Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre


Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre is an American Western anthology television series that aired on CBS from October 5, 1956, to May 18, 1961.

Synopsis

Many episodes were based on novels by Zane Grey, to all of which Four Star Films held exclusive rights. Dick Powell was the host and the star of some episodes. Many of the guest stars made their TV debuts on the program.
Powell said that working with Grey's stories proved to be both a benefit and a challenge. While he spoke of "the vast output of wonderful action stories from Zane Grey's pen", he acknowledged the challenge of "trying to compress a novel into half an hour of storytelling on television." Some stories could be adapted relatively easily, while others had to be skipped or only parts of them could be used for scripts. Over time, script writers used up the supply of adaptable material from Grey and began to adapt other authors' stories.

Guest stars

Guest stars on the series included:

Production

Development

The Zane Grey Radio Show had run for one season beginning in 1947 and had little in common with the stories of Zane Grey. The television series, however, began as an attempt to dramatize Zane Grey's short stories and novels. Four Star Films acquired the rights to at least 40 Zane Grey works before filming began. However, it soon became evident that Grey's stories were too complex to fit into a 30-minute episode, and so with few exceptions, the scripts were all original.
Four Star Films was the producing company, with Powell as executive producer. Producers included Helen Ainsworth, Hal Hudson, and Aaron Spelling. Directors included Felix Feist, William D. Faralla, James Sheldon, and Budd Boetticher. Writers included John McGreevey and Marion Hargrove.
Sponsors included Johnson Wax.

Preview

A preview of the show in the trade publication Billboard indicated that it would appeal to women viewers as well as to men. It noted that among the stories adapted from Grey's work "There will usually be strong love interests."

Release

Broadcast

Note: All times Eastern
Zane Grey Theatre first aired on Fridays when it replaced Our Miss Brooks in the fall of 1956, then moved to Thursdays during its third season.
In the summer of 1959, episodes of the program were repeated on a "rerun subsidiary" titled Frontier Justice, with Melvyn Douglas as host, on Mondays from 9 to 9:30 P.M. ET.
In August 1961, Zane Grey Theatre was one of four programs whose episodes were sold to Procter & Gamble to be broadcast in Canada.
Zane Grey Theatre ended when Powell moved to NBC's, The Dick Powell Show.
They reran the show again in the summer of 1962.

Reception

In early February 1957, Billboard evaluated Zane Grey Theatre as "one of the strong contenders for the title of most important new show, according to many of its ratings."
TV Guide called the show "an educated 20th century view of the Old West".
After five seasons, CBS ran a sixth season composed of reruns of the best episodes.

Spin-offs

Five television Westerns began as episodes of Zane Grey Theatre: Trackdown, starring Robert Culp, The Rifleman, starring Chuck Connors, Johnny Ringo, starring Don Durrant, The Westerner, starring Brian Keith, and Black Saddle, starring Chris Alcaide. Alcaide was replaced by Peter Breck in the principal role when Black Saddle was sold as a series. The "lineage" of Zane Grey Theatre also includes the NBC series, Law of the Plainsman, which originated from a February 17, 1959 episode of The Rifleman starring Michael Ansara as Marshal Sam Buckhart.