The Dear Departed

Charming country girl Anička Košáriková and the handsome Paľo share a tender, mutual affection, until Anička’s recently widowed mother forbids the match. Paľo is the son of the former steward who once fell on hard times while serving the Košárik family, and his family’s ruined reputation casts a shadow over their budding romance.

Impoverished King Bonifác wants to marry his only daughter Miluška off to fill the royal treasury. Miluška, with the help of Katka, a kind and wise maid, refuses all offers because her heart belongs to Ľubomír - a prince without property. The king becomes very angry and promises his daughter to the devil.

A TV film from a mining environment shows the tragic outcome of hatred between brothers. The mother, a simple woman, has an uncanny ability to foresee events ahead. All her life she passively accepts her fate. Despite knowing what awaits her loved ones and her, she does not confront it. It is only when she sees the tragic conflict between her sons that she decides to prevent it.

Broadcast live on the Hallmark Hall of Fame series on NBC, a pair of divorced actors are brought together to participate in a musical version of The Taming of the Shrew. Of course, the couple seem to act a great deal like the characters they play, and they must work together when mistaken identities get them mixed up with the mafia.

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.

In a woods filled with magic and fairy tale characters, a baker and his wife set out to end the curse put on them by their neighbor, a spiteful witch.

The action takes place during the time of Ukrainization, at the end of the 1920s. Kharkiv employee Myna Mazaylo decides to change his ukrainian surname to the russian Mazenin, as he considers it more solid.

Comedy in five acts by Beaumarchais, filmed by Marcel Bluwal in studio and on location. The cast, in accordance with Marcel Bluwal's wishes, is in keeping with the age and character of the characters, to give it rhythm. At once "a comic baroque play, a bourgeois drama, a chansonnier's number, a social satire, a farce and a very pretty love story" according to Marcel Bluwal, it can also be summed up, according to Beaumarchais, as "the most bantering of intrigues".

An adaptation of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible, concerning the Salem witch trials.

Time passes and tension mounts in a Florida police station as an estranged interracial couple awaits news of their missing teenage son.

Mick and his brother Aston live alone together in a West London house until one night Aston brings home Davies, who just left his job as a kitchen helper at a restaurant. The old man proves to be a violent, selfish bigot, uncharitable himself but quick to exploit the kindness of others.

From an ominous Lecturer, a small 1930s middle American community learns of the Harper Affair, in which young Jimmy Harper finds his life of promise turn into a life of debauchery and murder thanks to the new drug menace marijuana. Along the way, he receives help from his girlfriend Mary and Jesus Himself, but always finds himself in the arms of the Reefer Man and the rest of the denizens of the Reefer Den.

An alcoholic ex-football player drinks his days away, having failed to come to terms with his sexuality and his real feelings for his football buddy who died after an ambiguous accident. His wife is crucified by her desperation to make him desire her: but he resists the affections of his wife. His reunion with his father—who is dying of cancer—jogs a host of memories and revelations for both father and son.

A tv movie based on the play Swedenhielms by Hjalmar Bergmans play from 1923.

Set in a Norwegian hamlet, an idealistic physician discovers that the town's hot springs are contaminated. But with the community relying on the spa for tourist dollars, his warning to the powers-that-be falls on deaf ears.

A frightened Swiss soldier climbs into a young Bulgarian girl's room during wartime.

Lanford Wilson's prize-winning drama about life in a played-out coal town in the Midwest. Against the background of a murder trial, the people recall their lives.

Set in modern upper-crust Manhattan, an exploration of love and commitment as seen through the eyes of a charming perpetual bachelor questioning his single state and his enthusiastically married, slightly envious friends.

Sexual passion breeds violence in the Thomas Middleton and William Rowley written tale of a beautiful woman who falls in love with a sea-captain. Filmed with lush production values and at a leisurely, very British pace, Helen Mirren is riveting as Beatrice-Joanna, a young lass already torn by love and commitment.Beatrice-Joanna (Helen Mirren) is betrothed to Lord Alonzo de Piraquo (Malcolm Reynolds) but is in love with Alsemero (Brian Cox). She hires her father's manservant, De Flores (Stanley Baker), to kill Alonzo but after he has done so, she realises De Flores wants her as a reward.The Changeling was an instalment of the BBC's Play of the Month series and is a production for television of a 1622 Jacobean tragedy of the same name, written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley.

A visionary and artistic young woman finds her love torn between her imaginary boyfriend and a real boy from one of her classes.