
This omnibus release consists of three playlets filmed and aired during television's Golden Age, and starring some of the legends of film and television. The collection originally ran as a two-hour segment on December 14, 1959, on the anthology series The Play of the Week, broadcast locally in New York City via the independent radio station WNTA. Each "tale" in the anthology was adapted from a single tale by the inimitable Sholom Aleichem, regarded by many as the "Yiddish Mark Twain". Included are: "A Tale of Chelm" starring Zero Mostel and Nancy Walker in the story of a bookseller attempting to buy a goat; "Bontche Schweig" about a poor man (Jack Gilford) whose recent arrival in Heaven makes the angels cry; and "The High School" about a Jewish merchant (Morris Carnovsky) persuaded by his wife (Gertrude Berg) to let their son attend a particular high school despite the enforcement of quotas for Jewish students.

This omnibus release consists of three playlets filmed and aired during television's Golden Age, and starring some of the legends of film and television. The collection originally ran as a two-hour segment on December 14, 1959, on the anthology series The Play of the Week, broadcast locally in New York City via the independent radio station WNTA. Each "tale" in the anthology was adapted from a single tale by the inimitable Sholom Aleichem, regarded by many as the "Yiddish Mark Twain". Included are: "A Tale of Chelm" starring Zero Mostel and Nancy Walker in the story of a bookseller attempting to buy a goat; "Bontche Schweig" about a poor man (Jack Gilford) whose recent arrival in Heaven makes the angels cry; and "The High School" about a Jewish merchant (Morris Carnovsky) persuaded by his wife (Gertrude Berg) to let their son attend a particular high school despite the enforcement of quotas for Jewish students.
1959-12-14
9
Based on the Writer Whose Stories Inspired The Fiddler on the Roof
6.1Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.
6.7The true story of 20-year-old Colleen Stan, a hitchhiking woman abducted by a young couple and held captive for seven years, during which time she's tortured and forced to live as a slave to her captors.
6.1Fanny Price is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Bertrams, where she is treated poorly by most except her cousin Edmund. Her life is complicated by the arrival of the worldly Mary and Henry Crawford
6.6Based on the true story of a successful couple, Maggie and Aaron who are preparing for the arrival of their first child.
6.2Legendary acting duo and married couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor prepare for a 1983 theatrical production of the play "Private Lives."
6.3Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
8.0Twelve Angry Men is a 1954 teleplay by Reginald Rose for the Studio One anthology television series. Initially staged as a CBS live production on 20 September 1954, the drama was later rewritten for the stage in 1955 under the same title and again for a feature film, 12 Angry Men (1957). The episode garnered three Emmy Awards for writer Rose, director Franklin Schaffner and Robert Cummings as Best Actor.
7.2A dramatization of the life of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault (Don Cheadle), with a lot of factual based occurrences. A reformed junkie returns from prison to clean up his act and devote the rest of his life to the young kids of Harlem. 1996 was the 25th anniversary of the first tournament named after him.
7.4A journalist finds himself questioning his own life when his best friend, a dying man, offers him some very powerful wisdom and advice for coping in relationships, careers and society.
7.1Dramatisation of the true story of the life of Neil "Nello" Baldwin. Born with a mild learning disability but without the burden of social embarrassment & how his inexhaustible ability to see the good in any situation overcame any stigma society tried to label him with.
6.7A Midwestern husband and father announces his plan to have a sex change operation.
6.5An acclaimed stage performer, Dorothy still struggled with the challenge of her color, in a time that wouldn't let some stars in by the front door. Yet against the odds she beat out many more famous rivals for the role of "Carmen Jones", becoming the first black woman ever nominated for a Best Actress Academy Award. Marriages and affairs would break her heart, but her heart was strong. Seductive and easily seduced, she was born to be a star - with all the glory and all the pain of being loved, abused, cheated, glorified, undermined and undefeated. Here was a woman who wouldn't wait in the wings. Halle Berry stars as Dorothy Dandrige.
6.3An unlikely friendship evolves over one wild night in LA between a struggling journalist and actor Hervé Villechaize, the world's most famous gun-toting dwarf, resulting in life-changing consequences for both.
