Climax! | |
---|---|
Also known as | Climax Mystery Theater |
Genre | Anthology |
Directed by | John Frankenheimer Ida Lupino Arthur Hiller Allen Reisner Ralph Nelson Buzz Kulik Paul Nickell William H. Brown, Jr. David Swift Jack Smight Don Medford Anthony Barr |
Presented by | William Lundigan (1954–1958) Mary Costa (1956–1958) |
Theme music composer | Leith Stevens |
Composers | Jerry Goldsmith Bernard Herrmann Alex North |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 4 |
No. of episodes | 166 |
Production | |
Executive producer | Albert R. Broccoli[ citation needed ] |
Producers | Martin Manulis Bretaigne Windust |
Camera setup | Television Film |
Running time | 47–50 minutes |
Original release | |
Network | CBS |
Release | October 7, 1954 – June 26, 1958 |
Climax! (later known as Climax Mystery Theater) is an American television anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color, using the massive TK-40A color cameras pioneered and manufactured by RCA, and used primarily by CBS's rival network, NBC (the broadcasting division of RCA). Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live, but, although the series was transmitted in color, only black-and-white kinescope copies of some episodes survive to the present day. The series finished at #22 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1955–1956 season and #26 for 1956–1957. [1]
In February 1955, Martin Manulis became the producer, replacing Bretaigne Windust. The trade publication Variety reported that the change in producers would be accompanied by a change in format. It said, "The sponsor, Chrysler, has been discontent with the restrictive suspense-horror formula," and that future episodes would be "designed to accent adventure and emotional climaxes rather than stark melodrama". [2]
In 1954, the Climax! episode "Casino Royale" featured secret agent James Bond in a television adaptation of Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale . It starred Barry Nelson as American secret agent "Jimmy Bond" and Peter Lorre as the villain Le Chiffre. It was the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, made before Eon Productions acquired the Bond film rights. Eon would later obtain the rights to Casino Royale in the late 1990s. This adaptation is available on DVD as a bonus feature on the MGM DVD release of the 1967 film adaptation of the novel.
The only other episode of Climax! available on DVD is Gore Vidal's adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , retitled on Climax! as "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde". [3] It stars Michael Rennie, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Lowell Gilmore. It is available in the DVD box set Classic Sci-Fi TV—150 Episodes from Mill Creek Entertainment.[ citation needed ]
In an earlier episode of Climax!, an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye , actor Tristram Coffin, playing a dead body, arose in-shot and walked offstage. The event was widely covered in the media of the day, later becoming an urban legend that was attributed to Peter Lorre and the aforementioned adaptation of Casino Royale. [4]
In addition, a small number of episodes from the series can be found on YouTube. [5]
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 1 | "The Long Goodbye" | October 7, 1954 |
