phantasms?), will her busy businessman husband (Stevens) rediscover his more nurturing side (in other words will he ever finally land the account), and will a therapist (Beaumont) help bring it all together for the better and for us to make good sense of it?

30 min

Award

Valerie is a world famous movie actress who just bombed on her first attempt at live acting on Broadway. She goes to Ben, renowned acting instructor, to teach her how to be a live actress. He refuses unless she can succeed at a challenge.

30 min