Back in the late 1940s and through much of the 1950s, television was a new medium and quite different from today. While this may sound very obvious, how different might surprise you. Instead of the made for TV movies we came to expect in the 60s and 70s, TV brought us actual live productions--hour-long teleplays that were often written just for television. A few of these were amazingly good and were later remade into brilliant films (such as "Studio One" and its production of "12 Angry Men"). Regardless, the shows were rarely dull and are well worth seeing today. Some are on archive.org's website for free download, some have been released by Criterion and a few by Alpha Video. Sadly, most sit in vaults--waiting to be discovered. My advice is try to see as many as you can--I've seen just about every one now available. Great acting, great scripts--of the many shows like this, "Studio One" is probably the best.
Review of Studio One
