Kraft Television Theatre
Five Minutes to Live
TV Flash files “Five Minutes to Live” as hour 394 of 526 in the TV Flash guide — Kraft Television Theatre (1947–1958) on NBC, season 9, episode 19, aired 1956-02-01, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S09E19: listed hour 394 of 526 in the Kraft Television Theatre guide, hour 19 of 48 in season 9. It aired 1956-02-01 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Home Is the Hero” (S09E18). Next is “Good Old Charlie Faye” (S09E20). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Five Minutes to Live sit in the Kraft Television Theatre guide?
S09E19 is listed hour 394 of 526 — hour 19 of 48 in season 9, season 9 episode 19.
When did Kraft Television Theatre S09E19 air?
Five Minutes to Live aired 1956-02-01 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with whatever surviving kinescopes you can find of the live-play form — the point is the weekly Broadway-subscription feel, not a continuing cast.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Kraft Television Theatre is live drama with a cheese sponsor: hundreds of teleplays, young stars cutting teeth between product acts, prestige as a grocery brand. Watch it now as a Golden Age cornerstone — industrial-scale living-room theater, incomplete kinescope survival, and proof early TV thought of itself as Broadway first.
The lighting is grocery-brand prestige. Not a red carpet, not a tag: live drama poured into living rooms like a weekly Broadway subscription, Kraft selling product between acts. *Kraft Television Theatre*, primarily NBC, 1947–1958, 526 episodes across 11 seasons — period tallies cite on the order of 650 Kraft productions — stage and screen talent still learning the camera. Young stars and writers cut their teeth in that light. Survival rates for kinescopes are incomplete, which only deepens the lost-library…