Lois Wilson

The Show of Shows

Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!

Burglar Proof

When John Harlow loses his sweetheart Jenny Larkin as a result of poverty, he vows never to be broke again and leaves town. He moves to the city, and several years later, after pinching his pennies, he becomes financially successful. One night, while at a dance hall, he runs into Jenny who is now employed as a dance hall hostess. Jenny decides to fleece John and sets him up with Laura, one of her colleagues. Laura is innocent of the scheme, and she and John fall in love. Jenny becomes jealous and attempts to reclaim John by telling him that Laura is having an affair with Richard Crane. John believes her until he discovers that Crane has just married Laura's mother. He proposes to Laura, and she accepts on the condition that he relinquish his spendthrift ways.

New York

A product of the Bowery, Trent Regan grows up to become a powerful gangster. Regan's girlfriend Angie Miller, hearing that her childhood sweetheart (and Regan's lifelong pal) Mike Cassidy is about to marry Marjorie Church, pays a visit to Mike to offer congratulations. Convinced that Angie is fooling around behind his back, Regan accidentally kills her. A lost film.

The Drifters

Each of the three men living in a lonely, snowbound cabin in Alaska has come north for his own reasons. Burke Marston seeks forgetfulness through drink, and Hugh MacLaren is searching for gold, but Evan Mears' reason remains a mystery. A weird cry outside leads them to a girl half-buried in the snow who has lost her reason and her memory. The efforts of the three men to help her regain her faculties seem fruitless until Burke tells her the story of the lawyer who years earlier had cheated his mother out of her fortune.

The Vanishing American

A tribe of Navajo live on a reservation overseen by an Indian-hating agent.

Object: Alimony

Ruth Butler, a clerk in an emporium, marries Jimmy Rutledge and thereby greatly displeases his mother, the owner of the emporium, because of Ruth's lowly origins. Renaud Graham, one of Mrs. Rutledge's friends, becomes interested in Ruth, forces his way into her apartment, and attempts to make violent love to her. Jimmy walks in on their embrace and, suspecting the worst, leaves Ruth. In the family way, Ruth finds refuge in a boardinghouse where she meets Al Bryant, an aspiring writer. Ruth tells Al her life story, and he makes it into a bestselling novel and then into a play. Jimmy sees the play and comes to his senses, winning Ruth's forgiveness.

School for Girls

After being convicted of stealing some jewels, Annette Eldrige is sent to a reformatory administered by a sadistic and corrupt female warder. However, one of the board of trustees takes an interest in the new arrival and begins to investigate the management of the institution.

Love Insurance

Posing as a nobleman, Allan Harrowby takes out a policy with Lloyd's to insure that his upcoming marriage will occur, Dick Minot, Lloyd's assistant manager in the U. S., travels to San Marcos, Florida to handle anything that threatens to disrupt the wedding. On the train, Dick falls in love with Cynthia Meyrick, then discovers she is Harrowby's bride-to-be, he subdues his feelings.

Bella Donna

Bella Donna, a seductive woman snares Nigel Armine into marriage and he takes her to Egypt to live. Tired of her simple husband, Bella becomes involved with brutish Baroudi.

French Dressing

Philip and Cynthia Grey are a pair of recently-wed Bostonians, and Cynthia is properly back-bay no-action quiet and dowdy, and Philip resigns himself to the quietness (no action) regularity of their home. But then along comes a blonde, Peggy Nash, who adds some action and outside-regularity to Philip's life. Cynthia is somewhat upset at this turn of events, and decides to go to Paris - the Wickedest City in the World - and get a quiet divorce. Cynthia soon finds out that Paris is a really gay city, especially after Henri de Briac, shows up and offers to be her guide to the delights of Paris (primarily him). Cynthia quickly sheds some of her dowdy ways and dowdy clothes, and is having herself what was once quaintly described as a gay old time. Philip then shows up in Paris, deciding he wants Cynthia back as his wife, and Peggy shows up right behind him and, soon, it is up to Henri to make the pairing-arrangements for the foursome.

