''The Stranger'' was an American television crime drama broadcast on the
DuMont Television Network from June 25, 1954, to February 11, 1955.
played a mysterious man who helped those in distress.
[McNeil, Alex (1980). ''Total Television'' (4th ed.). New York: Penguin Books. .] The stranger mysteriously appeared when people needed help and disappeared just as mysteriously after each problem was resolved, never taking any pay for his assistance.
Some episodes relied more on video than on words, with the stranger "often having scarcely a mouthful of dialogue."
The 30-minute program aired Fridays at 9 PM.
The series was produced and directed by Frank Telford, with
Nelson Gidding
Nelson Roosevelt Gidding (September 15, 1919 – May 2, 2004) was an American screenwriter specializing in adaptations. A longtime collaboration with director Robert Wise began with Gidding's screenplay for ''I Want to Live!'' (1958), which ...
and Carey Wilbur as writers. Most of the program's content was live, with film used for outdoor action. Carroll did his own stunts.
Pharmaceuticals Inc. was the sponsor.
Geritol
Geritol is a United States trademarked name for various dietary supplements, past and present. Geritol is a brand name for several vitamin complexes plus iron or multimineral products in both liquid form and tablets, containing from 9.5 to 18&nb ...
, which sponsored ''The Stranger'', cancelled it because only 23 DuMont affiliates carried the series. Geritol executives wanted to expand coverage by buying time on stations affiliated with CBS and NBC and providing
kinescope
Kinescope , shortened to kine , also known as telerecording in Britain, is a recording of a television program on motion picture film, directly through a lens focused on the screen of a video monitor. The process was pioneered during the 194 ...
recordings of episodes for those stations to show. When DuMont officials rejected that proposal, cancellation resulted.
Criticism
''The Stranger'' was hampered by a small budget, even by 1950s standards. Later critics, such as Castleman and Podrazik (1982), cited ''The Stranger'', among other DuMont series, as one of the reasons fewer and fewer viewers tuned into the ailing DuMont Network.
They stated the series was, like several other DuMont programs during the 1953-1954 season, "doomed from the start by third-rate scripts and cheap production" and called the program a "stale pulp adventure".
The series did not last long, and the network itself began crumbling by early 1955.
Episode status
Two episodes from 1954 exist at UCLA: ''The Build Up'' from September 24 and ''The Biter Bit'' from November 12.
See also
*
List of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network
This is a list of programs broadcast by the DuMont Television Network, which operated in the United States from 1942 to 1956. All regularly scheduled programs which were aired on the DuMont network are listed below, regardless of whether they orig ...
*
List of surviving DuMont Television Network broadcasts
The DuMont Television Network was launched in 1946 and ceased broadcasting in 1956. Allen DuMont, who created the network, preserved most of what it produced in kinescope format. By 1958, however, much of the library had been destroyed to recove ...
*
1954-55 United States network television schedule
References
Bibliography
*David Weinstein, ''The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television'' (Philadelphia:
Temple University Press
Temple University Press is a university press founded in 1969 that is part of Temple University (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania). It is one of thirteen publishers to participate in the Knowledge Unlatched pilot, a global library consortium approach ...
, 2004)
External links
*
DuMont historical website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stranger
DuMont Television Network original programming
1954 American television series debuts
1955 American television series endings
1950s American drama television series
Black-and-white American television shows