Pulitzer Prize Playhouse
Encyclopedia
The Pulitzer Prize Playhouse is an American
television anthology drama series which offered adaptations of Pulitzer Prize
winning plays, stories and novels. The distinguished journalist Elmer Davis
was the host and narrator of this 1950-52 ABC
series.
Sponsored by Milwaukee
's Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company
, the 60-minute show opened with theme music by Bernard Green. Columbia University
's Pulitzer School of Journalism, which made the annual Pulitzer awards, benefited from its agreement with Schlitz and ABC, receiving $100,000 from Schlitz for its cooperation. However, the show made no mention of Columbia or the Pulitzer School of Journalism.
Plays in the first season included You Can't Take It with You
, The Magnificent Ambersons
and Our Town
. The second season productions included Ah, Wilderness and The Skin of Our Teeth
. Actors in these shows included Spring Byington
, Charles Dingle
, James Dunn
, Nina Foch
, John Forsythe
, Helen Hayes
, Wanda Hendrix
, Wright King, Otto Kruger
, Thomas Mitchell
, Mildred Natwick
, Gene Raymond
, Kent Smith
and Fredd Wayne. Lighting design was by Imero Fiorentino.
, which objected to the tie-in between Schlitz and the Pulitzer Prize. Mrs. D. Leigh Colvin
, president of the WCTU, suggested that Columbia should return the $100,000, stating that the program was "a scheme of education for alcoholism which uses American classics as a springboard for beer promotion. The tie-up... allies the university, its school and the Pulitzer name with programs which are obviously put on by the brewer to promote drinking in the American home. Beer bottles and beer drinking have been rampant in commercials between acts, one recent commercial depicting Mona Lisa coming to life from her painting to reach for a glass of the sponsor's beer."
Dean Carl W. Ackerman of the Pulitzer School responded, "This has been a pioneering development in the relationship between industry and education. It is raising the standards of entertainment in American homes. Any development which contributes to the improvement of home life is wholesome because the home is the bulwark of democracy."
Schlitz president Erwin C. Uilein pointed out that Vassar College
was founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar
who had made a fortune in his Poughkeepsie, New York
brewery.
The series was telecast live, but in some areas it was shown two weeks later as captured on kinescope
film. It initially presented hour-long dramas from October 1950 to June 1951; the series was reduced to a 30-minute format from December 1951 to June 1952. During the second season, the series alternated with Celanese Theatre. Pulitzer Prize Playhouse continued until June 4, 1952, producing a total of 53 episodes.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
television anthology drama series which offered adaptations of Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
winning plays, stories and novels. The distinguished journalist Elmer Davis
Elmer Davis
Elmer Davis was a well-known news reporter, author, the Director of the United States Office of War Information during World War II and a Peabody Award recipient.-Education and early career:...
was the host and narrator of this 1950-52 ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
series.
Sponsored by Milwaukee
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Milwaukee is the largest city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin, the 28th most populous city in the United States and 39th most populous region in the United States. It is the county seat of Milwaukee County and is located on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan. According to 2010 census data, the...
's Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company
Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company
The Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company was an American brewery based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and was once the largest producer of beer in the world. Its namesake beer, Schlitz, was known as "The beer that made Milwaukee famous" and was famously advertised with the slogan "When you're out of Schlitz,...
, the 60-minute show opened with theme music by Bernard Green. Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
's Pulitzer School of Journalism, which made the annual Pulitzer awards, benefited from its agreement with Schlitz and ABC, receiving $100,000 from Schlitz for its cooperation. However, the show made no mention of Columbia or the Pulitzer School of Journalism.
Productions and performers
You Can't Take It with You
You Can't Take It with You is a comedic play in three acts by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. The original production of the play opened at the Booth Theater on December 14, 1936, and played for 837 performances...
, The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons
The Magnificent Ambersons is a 1918 novel by Booth Tarkington which won the 1919 Pulitzer Prize for novel. It was the second novel in his Growth trilogy, which included The Turmoil and The Midlander . In 1925 the novel was first adapted for film under the title Pampered Youth...
and Our Town
Our Town
Our Town is a three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder. It is a character story about an average town's citizens in the early twentieth century as depicted through their everyday lives...
. The second season productions included Ah, Wilderness and The Skin of Our Teeth
The Skin of Our Teeth
The Skin of Our Teeth is a play by Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It opened on October 15, 1942 at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut, before moving to the Plymouth Theatre on Broadway on November 18, 1942...
. Actors in these shows included Spring Byington
Spring Byington
Spring Byington was an American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a key MGM contract player appearing in films from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:Byington was born Spring Dell Byington in Colorado Springs,...
, Charles Dingle
Charles Dingle
Charles Dingle was an American stage and film actor.He was best-known for his role as Ben Hubbard in The Little Foxes and for his role as a senator in the film version of Call Me Madam...
, James Dunn
James Dunn (actor)
James Howard Dunn was an American film actor.-Biography:Born in New York City of Irish descent, Dunn was the son of a Wall Street stockbroker who, according to Dunn, "either had a million or nothing." He joined his father in his business for three years...
