CHRISTOPHERS PRESENT, THE: A LINK IN THE CHAIN (TV)
Summary
One in this series of dramas, presented by the Christophers, aimed at convincing viewers that they can change the world for the better. In this production, James Cagney plays an elderly college professor who reflects back on what he thinks is a wasted career. Professor George Graham is retiring after forty-three years of teaching and believes all he has to show for it is a "desk full of rubbish." Flashbacks reveal the way he intervened constructively in the lives of three of his students: Peter Fielding, a morose disabled student with a talent for drawing caricatures, whom the kindly pedagog goaded out of his self-pitying funk; Emily Peterson, a socialite's daughter and student radical, whom the professor bailed out of jail, persuading her to "get a scrubbing brush" and assume the care and feeding of a group of unsupervised ragamuffins, instead of inciting campus riots; and Tom Gore, a campus football hero who eschewed lucrative contract offers from professional sports teams in order to become a teacher like Graham. Ghostly voices in his empty classroom remind Graham of the fruits of his labors: Fielding won a Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning; Gore is an eighth-grade teacher; and Peterson became a missionary. In the end, Graham reassesses the value of his career, realizing that he is just one link in God's chain. (There are technical disturbances throughout this program. This represents the best copy currently available to the Museum.)
Details
- NETWORK: Syndicated
- DATE: November 30, 1954
- RUNNING TIME: 0:27:30
- COLOR/B&W: B&W
- CATALOG ID: T86:0082
- GENRE: Drama; Religious
- SUBJECT HEADING: Drama
- SERIES RUN: Syndicated - TV, 1955
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Jack Denove … Producer
- Arthur Ripley … Director
- Larry Marcus … Writer
- James Cagney … Cast, Professor Graham
- James Lydon … Cast, Fielding
- Sam Edwards … Cast, Tom Gore
- Allene Roberts … Cast, Emily
- Charles Smith … Cast, the Young Man
- Kathryn Card … Cast, Miss Wilson
- Nancy Gilbert … Cast, the Little Girl
- Rita Walsh … Cast, the First Student
- Allene Coates … Cast, the Second Student