6.2Heaven Leigh Casteel, gifted and intelligent, is the eldest of five dirt-poor children struggling to survive in a mountain shack. As she endures neglect and abuse, Heaven discovers a dark secret that changes everything she thought she knew about her family. Then tragedy tears her world apart and she must forge her own way in the cruel, unknown world.
6.3Two great lawyers argue the case for and against a science teacher accused of the crime of teaching evolution.
6.8Defiant young activists take the women's suffrage movement by storm, putting their lives at risk to help American women win the right to vote.
6.3In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.
6.3The Sound of Music Live! is a television special that was originally broadcast by NBC on December 5, 2013. Produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, the special was an adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway musical The Sound of Music, starring country singer Carrie Underwood as Maria von Trapp, performed and televised live from Grumman Studios in Bethpage, New York. Meron felt that if the telecast were successful, the concept could become "another kind of entertainment that can exist on TV." By her request, Underwood's casting as Maria was personally endorsed by Julie Andrews, who starred in the 1965 film.
6.9When a Jewish songstress is plucked from the stage and sent to Auschwitz, she and other musicians find themselves assigned to a terrible task—using their talents to soothe fellow prisoners who are sentenced to die in the gas chambers.
7.6An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.
8.0Disciplined Italian composer Antonio Salieri becomes consumed by jealousy and resentment towards the hedonistic and remarkably talented young Salzburger composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
7.4Bill Parrish has it all - success, wealth and power. Days before his 65th birthday, he receives a visit from a mysterious stranger, Joe Black, who soon reveals himself as Death. In exchange for extra time, Bill agrees to serve as Joe's earthly guide. But will he regret his choice when Joe unexpectedly falls in love with Bill's beautiful daughter Susan?
7.2The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned.
5.2One lazy afternoon in the outskirts of the city, two women's worlds colide when they turn a casual chit-chat into a battlefield, unable to prevent the inevitable: a domestic tragedy. Based on the director's play of the same name, performed by the same actresses.
5.4Michelle and Allen, who have reached the point in their relationship where they are considering next steps, decide to invite their parents to finally meet and to offer some understanding of why marriage works. Except the parents already know each other quite well, which leads to some very distinct opinions about the value of marriage.
8.0A tale about isolation and lack of communication, the gap between the reality a teenage boy lives, and how he would like it be. He has a secret that he would like to tell his family, something that he has come to terms with and is about to affect the rest of his life. But how will they react?
8.6The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.
7.7A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.
6.8In this contemporary take on William Shakespeare's classic tragedy, the Montagues and Capulets have moved their ongoing feud to the sweltering suburb of Verona Beach, where Romeo and Juliet fall in love and secretly wed. Though the film is visually modern, the bard's dialogue remains.
7.1A Jewish woman named Jettel Redlich flees Nazi Germany with her daughter Regina, to join her husband, Walter, on a farm in Kenya. At first, Jettel refuses to adjust to her new circumstances, bringing with her a set of china dishes and an evening gown. While Regina adapts readily to this new world, forming a strong bond with her father's cook, an African named Owuor.
7.1Murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart find themselves on death row together and fight for the fame that will keep them from the gallows in 1920s Chicago.
6.9During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.
7.3Arnold Beckoff is looking for love and acceptance, but as a gay man working as a female impersonator in 1970s New York City, neither come easily. After a series of heartaches, Arnold believes he has found the love of his life in Alan, and the couple make plans to adopt. But when tragedy strikes, Arnold's life is shaken to its very core, leading to a confrontation with his overbearing mother, who has never approved of her son's lifestyle.
0.0A TV film from a mining environment shows the tragic outcome of hatred between brothers. The mother, a simple woman, has an uncanny ability to foresee events ahead. All her life she passively accepts her fate. Despite knowing what awaits her loved ones and her, she does not confront it. It is only when she sees the tragic conflict between her sons that she decides to prevent it.
6.7When Hamlet discovers his father’s deceased body, he finds himself pulled into a power struggle as his scheming uncle attempts to secure a monopoly on the Scandinavian rubber duck industry. Will Hamlet avenge his father? Will he become the king of rubber ducks? Does any of it really matter?