"Nightmare at Ground Zero" | |
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Playhouse 90 episode | |
Episode no. | Season 2 Episode 34 |
Directed by | Franklin Schaffner |
Written by | Rod Serling & Paul Monash (teleplay), John C. Clark & Robert Cahn (book) |
Original air date | May 15, 1958 |
Guest appearances | |
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"Nightmare at Ground Zero" is a television play that was broadcast by CBS on May 15, 1958, as part of the television series, Playhouse 90 . It was written by Rod Serling and Paul Monash based on the book by John C. Clark and Robert Cahn.
Based on a true story, an advance party of five scientists is stationed in a bunker on Enewetak Atoll 20 miles from the detonation of the first hydrogen bomb test. They are trapped for 11 hours in a "hot" bunker due to miscalculations as to the size of the blast and the direction of the atomic fallout.
The cast included the following: [1] [2]
The program was produced as part of the second season of the television series, Playhouse 90 . Franklin Schaffner was the director. The teleplay was written by Rod Serling and Paul Monash and adapted from the book, Nightmare at Ground Zero, by John C. Clark and Robert Cahn. It was aired on May 15, 1958. [2] [3]
United Press television critic William Ewald gave the production a mixed review. He praised the direction and sets and found the production to be "a gripper" when it stuck to telling the story. However, he wrote that it "stumbled" when it turned to conflict between two of the scientists over the morality of the bomb. Ewald found the latter scenes, with scientists exchanging quotes from Browning and Horace, to be clumsy, dramatically unbelievable, and embarrassing. [4]
Rodman Edward Serling was an American screenwriter and television producer best known for his live television dramas of the 1950s and his anthology television series The Twilight Zone. Serling was active in politics, both on and off the screen, and helped form television industry standards. He was known as the "angry young man" of Hollywood, clashing with television executives and sponsors over a wide range of issues, including censorship, racism, and war.
Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology drama series that aired on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. The show was produced at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California. Since live anthology drama series of the mid-1950s usually were hour-long shows, the title highlighted the network's intention to present something unusual: a weekly series of hour-and-a-half-long dramas rather than 60-minute plays.
The Twilight Zone is an American fantasy science fiction horror anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from October 2, 1959, to June 19, 1964. Each episode presents a standalone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone", often with a surprise ending and a moral. Although often considered predominantly science-fiction, the show's paranormal and Kafkaesque events leaned the show much closer to fantasy and horror. The phrase "twilight zone", inspired by the series, is used to describe surreal experiences.
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Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse is an American television anthology series produced by Desilu Productions. The show ran on the Columbia Broadcasting System between 1958 and 1960. Three of its 48 episodes served as pilots for the 1950s television series The Twilight Zone and The Untouchables.
Paul Monash was an American television and film producer and screenwriter.
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"The 80 Yard Run" is an American television play broadcast on January 16, 1958, as part of the second season of the CBS television series Playhouse 90. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward co-starred. Franklin Schaffner directed, and David Shaw wrote the teleplay as an adaptation of a story written by his brother Irwin Shaw.