Miss Lulu Bett

Lois Wilson (as Lulu) is the spinsterish member of the Deacon family: "The family beast of burden, whose timid soul has failed to break the bonds of family servitude." Her brother-in-law is patriarchal Theodore Roberts (as Dwight Deacon); running the house with an iron fist, he is both a dentist and a Justice of the Peace. As the latter, he accidentally marries Ms. Wilson to his visiting brother Clarence Burton (as Ninian Deacon) while they are out for dinner. Schoolteacher Milton Sills (as Neil Cornish) is also interested in Wilson...

No Greater Glory

A frail boy fights to win acceptance from the leader of a street gang.

Contraband

After inheriting a newspaper in a small country town, Carmel Lee leaves her home in the city to take charge of it. She soon discovers that the town is terrorized by a band of bootleggers, who abduct and later kill the local sheriff. With the aid of Professor Pell, who has been recently fired as school superintendent, Carmel makes a public issue of the sheriff's murder, editorializing in her paper for justice and reform. Pell and Carmel are kidnapped by the bootleggers, but Carmel escapes and alerts the police. The bootleggers are arrested, the sheriff's murder in solved, and Abner Fownes, a politician and one of the town's leading citizens, is uncovered as the leader of the gang.

The Show Off

A blowhard who poses as a railroad executive (but is really just a $30-a-week clerk) catches a young bride and then drives her family's finances to the brink of ruin.

The Gamblers

A father-and-son team of cons gamble their firm’s assets. The son is caught investing money that doesn't belong to him and is indicted on a swindling charge. The plot gets spicy when the District Attorney handling the case is his former sweetheart's husband. This situation gives the DA an opportunity to prosecute his romantic rival.

Wedding Rings

Two sisters battle for the love of a man.

The Bells

A murderer is driven slowly insane by a sequence of coincidences and suggestive events which will not allow him to escape his own sense of guilt for his crime.

In the Money

When the chemical company owned by eccentric Professor Higginbottom files for bankruptcy, the formerly-affluent family loses its income. Levelheaded oldest daughter Lambie struggles to make ends meet but has trouble persuading her carefree, profligate siblings to cut down on their spending. Youngest brother Dick enters a motorcycle race to win $500, but crashes his bike on the speedway and is paralyzed. Shocked into reality by the tragedy, Lambie's younger sister Babs persuades ex-prizefighter Gunboat Bimms to enter the ring one last time in hopes of winning a purse that will pay for Dick's surgery.

The Thundering Herd

Story of a trader who uncovers a scheme to blame the Indians for a Buffalo massacre.

Gates of Brass

Your Uncle Dudley

A paint store owner turns his attention to civic affairs while his business falls apart.

The Return of Jimmy Valentine

A wisecracking newspaper reporter comes up with what he believes to be the ultimate publicity stunt: have the newspaper offer a $5000 prize to whoever can find Jimmy Valentine, a once notorious safecracker who seemed to have just disappeared from the scene, supposedly retired, but the reporter decides to try to collect the prize himself.

Obey the Law

In this drama, an immigrant barber becomes a US citizen and works hard to uphold his ideals of personal freedom and rights. He is a total supporter of the system, and when he is held-up, decides to reform the criminal by feeding him and finding him work. Later, a local politician attempts to tell people how to vote, but the barber is not swayed and becomes an example to others in his neighborhood.

Thou Art the Man

Suspicious that his employers are diamond smugglers, soldier-of-fortune Myles Calthrope quits his job in the African mines and heads south, where he meets and falls in love with Joan Farrant. Joan, unaware that her brother Henry is in the diamond smuggling business, obtains Myles a position in the family firm. Myles is given an envelope of legal documents to deliver, but when he is searched aboard ship, diamonds are discovered in the pouch and Myles is imprisoned. After completing his sentence, Myles secures a job on the Prescott sugar plantation, where he once again meets Joan, who denounces him as a smuggler. Mr. Prescott, Myles's employer, determines to prove Myles's innocence.

The Philco Television Playhouse

The Philco Television Playhouse is an American anthology series that was broadcast live on NBC from 1948 to 1955. Produced by Fred Coe, the series was sponsored by Philco. It was one of the most respected dramatic shows of the Golden Age of Television, winning a 1954 Peabody Award and receiving eight Emmy nominations between 1951 and 1956.