Heart of Darkness (Playhouse 90)

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"Heart of Darkness"
Playhouse 90 episode
Boris Karloff in Heart of Darkness.jpg
Episode no.Season 3
Episode 7
Directed by Ronald Winston
Written by Stewart Stern
Featured music Robert Drasnin
Original air dateNovember 6, 1958 (1958-11-06)
Running time1:29:07
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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"Word From a Sealed-Off Box"
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"Old Man"

"Heart of Darkness" was an American television play broadcast on November 6, 1958, as part of the CBS television series, Playhouse 90 . It was the seventh episode of the third season of Playhouse 90. The play was adapted from Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness .

Contents

Plot

Charles Marlow travels from England to Africa to reunite with Mr. Kurtz, the man who raised him. The two are reunited, and Kurtz seeks to brand Marlow as one of his slaves. Kurtz later dies in Marlow's arms.

Cast

The following performers received screen credit for their performances: [1] [2]

Sterling Hayden hosted the broadcast.

Production

The play was directed by Ronald Winston and produced by Fred Coe. The teleplay was written by Stewart Stern based on the story by Joseph Conrad. Robert Tyler Lee was the art director. [2] Robert Drasnin, who is best known for his albums in the exotica genre, composed and directed the music. [1]

Reception

In The New York Times , John P. Shanley wrote that called it "among the more pretentious mistakes of the season." He added the actors "were involved in a numbing exercise in dramatic mumbo-jumbo that was without merit or reason." [3]

UPI television critic William Ewald wrote that Stern had so padded and twisted Conrad's story that it might be called "Variations on a Theme by Joseph Conrad." His overall reaction was that "it was a little like watching the lecture of a talented lunatic through the bottom of two martini glasses." As for the acting, he wrote that McDowall's performance "packed fits and starts of excellence" while Kitt was, "to put it kindly, inadequate", and Karloff was just "there." [4]

In the Oakland Tribune , Bill Fiset wrote that the teleplay "led viewers a little too far off into fantasyland." [5]

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Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad in which the sailor Charles Marlow tells his listeners the story of his assignment as steamer captain for a Belgian company in the African interior. The novel is widely regarded as a critique of European colonial rule in Africa, whilst also examining the themes of power dynamics and morality. Although Conrad does not name the river on which most of the narrative takes place, at the time of writing, the Congo Free State—the location of the large and economically important Congo River—was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is given a text by Kurtz, an ivory trader working on a trading station far up the river, who has "gone native" and is the object of Marlow's expedition.

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References

  1. 1 2 Kinescope of "Heart of Darkness", aired May 16, 1957.
  2. 1 2 "Playhouse 90: Heart of Darkness". The Paley Center for Media. Retrieved September 20, 2020.
  3. Shanley, John P. (November 7, 1958). "Story by Conrad". The New York Times . p. 54.
  4. Ewald, William (November 7, 1958). "'Heart of Darkness' Labeled Almost Impossible TV Piece". Springfield Leader-Press . p. 15 via Newspapers.com.
  5. Fiset, Bill (November 7, 1958). "These TV People". Oakland Tribune . p. 43 via Newspapers.com.