Original title
Armstrong Circle Theatre
Released
6/6/1950
Origin country
US
Genre
Drama
Production companies
Talent Associates
Status
Ended
Number of seasons
15
Number of episodes
367
Armstrong Circle Theatre is an American anthology drama television series which ran from 1950 to 1957 on NBC, and then until 1963 on CBS. It alternated weekly with The U.S. Steel Hour.
A philosophy professor who has been passed over as head of the department learns to see his life in relation to the entire college and to his students.
A mother and son are reunited.
James Dean portrays a young warehouseman with a wife and sick child. Gene Lockhart, also employed at the warehouse, dreams of winning a newspaper-sponsored lottery so that he can journey back to Ireland. When Dean, desperate for money to buy medicine for his child, gambles away his earnings, Lockhart, having won the lottery, gives the money to Dean and his wife.
An actual drama of a polio outbreak in Chicago. One of the first victims is a young boy named Miguel Rico, who received only one shot of the three shots of the Salk vaccine. His father, Tomas, is convinced that he contracted polio from the vaccine. He is influential in his community and warns parents against the shots. Dr. Herman Bundesen, president of the Chicago Board of Health, decides to run the risks of administering shots in the middle of the polio season. Few are willing to take the shots. Mrs. Rico is afraid Angelina, their daughter, is coming down with the disease and convinces her husband that Miguel died because he received only one of the three shots and that Angelina should be treated.
Factual story of Hurricane Diane, showing how the United States Weather Bureau operates in all its phases, from the storm's inception through a 24-hour vigil until danger is past. It shows the effects of the storm on two people, Josephina, a young girl, and Sebastiano, her brother in Winsted, Connecticut. The action switches from the Weather Bureau where Reinhardt Schmidt, chief forecaster, is charting the hurricane and the home of Josephina and Sebastiano. The storm gains in intensity as she, recently arrived from Italy, plans her first American picnic. Josephina is drowned.
A documentary-style drama based on activities in a big city hospital, St. Luke's Hospital in New York City. The setting is Ward Three, the Women's Ward. Presiding over this little world is night head nurse Sally Lacey. The patients include Miss Mickler, a lonely embittered woman who makes life difficult for the nurses; Elena Ampuero, a young Puerto Rican woman suffering from malnutrition; and Mrs. Kafka, a young mother who is more concerned about the welfare of her two small children at home than she is about the hepatitis from which she suffers. As the drama closes, a new patient is wheeled in and thus life in a big city hospital moves on.
This is the true story of Lt. Melvin Shadduck, an American pilot, who was captured by the Korean Communists during the Korean War. Thrown into a tent with four other Americans, he finds all of them wounded and without medical care, adequate food or hope of escape. He trades personal belongings and forages for food. By wandering further afield day by day, little attention is paid to him by the Chinese guards and he finally escapes. He manages to reach a friendly Chinese boy, who contacts the Americans. He refuses hospitalization until his fellow prisoners would be rescued, which was accomplished.
Docudrama of a mentally ill man and the effort to help him recover. Paul Foster had to give up an engineering career to take over his father's insurance business because it was expected of him. He was ill-suited to the work and when the drama opens, the business is failing. Outwardly at the age of 31, he is a normal young man with a wife, Ruth, and a child.... Suddenly, he hits his secretary and accuses her of spying. Diagnosis by a psychiatrist finds he has suffered a mental breakdown, a schizophrenic reaction with marked paranoid tendencies. His mother refuses to believe it. His wife faces the facts and has him committed to a state hospital for treatment, which does not go well at first. But with the support of his family and with new drugs, Paul can communicate his problems and fears and return to his place in society.
An ""actual"" drama about five Romanian patriots, who in February 1955 seized the Communist Romanian Legation in Berne, Switzerland, in protest against the plight of their people in Romania. The daring plot is conceived by Oliviu Beldeanu of the Romanian Liberation Movement and executed with Soare Codrescu, Ion Chirila, Dumitru Ochiu and Dorel Ciochina. They release a secret Communist code to the press resulting in one of the heaviest blows to the Russian spy network. The small band holds the Legation for 48 hours until the Swiss government assures them that they will be tried there and not extradited to Romania. They await trial in Berne.
The setting for this ""actual"" is the Spence-Chapin Adoption Service in New York City. Three couples, the Muirs, the Nelsons, and the Arnquists, are seeking a baby for adoption. A woman arrives to arrange for the adoption of her baby when it is born. The case worker checks up on each of the couples to determine their fitness for parenting. The Muirs do not want to adopt after all and the Muirs are found to be unfit. The Arnquists are offered Baby X. They fall in love with her and take her into their family.
The sacrifices and problems of teachers in an average public high school as exemplified in an actual happening in Eastchester High School, Eastchester, N.Y., are examined in this drama. The school's most skilled teacher, Gordon Lacklin, is offered a better paying job and is torn between his loyalty to the school and his family obligations. The principal, Douglas MacDonald, must decide whether to dismiss a teacher, Alice Polcheck, who is dedicated to teaching but who cannot keep order in her classroom. In accordance with his guiding belief that the students come first, he lets her go, but she tells Lacklin that she regards him as a great teacher. After realizing that the students need good teachers, he decides that he is meant to be teacher and stays.
