Known for Acting
Bud and Lou are unemployed actors living in Mr. Fields’ boarding house. Lou’s girlfriend Hillary lives across the hall. Many situations arise leading to slapstick and puns.
Four Star Playhouse is an American television anthology series that ran from 1952 to 1956, sponsored in its first bi-weekly season by The Singer Company; Bristol-Myers became an alternate sponsor when it became a weekly series in the fall of 1953. The original premise was that Charles Boyer, Ida Lupino, David Niven, and Dick Powell would take turns starring in episodes. However, several other performers took the lead from time to time, including Ronald Colman and Joan Fontaine. Blake Edwards was among the writers and directors who contributed to the series. Edwards created the recurring character of illegal gambling house operator Willie Dante for Dick Powell to play on this series. The character was later revamped and spun off in his own series starring Howard Duff, then-husband of Lupino. The pilot for Meet McGraw, starring Frank Lovejoy, aired here, as did another episode in which Lovejoy recreated his role of Chicago newspaper reporter Randy Stone, from the radio drama Nightbeat.
Marshovia, a small European kingdom, is on the brink of bankruptcy but the country may be saved if the wealthy American Crystal Radek, widow of a Marshovian, can be convinced to part with her money and marry the king's nephew count Danilo. Arriving to Marshovia on a visit, Crystal Radek change places with her secretary Kitty. Following them to Paris, Danilo has a hard time wooing the widow after meeting an attractive young woman at a nightclub, the same Crystal Radek who presents herself as Fifi the chorus girl. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.
When a recently deceased playboy gets to heaven and is granted one wish--granted to all newcomers--he requests that he be able to see the reactions of three husbands, with whom he regularly played poker, to a letter he left each of them claiming to have had an affair with each's wife.
Crusading newspaperman Cliff Roberts masquerades as a prison guard to document inhuman conditions.
A young woman living in Manhattan pretends to be the mother of an infant in order to get a seat on the subway.
Sponsored by The Protestant Film Commission, this religiously-affiliated tale centers around citizen Henry Wood (played by Oscar winner James Dunn from "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn"), who loved family and church, gave to the needy, and donated most of his money to charity. Now deceased, his somewhat neglected daughter reflects on his past and ponders that age-old question, did he indeed have such "a wonderful life"?
In order to make Tug Cardwell (William Phipps) sign over his rich gold claim to them, John Avery (Robert Shayne), Gypsy Avery (Veda Ann Borg) and Jackson (Marshall Reed) hire Bob Rankin (Douglas Fowley') to kidnap Tug's sweetheart Jane Whipple (Elaine Riley). Rankin hides Jane and then demands half the mine from the other crooks. Dave Saunders (Tim Holt) and Chito Rafferty (Richard Martin), friends of Tug's, find Jane and taker her to safety. The conspirators then shoot Rankin, capture Tug and force him to take them to his claim. Dave and Chito are close behind.
Catherine Sykes disappears after a midnight drive with Professor Andrew Gentling . When she's presumed murdered, his friend Martha convinces him that he's a prime suspect and should investigate before he's arrested.
Posing as unemployed musicians, Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys, are being helped by Ted Gibson owner of the Harmony Inn in San Antonio, Texas. Gibson is impoverished because he keeps buying his kleptomaniac Uncle Zeke out of trouble, supports his Ma, and Grandpa. He wants to marry Jean Wallace, and doesn't know that Acuff and his musicians are traveling incognito for the radio show "Who Am I Helping?" If he guesses their identity, he wins $100,000.
The boys are working at the local boxing arena where their friend, Jimmy Higgins, is boxing. During a crooked match Jimmy is killed. The boys seek out his older brother, Johnny, a former boxer who gave up the sport rather than go crooked, and help train him to get back in the ring. They try to get him a shot at the title, and when they do the same crooked gangsters that were behind Jimmy's death try to get Johnny to take a dive.
An innocent dancer is accused of murder after his shoe prints are found at the scene, but his wife follows the trail of clues to find the real perpetrator.
