Kraft Television Theatre
Presumption of Innocence
TV Flash files “Presumption of Innocence” as a desk essential hour — Kraft Television Theatre (1947–1958) on NBC, season 11, episode 51, aired 1958-10-01, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S11E51: listed hour 526 of 526 in the Kraft Television Theatre guide, last listed hour of season 11. It aired 1958-10-01 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Riddle of a Lady” (S11E50). No later hour is listed in this guide. Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Essential hour: “Presumption of Innocence”. Presumption of Innocence closes 1958: last titled teleplay in a 500-hour factory, the cheese sponsor packing the live stage.
Viewer FAQ
Where does Presumption of Innocence sit in the Kraft Television Theatre guide?
S11E51 is listed hour 526 of 526 — last listed hour of season 11, season 11 episode 51.
When did Kraft Television Theatre S11E51 air?
Presumption of Innocence aired 1958-10-01 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…