An actual drama of a Yugoslavian youth who is now in America and hopes to stay here. Anton Steigerwald, a war orphan in Yugoslavia, is thought to be the child of an American citizen from whom he was separated during the war. Elizabeth Steigerwald, now in Philadelphia, wants to find her son. Her daughter Maria brings Anton to America although she knows he is not her brother Johann. She relies on him to tell her mother, but he does not. Anton's sister discovers that he is in America and reveals the truth to Mrs. Steigerwald. But she has known all along. He tells the U.S. authorities and the real Johann is brought to America. Anton is waiting for bill H.R. 3438 to pass which would allow him to stay.
This drama about the tragedy of the Andrea Doria is a combination of narration by John Cameron Swayze, film clips and a re-enactment of the story of Thure Peterson and his wife, who loses her life after heroic attempts to free her from beneath a steel beam. It also includes a re-enactment of the story of Lilly Doona who jumps overboard to rescue her daughter. The U.S. Coast Guard Search and Rescue Center plays a major role in the rescue efforts.
Docudrama of a small group of Hungarians escaping to West Germany. Polyak gathers people who wish to flee and, after great difficulty, arranges for a gun. They board a flight to a city near the border and plan to commandeer the plane. The man with their gun does not show up and they are not sure if they should proceed. They decide to go ahead and have to subdue a security officer. They fly on an almost empty tank and arrive safely in West Germany.
A dramatization of the actual operations of a customs enforcement squad on a ship as it tracks down a man trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S. Inspector Michaels boards a ship from Morocco and leads his squad in searching out the narcotics. They find some in the coat of a crew member named Alvin and hidden in various places on the ship. Michaels turns over the case to the Customs agents.
Dramatization of seven men marooned by a plane crash in Antarctica. The plane, the Otter, is part of the largest Antarctic expedition in history, Operation Deep Freeze. The crash occurs during a blizzard and Lt. Comm. Glen H. Lathrop, Jr. of the U.S. Naval Reserve and his men must face the ice and cold to come out of the unchartered area alive. Their food and strength are ebbing, but they are finally rescued.
A drama of a woman on the verge of divorce and how Divorcees Anonymous, a Chicago organization, deals with such cases. The organization tries along with two divorced women to make the woman on the verge of divorce realize how much better it is to stay married. With the aid of Sam Starr, a Chicago attorney, they bring about a reconciliation. At the conclusion, Sam Starr speaks briefly about the pressing problem of divorce today.
Dramatization of how three strangers, Anna Percelz, Sandor Fisvek and Ferenc Lukacs, become part of a force fighting a common enemy. The drama traces the heroic and tragic paths each follows until they meet to stand against the overwhelming power of the invading Soviet forces.
True-life drama of a young lawyer's untiring efforts to free a man he believes was unjustly convicted. The lawyer, Bob Gorman, examines the file of Roy Eaton, who has been serving time since 1940 in Joliet, Illinois for armed robbery. Eaton, bitter over the system which he feels discriminates against the poor and illiterate, is distrustful of the lawyer's efforts to prove there is equal justice under the law. The date for a re-trial is long since past and the State of Illinois must give a waiver. Barney Moran is responsible for this decision and he grants it. The evidence is submitted to the judge and Eaton is proclaimed innocent. At the end, Gorman speaks briefly on the fact that convicted people have rights and they must not be abrogated.
This is the story of an unloved and misunderstood child, Danny, and the homes in which he lives and tries to find himself. He begins to be difficult at home and in class, but his nagging parents never think they might be partly responsible. He is sent to the New England Home for Little Wanderers, where friendly teachers and psychiatrists study but do not change youngsters' behavior. A temporary foster home is arranged for Danny. With the help of case workers, his parents change their feelings about their responsibilities to Danny and when he returns, he feels he will stay.
This is a drama based on the work of the Fire Marshal's Office of Nassau County, Long Island, New York. A case history is presented about the solution of an arson for profit case, which goes into all the details of the fire and investigations to the apprehension of the ""torch.""
A dramatization of the actual life and death struggle of an independent newspaper against the tyranny of the dictator, Juan Perón. The press of the world brought to light the fight of Dr. Alberto Gainza Paz, owner and publisher of the newspaper La prensa, who was forced to close down. He seeks refuge abroad where he continues his endeavors until Perón's downfall. On his return to Argentina, he reopens La prensa and reestablishes freedom of the press.
A dramatization based on fact of a typical night in New York's famous Night Court, the City Magistrate's Court, where cases of minor crimes and disturbances are handled. Insight is given into the proceedings between the judge and the defendants.
Adolph Eichmann, the man responsible for the deaths of six million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe, disregards the pleas of Ellen Madison, a woman condemned to the gas chamber.
A secret government document is stolen—an obsolete book of plans and operations that is still of great value to unfriendly hands. So the O.S.I. swings into action.
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