2 | 2 | "The Thirteenth Chair" | October 14, 1954 |
3 | 3 | "Casino Royale" | October 21, 1954 |
4 | 4 | "Sorry, Wrong Number" | November 4, 1954 |
5 | 5 | "The Gioconda Smile" | November 11, 1954 |
6 | 6 | "The After House" | November 25, 1954 |
7 | 7 | "An Error in Chemistry" | December 2, 1954 |
8 | 8 | "Epitaph for a Spy" | December 9, 1954 |
9 | 9 | "The White Carnation" | December 16, 1954 |
10 | 10 | "Nightmare in Copenhagen" | December 30, 1954 |
11 | 11 | "The Bigger They Come" | January 6, 1955 |
12 | 12 | "Escape from Fear" | January 13, 1955 |
13 | 13 | "The Mojave Kid" | January 27, 1955 |
14 | 14 | "The Leaf Out of the Book" | February 3, 1955 |
15 | 15 | "The Valiant Men" | February 10, 1955 |
16 | 16 | "The Box of Chocolates" | February 24, 1955 |
17 | 17 | "South of the Sun" | March 3, 1955 |
18 | 18 | "The Great Impersonation" | March 10, 1955 |
19 | 19 | "The Darkest Hour" | March 24, 1955 |
20 | 20 | "The Champion" | March 31, 1955 |
21 | 21 | "Private Worlds" | April 7, 1955 |
22 | 22 | "Flight 951" | April 21, 1955 |
23 | 23 | "The First and the Last" | April 28, 1955 |
24 | 24 | "The Deliverance of Sister Cecilia" | May 5, 1955 |
25 | 25 | "No Stone Unturned" | May 19, 1955 |
26 | 26 | "A Farewell to Arms" | May 26, 1955 |
27 | 27 | "The Unimportant Man" | June 2, 1955 |
28 | 28 | "The Dark Fleece" | June 16, 1955 |
29 | 29 | "To Wake at Midnight" | June 23, 1955 |
30 | 30 | "The Dance" | June 30, 1955 |
31 | 31 | "Wild Stallion" | July 7, 1955 |
32 | 32 | "The Escape of Mendes-France" | July 14, 1955 |
33 | 33 | "The Healer" | July 21, 1955 |
34 | 34 | "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" | July 28, 1955 |
35 | 35 | "One Night Stand" | August 4, 1955 |
36 | 36 | "Edge of Terror" | August 11, 1955 |
37 | 37 | "Fear Strikes Out" | August 18, 1955 |
38 | 38 | "Deal a Blow" | August 25, 1955 |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date | |
---|---|---|---|---|
39 | 1 | "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" | September 1, 1955 | |
40 | 2 | "Public Pigeon #1" | September 8, 1955 | |
41 | 3 | "Silent Decision" | September 15, 1955 | |
42 | 4 | "Night of Execution" | September 22, 1955 | |
43 | 5 | "Sailor on Horseback" | September 29, 1955 | |
44 | 6 | "Thin Air" | October 13, 1955 | |
45 | 7 | "House of Shadows" | October 20, 1955 | |
46 | 8 | "The Pink Cloud" | October 27, 1955 | |
47 | 9 | "Schedule to Defraud" | November 10, 1955 | |
48 | 10 | "A Promise to Murder" | November 17, 1955 | |
49 | 11 | "Portrait in Celluloid" | November 24, 1955 | |
50 | 12 | "A Man of Taste" | December 1, 1955 | |
51 | 13 | "The Passport" | December 8, 1955 | |
52 | 14 | "The Day They Gave the Babies Away" | December 22, 1955 | |
With Mary Treen. | ||||
53 | 15 | "Bailout at 43,000 Feet" | December 29, 1955 | |
54 | 16 | "The Prowler" | January 5, 1956 | |
55 | 17 | "The Hanging Judge" | January 12, 1956 | |
56 | 18 | "The Secret of River Lane" | January 26, 1956 | |
57 | 19 | "Gamble on a Thief" | February 2, 1956 | |
58 | 20 | "The Fifth Wheel" | February 9, 1956 | |
59 | 21 | "Nightmare by Day" | February 23, 1956 | |
60 | 22 | "The Sound of Silence" | March 1, 1956 | |
61 | 23 | "The Louella Parsons Story" | March 8, 1956 | |
