Appointment with Adventure

Appointment with Adventure
Mala Powers was part of the presentation Minus Three Thousand at the series premiere.
Genre	Adventure
Written by	Rod Serling Anne Howard Bailey Douglas Taylor Newton Melzer Stanley Niss Ian Martin Jerome Coopersmith Betty Loring Julian Clayman Jerome Ross
Directed by	Paul Stanley (1955–56) Paul Bogart (1955) Robert Stevens (1955)
Starring	No regular star Anthology series
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	53
Production
Executive producer(s)	David Susskind
Producer(s)	Robert Stevens (1955) Robert Costello (1955–56)
Camera setup	Multi-camera
Running time	30 min.
Release
Original network	CBS
Picture format	Black-and-white
Audio format	Monaural
Original release	April 3, 1955 (1955-04-03) – April 1, 1956 (1956-04-01)

Appointment with Adventure is a half-hour adventure/dramatic anthology television series broadcast live on CBS from 1955–1956. The program has no host. It aired at 10 p.m. EST on the Sunday evening schedule between the better known Alfred Hitchcock Presents and What's My Line? It ran opposite The Loretta Young Show on NBC and Life Begins at Eighty, a panel discussion series hosted by Jack Barry on ABC.^[1]

History

The series aired fifty-three episodes, having premiered on April 3, 1955, near the end of the regular 1954–1955 television season. It ran throughout the spring and summer of 1955 and began its fall run on October 2, 1955, concluding new segments on April 1, 1956. In effect, the series ran for a full year without the summer rebroadcast period standard for most programs.^[2]

Episodes

Episodes centered upon wars in U.S. history as well as dramatizations from events from many places throughout the world, then and in the past. In the episode which aired on May 1, 1955, Polly Bergen, Dane Clark, and Hugh Reilly starred in "Rendezvous in Paris." Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, fifteen years prior to their television roles as Felix Unger and Oscar Madison, respectively, in ABC's The Odd Couple, appeared with Gena Rowlands, later on NBC's 87th Precinct, in the September 4, 1955, episode entitled "The Pirate's House."^[2] Randall also appeared two months earlier in the Appointment with Adventure episode "Caribbean Cruise."^[2]

John Cassavetes, husband of Gena Rowlands, appeared with Elizabeth Montgomery, later star of ABC's Bewitched, and Tina Louise, later of CBS's Gilligan's Island, in the segment "All Through the Night" on February 5, 1956. Montgomery had also appeared in the November 20, 1955, episode "Relative Stranger." John Ericson and Dorothy Malone, later star of Peyton Place, appeared on the New Years Day, 1956, episode "Mutiny". Jason Robards appeared with Christopher Plummer and Constance Ford in the March 18, 1956, episode entitled "A Thief There Was."^[2]

Guests

The plethora of guests included several other well-known names and some future stars who were beginning their show business, including Philip Abbott, Edie Adams, Gene Barry, Carl Betz, Neville Brand, Patricia Breslin, Geraldine Brooks, Macdonald Carey, Robert Clary, James Daly ("A Touch of Christmas" on December 25, 1955), Gloria DeHaven ("The Snow People"), Eva Gabor, James Gregory, Pat Hingle, Henry Hull, Kim Hunter, Henry Jones, Louis Jourdan, Don Keefer, Phyllis Kirk, June Lockhart, Jack Lord, Lin McCarthy (four episodes), Peggy McCay, Biff McGuire (episode entitled "Number Seven, Hangman's Row"), Robert Middleton, Elizabeth Montgomery, Paul Newman, Patrick O'Neal, Patti Page (in "Paris Venture"), Betsy Palmer, Neva Patterson, Mala Powers, Charlotte Rae, Erik Rhodes, and Janice Rule.^[2]

Rod Serling, before his The Twilight Zone, wrote the episode "The Faithful Pilgrimage", which stars Theodore Bikel. It aired on April 17, 1955.^[2]

Forrest Tucker, later of ABC's F Troop, appeared in the series finale with the unusually titled episode, "Two Falls for Satan".^[2][3]

References