, Nina Foch
Nina Foch
Nina Foch was a Dutch-born American actress and leading lady in many 1940s and 1950s films.- Personal life :...
, John Forsythe
John Forsythe
John Forsythe was an American stage, television and film actor. Forsythe starred in three television series, spanning four decades and three genres: as single playboy father Bentley Gregg in the sitcom Bachelor Father ; as the unseen millionaire Charles Townsend on the crime drama Charlie's...
, Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
, Wanda Hendrix
Wanda Hendrix
Wanda Hendrix was an American film and television actress.Born Dixie Wanda Hendrix in Jacksonville, Florida, Hendrix was performing in her local amateur theater when she was seen by a talent agent who signed her to a Hollywood contract...
, Wright King, Otto Kruger
Otto Kruger
Otto Kruger was an American actor who began his career in 1915. His career was most prolific during the 1930s and 1940s.-Career:...
, Thomas Mitchell
Thomas Mitchell (actor)
Thomas Mitchell was an American actor, playwright and screenwriter. Among his most famous roles in a long career are those of Gerald O'Hara, the father of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, the drunken Doc Boone in John Ford's Stagecoach, and Uncle Billy in It's a Wonderful Life...
, Mildred Natwick
Mildred Natwick
Mildred Natwick was an American stage and film actress.- Early life :A native of Baltimore, Maryland, she was born to Joseph and Mildred Marion Dawes Natwick. She graduated from the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore...
, Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond
Gene Raymond was an American film, television, and stage actor of the 1930s and 1940s. In addition to acting, Raymond was also a composer, writer, director, producer, and decorated military pilot.-Stage and movie career:...
, Kent Smith
Kent Smith
Kent Smith was an American actor who had a lengthy career in film, theater, and television.Born Frank Kent Smith in New York, New York, Smith made his acting debut on Broadway in 1932 in and, after spending a few years there, moved to Hollywood, California, where he made his film debut in The...
and Fredd Wayne. Lighting design was by Imero Fiorentino.
A brewing problem
The series began October 6, 1950, and a month later it came under criticism from the Woman's Christian Temperance UnionWoman's Christian Temperance Union
The Woman's Christian Temperance Union was the first mass organization among women devoted to social reform with a program that "linked the religious and the secular through concerted and far-reaching reform strategies based on applied Christianity." Originally organized on December 23, 1873, in...
, which objected to the tie-in between Schlitz and the Pulitzer Prize. Mrs. D. Leigh Colvin
D. Leigh Colvin
David Leigh Colvin was an American politician and member of the Prohibition Party and the Law Preservation Party....
, president of the WCTU, suggested that Columbia should return the $100,000, stating that the program was "a scheme of education for alcoholism which uses American classics as a springboard for beer promotion. The tie-up... allies the university, its school and the Pulitzer name with programs which are obviously put on by the brewer to promote drinking in the American home. Beer bottles and beer drinking have been rampant in commercials between acts, one recent commercial depicting Mona Lisa coming to life from her painting to reach for a glass of the sponsor's beer."
Dean Carl W. Ackerman of the Pulitzer School responded, "This has been a pioneering development in the relationship between industry and education. It is raising the standards of entertainment in American homes. Any development which contributes to the improvement of home life is wholesome because the home is the bulwark of democracy."
Schlitz president Erwin C. Uilein pointed out that Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
was founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar
Matthew Vassar
Matthew Vassar was an English-born American brewer and merchant. He founded the eponymous Vassar College in 1861.He was a cousin of John Ellison Vassar.-Background:...
who had made a fortune in his Poughkeepsie, New York
Poughkeepsie (town), New York
Poughkeepsie is a town in Dutchess County, New York, United States. The population was 42,777 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from the native term, "Uppu-qui-ipis-in," which means "reed-covered hut by the water."...
brewery.
Graphic design and formats
The opening title card displayed a painted design of comedy/tragedy masks with a quill pen positioned in the mouth of the tragedy mask. Advertising for the series also used comedy/tragedy masks but in a more simplified line-art version minus the quill pen.The series was telecast live, but in some areas it was shown two weeks later as captured on kinescope
Kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor...
film. It initially presented hour-long dramas from October 1950 to June 1951; the series was reduced to a 30-minute format from December 1951 to June 1952. During the second season, the series alternated with Celanese Theatre. Pulitzer Prize Playhouse continued until June 4, 1952, producing a total of 53 episodes.
Awards and nominations
| Year | Award | Result | Category | Recipient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951 | Emmy Award Primetime Emmy Award The Primetime Emmy Awards are awards presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in recognition of excellence in American primetime television programming... |
Won | Best Dramatic Show Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series This page lists the winners and nominees for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, since its institution in 1951. The award is often cited as one of the "main awards" at the Emmys ceremonies, and has changed names many times in its history. It was first called Best Dramatic Show... |
|
| 1952 | Nominated |