Underplayed Gems

Matinee Theater (1955)

Matinee Theater poster
Directed by
Albert McCleery, Walter Grauman, Lamont Johnson, Arthur Hiller
Genre
anthology series
Country
United States
Length
3 seasons, 650 episodes
Rating
5.3 of 10 from 7 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this series is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

This is an old live anthology series from the 1950s that aired daily in the afternoon. It presented hour-long dramas with simple sets and costumes in color. The show was part of a network effort to bring adult entertainment to daytime television.

liveminimalisttheatricalclassicdaytimescriptedhistoricarchival

What happens

Matinee Theater is an American anthology series that aired on NBC during the Golden Age of Television, from October 31, 1955, to June 27, 1958. Its name is often seen as Matinee Theatre. The series, which ran daily from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Eastern Time, was usually broadcast live and most of the time in color. Its live dramas were presented with minimal sets and costumes. It was the first daily hour-long dramatic series on television. When it was broadcast, Matinee Theater was the most heavily promoted regularly scheduled daytime program on U.S. television. Along with NBC's Home, the show was part of the network's effort to "provide quality 'adult' entertainment" in daytime programming. In its second season, the program had an audience of 7 million daily viewers. The series ended in 1958 due to its high budget; much higher than any other daytime program in television. In 1956, the program's budget was "about $73,000" to produce five episodes per week. A few of the later episodes were preserved on color film for later rerun syndication under different titles. The scripts of the series' episodes are archived at the University of California, Los Angeles. Several episodes are preserved at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, The Paley Center, and the Library of Congress. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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