62 | 24 | "Pale Horse, Pale Rider" | March 22, 1956 | |
63 | 25 | "An Episode of Sparrows" | March 29, 1956 | |
64 | 26 | "Spin Into Darkness" | April 5, 1956 | |
65 | 27 | "The Lou Gehrig Story" | April 19, 1956 | |
66 | 28 | "Sit Down with Death" | April 26, 1956 | |
67 | 29 | "The Empty Room Blues" | May 3, 1956 | |
68 | 30 | "Flame-Out in T-6" | May 17, 1956 | |
69 | 31 | "The Shadow of Evil" | May 24, 1956 | |
70 | 32 | "Figures in Clay" | May 31, 1956 | |
71 | 33 | "Faceless Adversary" | June 7, 1956 | |
72 | 34 | "To Scream at Midnight" | June 14, 1956 | |
73 | 35 | "The Circular Staircase" | June 21, 1956 | |
74 | 36 | "A Trophy for Howard Davenport" | June 28, 1956 | |
75 | 37 | "Phone Call for Matthew Quade" | July 5, 1956 | |
76 | 38 | "Fear Is the Hunter" | July 12, 1956 | |
77 | 39 | "Fury at Dawn" | July 19, 1956 | |
78 | 40 | "The Man Who Lost His Head" | July 26, 1956 | |
79 | 41 | "Child of the Wind / Throw Away the Cane" | August 2, 1956 | |
80 | 42 | "No Right to Kill" | August 9, 1956 | |
81 | 43 | "The 78th Floor" | August 16, 1956 | |
82 | 44 | "Dark Wall" | August 30, 1956 |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|
83 | 1 | "Bury Me Later" | September 6, 1956 |
84 | 2 | "Burst of Violence" | September 13, 1956 |
85 | 3 | "The Garsten Case" | September 20, 1956 |
86 | 4 | "The Fog" | September 27, 1956 |
87 | 5 | "Island in the City" | October 4, 1956 |
88 | 6 | "Journey Into Fear" | October 11, 1956 |
89 | 7 | "The Midas Touch" | October 18, 1956 |
90 | 8 | "Night of the Heat Wave" | October 25, 1956 |
91 | 9 | "Flight to Tomorrow" | November 8, 1956 |
92 | 10 | "Night Shriek" | November 15, 1956 |
93 | 11 | "The Chinese Game" | November 22, 1956 |
94 | 12 | "The Secret Thread" | November 29, 1956 |
95 | 13 | "Savage Portrait" | December 6, 1956 |
96 | 14 | "Strange Hostage" | December 20, 1956 |
97 | 15 | "Ten Minutes to Curfew" | December 27, 1956 |
98 | 16 | "Carnival at Midnight" | January 3, 1957 |
99 | 17 | "The Gold Dress" | January 17, 1957 |
100 | 18 | "Circle of Destruction" | January 24, 1957 |
101 | 19 | "The Trouble at Number 5" | January 31, 1957 |
102 | 20 | "The Stalker" | February 7, 1957 |
103 | 21 | "Stain of Honor" | February 14, 1957 |
104 | 22 | "The Long Count" | February 21, 1957 |
105 | 23 | "And Don't Ever Come Back" | February 28, 1957 |
106 | 24 | "Night of a Rebel" | March 7, 1957 |
107 | 25 | "Let It Be Me" | March 21, 1957 |
108 | 26 | "Strange Sanctuary" | March 28, 1957 |
109 | 27 | "Don't Touch Me" | April 4, 1957 |
110 | 28 | "The Mad Bomber" | April 18, 1957 |
111 | 29 | "Avalanche at Devil's Pass" | April 25, 1957 |
112 | 30 | "The Strange Deaths at Burnleigh" | May 2, 1957 |
113 | 31 | "Bait for the Tiger" | May 16, 1957 |
114 | 32 | "The Hand of Evil" | May 23, 1957 |
115 | 33 | "The Disappearance of Amanda Hale" | May 30, 1957 |
116 | 34 | "Mr. Runyon of Broadway" | June 6, 1957 |
117 | 35 | "The Man Who Stole the Bible" | June 13, 1957 |
118 | 36 | "A Taste for Crime" | June 20, 1957 |
119 | 37 | "The Trial of Captain Wirz" | June 27, 1957 |
120 | 38 | "Locked in Fear" "False Witness" | July 4, 1957 |
121 | 39 | "Payment for Judas" | July 11, 1957 |
122 | 40 | "Walk a Tightrope" | July 18, 1957 |
123 | 41 | "The High Jungle" | July 25, 1957 |
