Pulitzer Prize Playhouse

Infobox Television
show_name = Pulitzer Prize Playhouse


caption = Elmer Davis
genre = Dramatic series
presenter = Elmer Davis
writer = Maxwell Anderson
Sidney Howard
George S. Kaufman
director = Lawrence Carra
Charles S. Dubin
Alex Segal
country = USA
language = English
num_seasons = 2
num_episodes = 53
list_episodes =
executive_producer=
co_exec =
producer =
asst_producer =
co-producer =
editor =
composer = Kurt Weill
location =
cinematography =
camera =
runtime =
picture_format =
audio_format = Monaural
network = ABC
website =
imdb_id = 0042138
tv_com_id = 4600

"The Pulitzer Prize Playhouse" is an American television dramatic anthology series which offered adaptations of Pulitzer Prize winning plays, stories and novels. ABC telecast the series from 1950 to 1952.

Sponsored by Milwaukee's Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, the 60-minute show opened with theme music by Bernard Green. Columbia University's Pulitzer School of Journalism, which made the annual Pulitzer awards, benefited from its agreement with Schlitz and ABC, receiving $100,000 from Schlitz for its cooperation. However, the show made no mention of Columbia or the Pulitzer School of Journalism.

Plays in the first season included "You Can't Take It with You", "The Magnificent Ambersons" and "Our Town". The second season productions included "Ah, Wilderness" and "The Skin of Our Teeth".

Actors in these shows included Spring Byington, Charles Dingle, James Dunn, Nina Foch, John Forsythe, Helen Hayes, Wanda Hendrix, Wright King, Otto Kruger, Thomas Mitchell, Mildred Natwick, Gene Raymond, Kent Smith and Fredd Wayne. Elmer Davis was the narrator. Lighting design was by Imero Fiorentino.

The series began October 6, 1950, and a month later it came under criticism from the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which objected to the tie-in between Schlitz and the Pulitzer Prize. Mrs. D. Leigh Colvin, president of the WCTU, suggested that Columbia should return the $100,000, stating that the program was "a scheme of education for alcoholism which uses American classics as a springboard for beer promotion. The tie-up... allies the university, its school and the Pulitzer name with programs which are obviously put on by the brewer to promote drinking in the American home. Beer bottles and beer drinking have been rampant in commercials between acts, one recent commercial depicting Mona Lisa coming to life from her painting to reach for a glass of the sponsor's beer."

Dean Carl W. Ackerman of the Pulitzer School responded, "This has been a pioneering development in the relationship between industry and education. It is raising the standards of entertainment in American homes. Any development which contributes to the improvement of home life is wholesome because the home is the bulwark of democracy."

Schlitz president Erwin C. Uilein pointed out that Vassar College was founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar who had made a fortune in his Poughkeepsie, New York brewery. ["WCTU Decries TV Beer Show,"Tucson Daily Citizen", November 9, 1950.]

The series continued until June 4, 1952, producing a total of 53 episodes,

References