American Playhouse Season 7 Episodes

Episode 1

Strange Interlude: Part 1

Mon, Jan 18, 1988253 mins

In this experimental play, first produced in 1928, Eugene O'Neill bares the inner souls of his characters by having them speak their thoughts as well as their dialog. Nins Leeds, the daughter of an Ivy League professor, is devastated by the loss of her fiance in World War I. Ignoring the unconditional love of the novelist Charlie Marsden, she rebounds by marrying an amiable fool, Sam Evans, in the hope that a child will give meaning to the marriage. Nina is thus devastated when she learns a secret know only to Sam's mother- insanity runs in the family and could be inherited by any child of Sam's. At the mother's behest, Nina decides on a "scientific" solution; she will conceive a child with the physician Ned Darrell and let Sam believe he is the father. The plan backfires when the intimacy between Nina and Darrell results in their falling passionately in love. Twenty years later, only Nina and Darrell know the true parentage of young Gordon Evans, just reaching manhood.

Episode 2

Strange Interlude: Part 2

Tue, Jan 19, 1988

Episode 3

Strange Interlude: Part 3

Wed, Jan 20, 1988

Episode 4

The Return of Hickey

Wed, Feb 3, 198823 mins

Episode 5

Lemon Sky

Wed, Feb 10, 1988

An adaptation of Lanford Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winning play about a reunion between a young man and his father who had deserted him 10 years earlier.

Episode 6

The Revolt of Mother

Wed, Feb 17, 198847 mins

Father is going to build a new barn. Mother (Academy Award nominee Amy Madigan) wants the new house she's been promised. A simple story, yet one that reveals so much about love and respect and the often difficult times between those who strive and work to build a life together. Set against the beautiful rustic backdrop of farming life in 1890 New England, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's poignant story brings us two hard-working people of the land. Sometimes the most difficult thing to see may be the needs of those who are closest to you.

Episode 7

Pigeon Feathers

Wed, Feb 17, 198860 mins

A young boy suffers a crisis of faith when he begins to question whether or not the soul exists and if there is life after death. Based upon a John Updike story.

Episode 8

Billy Galvin

Wed, Feb 24, 1988

Episode 9

A Flash of Green

Wed, Mar 23, 1988

Episode 10

Journey Into Genius

Wed, Apr 6, 198855 mins

A historical recreation of actual events in the life of playwright Eugene O'Neill drawing on his troubled youth as he attempts to deal with his conflicting feelings of jealousy, competition and love with his father.

Episode 11

Suspicion

Wed, Apr 20, 198896 mins

A remake of Hitchcock's 1941 suspenser about a wealthy young woman who comes to suspect that her new husband is plotting to murder her.

Episode 12

The Trial of Bernhard Goetz

Wed, May 11, 1988137 mins

Episode 13

I Never Sang for My Father

Wed, Jun 15, 1988

A man who wants to move on with his life by moving to California and marry his girlfriend, finds it difficult as he still lives in the towering shadow of his aging father.

Episode 14

Native Son

Wed, Jun 29, 1988

In 1940s Chicago, a young black man takes a job as a chauffeur to a white family, which takes a turn for the worse when he accidentally kills the teenage daughter of the couple and then tries to cover it up.

Episode 15

The Big Knife

Wed, Jul 27, 1988

Charles Castle is a successful Hollywood actor who has opted for screen success over art. He must make critical decisions regarding his career, his marriage, his art & morality. In this screen adaptation of a Clifford Odets play, Castle is pressured by his studio boss and manipulated into a potentially murderous cover-up to protect his career. An indictment of the amoral world of 50's Hollywood and its corrosive effect upon the artist.