124 | 42 | "The Giant Killer" | August 1, 1957 |
125 | 43 | "Trail of Terror" | August 8, 1957 |
126 | 43 | "Murder Is a Witch" | August 15, 1957 |
127 | 44 | "The Stranger Within" | August 22, 1957 |
128 | 45 | "Deadly Climate" | August 29, 1957 |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Original air date |
---|---|---|---|
129 | 1 | "Trial by Fire" | September 5, 1957 |
130 | 2 | "The Secret of the Red Room" | September 12, 1957 |
131 | 3 | "Necessary Evil" | September 19, 1957 |
132 | 4 | "Along Came a Spider" | September 26, 1957 |
133 | 5 | "Jacob and the Angels" | October 3, 1957 |
134 | 6 | "Mask for the Devil" | October 10, 1957 |
135 | 7 | "The Largest City in Captivity" | October 17, 1957 |
136 | 8 | "Tunnel of Fear" | October 24, 1957 |
137 | 9 | "Keep Me in Mind" | November 7, 1957 |
138 | 10 | "Two Tests for Tuesday" | November 14, 1957 |
139 | 11 | "A Matter of Life and Death" | November 21, 1957 |
140 | 12 | "Murder Has a Deadline" | November 28, 1957 |
141 | 13 | "The Devil's Brood" | December 5, 1957 |
142 | 14 | "Hurricane Diane" | December 12, 1957 |
143 | 15 | "To Walk the Night" | December 19, 1957 |
144 | 16 | "Shadow of a Memory" | December 26, 1957 |
145 | 17 | "Scream in Silence" | January 2, 1958 |
146 | 18 | "Thieves over Tokyo" | January 16, 1958 |
147 | 19 | "Sound of the Moon" | January 23, 1958 |
148 | 20 | "Burst of Fire" | January 30, 1958 |
149 | 21 | "Four Hours in White" | February 6, 1958 |
150 | 22 | "The Secret Love of Johnny Spain" | February 20, 1958 |
151 | 23 | "Albert Anastasia—His Life and Death" | February 27, 1958 |
152 | 24 | "The Thief with the Big Blue Eyes" | March 6, 1958 |
153 | 25 | "So Deadly My Love" | March 13, 1958 |
154 | 26 | "The Great World and Timothy Colt" | March 27, 1958 |
155 | 27 | "On the Take" | April 3, 1958 |
156 | 28 | "The Volcano Seat" | April 10, 1958 |
157 | 29 | "Shooting for the Moon" | April 24, 1958 |
158 | 30 | "The Deadly Tattoo" | May 1, 1958 |
159 | 31 | "The Big Success" | May 8, 1958 |
160 | 32 | "The Disappearance of Daphne" | May 15, 1958 |
161 | 33 | "Time of the Hanging" | May 22, 1958 |
162 | 34 | "The Push-Button Giant" | May 29, 1958 |
163 | 35 | "Spider Web" | June 5, 1958 |
164 | 36 | "House of Doubt" | June 19, 1958 |
165 | 37 | "Cabin B-13" | June 26, 1958 |
(In alphabetical order)
The James Bond series focuses on the titular character, a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have written authorised Bond novels or novelisations: Kingsley Amis, Christopher Wood, John Gardner, Raymond Benson, Sebastian Faulks, Jeffery Deaver, William Boyd, and Anthony Horowitz. The latest novel is With a Mind to Kill by Anthony Horowitz, published in May 2022. Additionally Charlie Higson wrote a series on a young James Bond, and Kate Westbrook wrote three novels based on the diaries of a recurring series character, Moneypenny.
Q is a character in the James Bond films and novelisations. Q is the head of Q Branch, the fictional research and development division of the British Secret Service charged with oversight of top secret field technologies.
Dr. Henry Jekyll and his alter ego, Mr. Edward Hyde, is the central character of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In the story, he is a good friend of main protagonist Gabriel John Utterson.
