Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre

Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre was an American Western anthology television series that was broadcast on CBS from October 5, 1956, until September 20, 1962.[1]

Format

Many episodes were based on novels by Zane Grey,[2] to all of which Four Star Films held exclusive rights.[3] Dick Powell was the host and the star of some episodes.[1] Many of the guest stars made their TV debuts on the program.[3]

Powell said that working with Grey's stories proved to be both a benefit and a challenge. While he spoke of "the vast output of wonderful action stories from Zane Grey's pen", he acknowledged the challenge of "trying to compress a novel into half an hour of storytelling on television."[4] Some stories could be adapted relatively easily, while others had to be skipped or only parts of them could be used for scripts.[4] Over time, script writers used up the supply of adaptable material from Grey and began to adapt other authors' stories.[5]

Preview and reception

A preview of the show in the trade publication Billboard indicated that it would appeal to women viewers as well as to men. It noted that among the stories adapted from Grey's work "There will usually be strong love interests."[6] In early February 1957, Billboard evaluated Zane Grey Theatre as "one of the strong contenders for the title of most important new show, according to many of its ratings."[7]

Schedule
Broadcast Schdule of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre
Time SpanDayTime
October 1956 - July 1958Friday8:30 - 9
October 1958 - September 1960Thursday9 - 9:30
October 1960 - July 1961Thursday8:30 - 9
April 1962 - September 1962Thursday9:30 - 10

Note:All times Eastern

Source: The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present[5]

In the summer of 1959, episodes of the program were repeated on a "rerun subsidiary" titled Frontier Justice, with Melvyn Douglas as host, on Mondays from 9 to 9:30 P.M. ET.[8] All of the summer 1962 episodes were reruns.[5]

In August 1961, Zane Grey Theatre was one of four programs whose episodes were sold to Procter & Gamble to be broadcast in Canada.[9]

Zane Grey Theatre ended because Powell moved to another program, The Dick Powell Show.[10]

Production

Four Star Films was the producing company,[11] with Powell as executive producer.[3] Producers included Helen Ainsworth,[12] Hal Hudson,[1] and Aaron Spelling.[13] Directors included Felix Feist,[2] William D. Faralla, James Sheldon,[12] and Budd Boetticher.[13] Writers included Marion Hargrove.[14]

Sponsors included Johnson Wax.[3]

Episodes

1956-1957
Partial List of Episodes of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1956-1957)
DateEpisodeActor(s)
October 5, 1956"You Only Run Once"Robert Ryan, Cloris Leachman[2]
January 4, 1957"The Three Graves"Jack Lemmon[1]

1957-1958
Partial List of Episodes of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1957-1958)
DateEpisodeActor(s)
October 25, 1957"Proud Woman"Hedy Lamarr[1]
November 2, 1957"Ride a Lonely Trail"Walter Brennan[15]

1958-1959
Partial List of Episodes of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1958-1959)
DateEpisodeActor(s)
October 2, 1958"Trail to Nowhere"Barbara Stanwyck, David Janssen, Paul Genge, Irene Calvillo, Stephen Chase, Ian MacDonald, Allen Pinson, Dick Powell, Bill Quinn, Richard Shannon, Guy Wilkerson[12]
January 15, 1959"Hang the Heart High"Barbara Stanwyck, David Janssen, Paul Richards, Lane Bradford, Margarita Cordova, Frank Harding, Dick Powell[12]

1959-1960
Partial List of Episodes of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1959-1960)
DateEpisodeActor(s)
October 8, 1959"The Lone Woman"Martin Balsam, George Keymas, Joel Crothers, Shari Lee Bernath, Veronica Cartwright, Tom Masters, Dick Powell.[12]
February 4, 1960"Never Too Late"Ginger Rogers[1]

1960-1961
Partial List of Episodes of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre (1960-1961)
DateEpisodeActor(s)
October 13, 1960"Desert Flight"Dick Powell, James Coburn, Ben Cooper, John Pickard[13]
November 10, 1960"So Young the Savage Land"Claudette Colbert[1]
November 17, 1960"Ransom"Lloyd Bridges, Claude Akins, Anita Corsaut, Ed Nelson[13]
December 1, 1960"The Black Wagon"Esther Williams[1]
January 5, 1961"Ambush"Dick Powell, Jack Elam, Arch Johnson, Dean Stanton, Conlan Carter, Charles Fredericks, Don Dubbins[13]

Home media

As of the fall of 2017, the first three seasons of the program had been released on DVD.[13]

References
  1. McNeil, Alex (1996). Total Television: the Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present (4th ed.). New York, New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc. p. 939. ISBN 0-14-02-4916-8.
  2. Hawes, William (2001). Filmed Television Drama, 1952-1958. McFarland. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-7864-1132-0. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  3. Miller, George (August 24, 1958). "Dick Powell and June Allyson Visit Officials of S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc". Racine Sunday Bulletin. p. 7. Retrieved March 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Dick Powell Dons Chaps For Zane Grey Chores". Hartford Courant. November 11, 1956. p. 137. Retrieved March 19, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle (1999). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present (7th ed.). New York: The Ballentine Publishing Group. p. 257. ISBN 0-345-42923-0.
  6. "Zane Grey Theatre, CBS-TV" (PDF). Billboard. August 18, 1956. pp. 32–33. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  7. "More Cowhands on Horizon For Webs' Fall Schedules" (PDF). Billboard. February 9, 1957. p. 3. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  8. Adams, Val (June 7, 1959). "TV-Radio Notes:Fred Astaire Scheduled For At Least One More Turn on TV". The New York Times. p. X 11. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  9. "Film sales . . " (PDF). Broadcasting. August 21, 1961. p. 117. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  10. "12 Shows Evicted" (PDF). Television Digest. January 30, 1961. p. 5. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  11. Adams, Val (May 24, 1956). "'Zane Grey' show may bow in fall". The New York Times. p. 63. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  12. Wilson, Victoria (2015). A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940. Simon and Schuster. p. 900. ISBN 978-1-4391-9406-5. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  13. Nott, Robert (2018). The Films of Budd Boetticher. McFarland. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-4766-6707-2. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
  14. "First Comes the Word" (PDF). Television Digest. September 12, 1960. p. 5. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
  15. Rollyson, Carl (015). A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-62846-048-3. Retrieved March 17, 2022.
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