| Hallmark Hall of Fame | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Anthology |
| Written by | Robert Hartung Jean Holloway Helene Hanff Gian Carlo Menotti |
| Directed by | George Schaefer William Corrigan Albert McCleery Kirk Browning Fielder Cook Jeannot Szwarc |
| Composers | Gian Carlo Menotti Bernard Green Richard Addinsell Jerry Goldsmith |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 60 |
| No. of episodes | 350+ (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | George Schaefer Brent Shields |
| Producers | Maurice Evans Samuel Chotzinoff Phil C. Samuel Robert Hartung |
| Cinematography | Freddie Young |
| Editors | Henry Batista Robert L. Swanson Sam Gold Richard K. Brockway |
| Running time | 30–150 minutes |
| Production company | Hallmark Hall of Fame Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | NBC (1951-1978) CBS (1979-1981, 1982-1989, 1995-2011) PBS (1981) ABC (1989-1995, 2011-present) |
| Release | December 24, 1951 – present |
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The second longest-running television program in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2011. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, though the program began with live telecasts of dramas and then moved into videotaped productions before finally turning to filmed ones.
The series has received eighty Emmy Awards, twenty-four Christopher Awards, eleven Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and four Humanitas Prizes. Once a common practice in American television, it is the last remaining television program where the title contains the name of the sponsor. Unlike other long-running TV series still on the air, it differs in that it only broadcasts occasionally and not on a weekly broadcast programming schedule (as opposed to The Simpsons, Gunsmoke and the news program, 60 Minutes).
Beginning in late November 2011, the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies will move to ABC, with encores airing on Hallmark Channel a week later.[1] The films are available for streaming on SpiritClips.com a few days after airing on ABC.[2]
Early years
The series debuted on 24 December 1951 on NBC with the first opera written specifically for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors, by Gian Carlo Menotti, starring Chet Allen. It was the first time a major corporation developed a television project specifically as a means of promoting its products to the viewing public. The program was such a success that it was restaged by Hallmark several times over a period of fifteen years. Amahl was also staged by other NBC television anthologies.
Early productions included some of the classical works of Shakespeare: Hamlet, Richard II, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth and The Tempest. Biographical subjects were very eclectic, ranging from Florence Nightingale to Father Flanagan to Joan of Arc. Popular Broadway plays such as Harvey, Dial M for Murder, and Kiss Me, Kate were made available to a mass audience, most of them with casts that had not appeared in the film versions released to theatres. In a few cases, the actors repeated their original Broadway roles. Noted actors such as Richard Burton, Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, Maurice Evans, Katharine Cornell, Julie Harris, Laurence Olivier and Peter Ustinov all made what were then extremely rare television appearances in these plays.
Tod Griffin appeared three times on Hallmark early in his brief acting career, including roles of George Washington in "The Plot to Kidnap General Washington" (1952) and Patrick Henry in "The Farmer from Monticello" (1955).
Two different productions of Hamlet have aired on the Hallmark Hall of Fame, one starring Maurice Evans (1953) and the other starring Richard Chamberlain (1970). Neither one was more than two hours long. Evans and actress Judith Anderson brought their famous Macbeth to the Hallmark Hall of Fame on two separate occasions, each time with a different supporting cast. The first version (1954) was telecast live from NBC Studios; the second (1960) was filmed on location in Scotland and released to movie theatres in Europe after being telecast in the U.S. Like Hamlet, Macbeth and the other Shakespeare plays presented on Hallmark Hall of Fame were cut (sometimes drastically) to fit the time limits of commercial broadcasting television network. It was left to National Educational Television (NET) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) Public television to present nearly complete Shakespeare adaptations on American television in the future.
After a few decades Hallmark Hall of Fame began to offer original material, such as Aunt Mary (1979) and Thursday's Child (1983), although its lineup still primarily consisted of expensive-looking Masterpiece Theatre-style adaptations of American and European literary classics, such as John Steinbeck's The Winter of Our Discontent (1983) and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Master of Ballantrae (1984). The late 1980s saw productions such as Foxfire (1987), My Name is Bill W. (1989), Sarah, Plain and Tall (1991), O Pioneers! (1992), To Dance With the White Dog (1993), The Piano Lesson (1995), and What the Deaf Man Heard (1997). One installment, Promise (1986), starring James Garner and James Woods, remains the most honored two-hour movie in the history of network television,[citation needed] winning five Emmys, two Golden Globes, a Peabody award, a Humanitas Prize, and a Christopher Award.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, Hallmark Hall of Fame films often had twice the budget of other network films. [citation needed] Hallmark movies also ran (in some cases) approximately 10–15 minutes longer (or up to 110 minutes minus commercials) because Hallmark Cards fully sponsored the films and took fewer commercial breaks. Unlike most network movies of the period, Hallmark always filmed on location, [citation needed] and usually shot for 24 days, compared to 18–20 days for most other TV-movies.[citation needed]
Post-NBC
For nearly three decades, the series ran on NBC, but after the network dropped it in late-1978 due to declining ratings it moved to PBS, later to ABC, then to CBS where it aired until 2011 when it was dropped due to low ratings.[3]
Many recent Hall of Fame movies repeat on the company's Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movie Channel and are available on home video and DVD, distributed through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and online at Hallmark Hall of Fame.
In late November 2011, Hallmark Hall of Fame will return to ABC.
Episode list
Only a small number of Hallmark Hall of Fame programming (considering how long the series has lasted) has been released to VHS and DVD. The 1960 production of the Tempest appeared on VHS, but is not yet on DVD. The 1954 Macbeth has been available on a bootleg DVD, but not on an official one.
References
External links
- Hallmark Hall of Fame episodes
- Hallmark Hall of Fame at IMDb
- Streaming Hallmark Hall of Fame episodes
- Hallmark Hall of Fame at TV.com
- 50 Years of Hallmark Hall of Fame at the UCLA Film and Television Archive
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