Felix Leiter is a fictional character created by Ian Fleming in the James Bond books, films, and other media. The character is an operative for the CIA and Bond's friend. After losing a leg and a hand to a shark attack, Leiter joined the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The name "Felix" comes from the middle name of Fleming's friend Ivar Bryce, while the name "Leiter" was the surname of Fleming's friend Marion Oates Leiter Charles, the then wife of Thomas Leiter.
A Bond girl is a character who is a love interest, female companion or (occasionally) an adversary of James Bond in a novel, film, or video game. Bond girls occasionally have names that are double entendres or sexual puns, such as Plenty O'Toole, Holly Goodhead, or Xenia Onatopp. The female leads in the films, such as Ursula Andress, Honor Blackman, or Eva Green, can also be referred to as "Bond girls". The term Bond girl may also be considered as an anachronism, with some female cast members in the films preferring the designation Bond woman.
Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.
Eon Productions Limited is a British film production company that primarily produces the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the UK.
Casino Royale is a 2006 spy action thriller film, the twenty-first in the Eon Productions James Bond series, and the third screen adaptation of Ian Fleming's 1953 novel of the same name. Directed by Martin Campbell from a screenplay by Neil Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis, it stars Daniel Craig in his first appearance as Bond, alongside Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, Judi Dench, and Jeffrey Wright. In the film, Bond is on a mission to bankrupt terrorism financier Le Chiffre (Mikkelsen) in a high-stakes poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro.
Casino Royale is a 1967 spy parody film originally distributed by Columbia Pictures featuring an ensemble cast. It is loosely based on the 1953 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, the first novel to feature the character James Bond.
Casino Royale is the first novel by the British author Ian Fleming. Published in 1953, it is the first James Bond book, and it paved the way for a further eleven novels and two short story collections by Fleming, followed by numerous continuation Bond novels by other authors.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a 1941 American horror film starring Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, and Lana Turner. The production also features Donald Crisp, Ian Hunter, Barton MacLane, C. Aubrey Smith, and Sara Allgood. Its storyline is based on the 1886 Gothic novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde written by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. There have been many filmed adaptations of the novella. This movie was a remake of the Oscar-winning 1931 version starring Fredric March.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, is a 1886 novella by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Tristram Chockley Coffin was a former film and television actor from the latter 1930s through the 1970s, usually in Westerns or other B-movie action-adventure productions.
Jekyll is a British television drama serial produced by Hartswood Films and Stagescreen Productions for BBC One. The series also received funding from BBC America. Steven Moffat wrote all six episodes, with Douglas Mackinnon and Matt Lipsey each directing three episodes.
"Casino Royale" is a live 1954 television adaptation of the 1953 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. An episode of the American dramatic anthology series Climax!, the show was the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, and stars Barry Nelson, Peter Lorre, and Linda Christian. Though this marks the first onscreen appearance of the secret agent, Nelson's Bond is played as an American spy working for the "Combined Intelligence Agency".
The James Bond film series is a British series of spy films based on the fictional character of MI6 agent James Bond, "007", who originally appeared in a series of books by Ian Fleming. It is one of the longest continually running film series in history, having been in ongoing production from 1962 to the present. In that time, Eon Productions has produced 25 films as of 2021, most of them at Pinewood Studios. With a combined gross of over $7 billion, the films produced by Eon constitute the fifth-highest-grossing film series. Six actors have portrayed 007 in the Eon series, the latest being Daniel Craig.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to James Bond:
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is an 1886 novella written by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. It is about a London lawyer, Gabriel John Utterson, who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll and the misanthropic Mr. Hyde. In a twist ending, it is revealed that Jekyll and Hyde were the same person, and that Jekyll had regularly transformed himself into Hyde by drinking a serum.
Michael Garrison was an American producer and the creator of the television series The Wild Wild West.