Philco Television Playhouse
St. Helena
TV Flash files “St. Helena” as hour 22 of 256 in the TV Flash guide — Philco Television Playhouse (1948–1955) on NBC, season 1, episode 22, aired 1949-02-27, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S01E22: listed hour 22 of 256 in the Philco Television Playhouse guide, hour 22 of 45 in season 1. It aired 1949-02-27 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “Twelfth Night” (S01E21). Next is “The Druid Circle” (S01E23).
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
The story unfolds around the last years of Napoleon Bonaparte's life on the rocky island of St. Helena. The exiled emperor is grim when his faithful Corscian attendant Cipriani dies. In his confinement he's suffering from a bad liver and a sulking mistress all this begins to weigh heavy on him as he continues to be haunted by spectres of his mistakes. He cannot forget, he says, that if he had not attacked so soon at Waterloo, he would have had 12,000 more men. The imperial manners gradually give way to those of a lonely and embittered country squire. Feeling death upon him at last, he hears that a comet has appeared in the sky
Viewer FAQ
Where does St. Helena sit in the Philco Television Playhouse guide?
S01E22 is listed hour 22 of 256 — hour 22 of 45 in season 1, season 1 episode 22.
When did Philco Television Playhouse S01E22 air?
St. Helena aired 1949-02-27 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with Marty (May 24, 1953, Rod Steiger) — the teleplay that became the anthology-to-Oscar dream — then sample other surviving Coe/Mann hours.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Philco Television Playhouse is Chayefsky's kitchen-sink live plays: ordinary lives, extraordinary telecasts, Marty with Rod Steiger before the Oscar film. Watch it now as the rise of intimate realist TV drama — Fred Coe's shop, Delbert Mann, and the anthology-to-Hollywood dream in one sponsor's title.
The close-up is a butcher's loneliness, not a gown — kitchen-sink light, live cameras, ordinary lives getting extraordinary writing. NBC's *Philco Television Playhouse* (1948–1955), 256 episodes across seven seasons, Fred Coe's shop, directors like Delbert Mann, Paddy Chayefsky's *Marty* telecast May 24, 1953 with Rod Steiger. A kitchen sink as an Oscar machine. The Philco/Goodyear tandem nights made anthology drama a dual-sponsor prestige ritual. The timeline can call domestic realism mid. The silhouette was a…