The Atlantic Online has a video up today of an unearthed TV episode featuring Ronald Reagan and James Dean acting together, unseen for decades. Edited from “The Dark, Dark Hours” episode of General Electric Theater, which aired live from Hollywood on December 12, 1954:
From John Meroney’s write up at the Atlantic:
No one has seen this episode in the decades since; the kinescope has been locked away, until now. My friend Wayne Federman, a writer for NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, unearthed the broadcast, condensing it from its original 23 minutes (without commercials) into the six-minute version you see below. (Federman is planning a retrospective of Reagan’s television career for next year’s Reagan centennial.)
Here, Reagan is a physician, forced to defend his home and family from Dean, a teenage lawbreaker seeking medical treatment for an injured friend…
At the time of the broadcast, Reagan was 43. With the movie industry in recession, and his career waning, his agents had been bringing him offers to do TV shows. Like many movie actors at the time, Reagan was skittish about the small screen. But producers thought he was perfect for the anthology genre, which was still struggling to gain traction with audiences. He eventually signed on, helping produce the show, hosting it, and acting in a half-dozen dramas per season.
Read the full article here.