CBS PLAYHOUSE 90: THE LIE {A TRAGI-COMEDY OF BANALITY} (TV)
Summary
One in this series of irregularly scheduled dramas. This drama, written by Ingmar Bergman, examines the foundation of lies upon which the eleven-year marriage of a wealthy couple is based. On the surface, Anna and Andrew appear happy and successful: she is an attractive thirty-four-year-old professor of Romance languages and he a forty-year-old architect working on projects for the government. They have two small children, a luxurious house, and a privileged social circle. When the viewer first meets them, Anna and Andrew are waking up in the morning in their separate bedrooms. They each are heard, in voice-over, maintaining that they are happily married, but both express feelings of anxiety over the insularity of their lives and the fear that at any moment the faade may crumble in the wake of some invading event. Andrew goes off to work and learns that the design he had been working on for quite some time has been rejected by the government in favor of the work of younger architects. His work is criticized as staid and academic. Meanwhile, Anna goes to a sanitarium to visit her brother, a deeply depressed alcoholic who has taken to wearing makeup and bracelets. In the face of his naked terror, Anna -- perfectly groomed and pressed -- is ineffectual. She admits to him that she feels helpless because she cannot understand or comfort him. Later that day Andrew learns that two young associates have been undermining him at work, and Anna meets her lover Lawrence at the apartment they keep together. The delicate balance of their marriage is tipped when Andrew, alienated and desperate for human contact, has a one-night stand with a young receptionist and when Anna learns, during a dinner party, that Lawrence and his wife Eva are going away for an extended period of time -- something he hadn't shared with her. When Anna and Andrew return home from the dinner party, Andrew confesses that he has been unfaithful to her for the first time in their marriage. Anna angrily counters that he should have kept it from her so life could go on as usual. She then admits that she and Lawrence have been lovers for eight years. This is the beginning of a long, brutal night of physical, sexual, and emotional combat in which the true dynamics of their marriage are revealed. Includes commercials.
("The Lie" is based on Ingmar Bergman's drama, "Reservatet" ["The Sanctuary"], produced in Sweden in 1970. A British-produced interpretation of this work, "A Play for Today: The Lie" was broadcast on BBC-TV on October 29, 1970 with Gemma Jones and Frank Finlay in the principal roles. See T:38145.)
Details
- NETWORK: CBS
- DATE: April 24, 1973 9:30 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 1:46:34
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T78:0772
- GENRE: Drama
- SUBJECT HEADING: Adultery; Drama; Marriage
- SERIES RUN: CBS - TV series, 1972-1974
- COMMERCIALS:
- TV - Commercials - Connecticut General Life Insurance & financial services
- TV - Commercials - Cool Whip dessert topping
- TV - Commercials - Hefty trash bags
- TV - Commercials - Lucite interior enamel
- TV - Commercials - Pontiac Le Mans automobile
- TV - Commercials - Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil
- TV - Commercials - Sun Shower fragrance
- TV - Commercials - Volkswagen Sports Bug automobile
CREDITS
- Lewis Freedman … Producer
- Pancho Kohner … Associate Producer
- Alex Segal … Director
- Ingmar Bergman … Writer
- Alan Blair … Translation by
- George Segal … Cast, Andrew
- Hopkins, Shirley Knight (See also: Knight, Shirley) … Cast, Anna
- Robert Culp … Cast, Lawrence
- Victor Buono … Cast, Bancks
- William Daniels … Cast, Albert
- Dean Jagger … Cast, Arnold Edgarton
- Louise Lasser … Cast, Karen
- Mary Ann Mobley … Cast, Esther
- Elizabeth Wilson … Cast, Miss Pratt
- Allan Arbus … Cast, Edward Fredericks
- Robert Easton … Cast, Steve Olman
- Connie Hines … Cast, Paula Olman
- Priscilla Morrill … Cast, Carol Banks
- Neva Patterson … Cast, Mary Foreman
- Ann Prentiss … Cast, Elaine Fredericks
- Milton Selzer … Cast, Dr. Ernest Foreman
- Ellen Weston … Cast, Eva Anderson
- Robert Emhardt … Cast, the Busybody
- Maidie Norman … Cast, Janine
- John Ritter … Cast, Bauer
- James A. McHugh … Cast, Fields
- John Mamo … Cast, Akiro
- Jonathan Segal … Cast, the Car Owner
- William H. Bassett … Cast, the Army Major
- Jason Wingreen … Cast, a Conference Man
- Crane Jackson … Cast, a Conference Man
- Paul Bryar … Cast, a Conference Man
- Bobby Eilbacher … Cast, Henry
- Kim Dorso … Cast, Veronica