Branagh Theatre Live: The Entertainer

This omnibus release consists of three playlets filmed and aired during television's Golden Age, and starring some of the legends of film and television. The collection originally ran as a two-hour segment on December 14, 1959, on the anthology series The Play of the Week, broadcast locally in New York City via the independent radio station WNTA. Each "tale" in the anthology was adapted from a single tale by the inimitable Sholom Aleichem, regarded by many as the "Yiddish Mark Twain". Included are: "A Tale of Chelm" starring Zero Mostel and Nancy Walker in the story of a bookseller attempting to buy a goat; "Bontche Schweig" about a poor man (Jack Gilford) whose recent arrival in Heaven makes the angels cry; and "The High School" about a Jewish merchant (Morris Carnovsky) persuaded by his wife (Gertrude Berg) to let their son attend a particular high school despite the enforcement of quotas for Jewish students.

New York, 1937. A teenager hired to star in Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar becomes attracted to a career-driven production assistant.

Young and extremely talented dancer Yulya Olshanskaya from a small mining town draws a “happy ticket”: she is noticed by a former ballet dancer Pototsky and he promises her a future of great ballerina, worthy of the main stage of the country. However, in order to become a diamond, anyone, even the most outstanding brilliant, needs to be cut, and the way to the legendary stage of The Bolshoi Theatre for Yulya lies through the walls of the ballet school, where the more capricious teacher Galina Mikhailovna Beletskaya takes custody of the rebellious provincial. Turning into a prima will require incredible self-denial, and Yulya herself will have to make sure that the big ballet is not only the whiteness of the packs, the gold of the boxes and the slip of silk ribbons. But no obstacles will stop the one who has the big dream.

A popular high school athlete and an academically gifted girl get roles in the school musical and develop a friendship that threatens East High's social order.

For her first television film, director Vera wants the perfect cast. But the first day of shooting is fast approaching and the numerous casting sessions have yet to find a suitable actress to play the leading role. Although the producer and crew are getting ever more exasperated with Vera, Gerwin is happy about the extra work, as he earns his money as an audition reader, delivering the lines of dialogue to the starry candidates at the various castings. When the male lead suddenly has to back out, Gerwin thinks that this might just be his chance.

A young soprano becomes the obsession of a disfigured and murderous musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House.

From Paris to Venice to Broadway to Hollywood, the lives of Cole Porter and his wife, Linda Lee Thomas were never less than glamorous and wildly unconventional. And though Cole's thirst for life strained their marriage, Linda never stopped being his muse, inspiring some of the greatest songs of the twentieth century.

Dorothy Parker remembers the heyday of the Algonquin Round Table, a circle of friends whose barbed wit, like hers, was fueled by alcohol and flirted with despair.

In the early hours of the morning on the campus of an American college, Martha, much to her husband George’s displeasure, has invited the new professor and his wife to their home for some after-party drinks. As the alcohol flows and dawn approaches, the young couple are drawn into George and Martha’s toxic games until the evening reaches its climax in a moment of devastating truth-telling.