Hallmark Hall of Fame
Hallmark Hall of Fame is a long-running irregularly scheduled anthology program on American television. It has had a historically long run, beginning in 1951 and still continuing today. From 1954 onward, all of their productions have been shown in color, although color television productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many TV-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 most recent TV movie seen was episode 233, Sweet Nothing in My Ear, which aired on CBS on April 20 2008.
Hall of Fame frequently airs prior to major holidays in order to spur greeting card and related product sales for the Hallmark Cards company. Its programming traditionally airs during sweeps, a period in which ratings are used to determine advertising rates.
In total, the series has received seventy-eight Emmy Awards, twenty-four Christopher Awards, eleven Peabody Awards, nine Golden Globes, and four Humanitas Prizes.
It is the last remaining television program whose title contains a sponsor's name, once a common practice on American TV.
Early years
The series debuted on December 24 1951, on NBC with Amahl and the Night Visitors, an original opera by Gian Carlo Menotti, and the first ever written specifically for television. 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 were the classical works of Shakespeare; Hamlet, Richard II, 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, Julie Harris, Laurence Olivier, and Peter Ustinov all made what were then extremely rare television appearances in these plays.
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). 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.
After a few decades the series began to offer original material, such as Aunt Mary (1979) and Thursday's Child (1983). American novelist Anne Tyler's works have been a popular source of material for the series. Three of her books - Breathing Lessons, Saint Maybe, and Back When We Were Grownups - have been adapted for the small screen.
Post-NBC
For nearly three decades, the series ran on NBC, but after the network dropped it due to declining ratings it moved to PBS, later to ABC, then to CBS where it currently airs. Some of the films are perennial Top Ten rated programs.
Many recent Hall of Fame movies repeat on the company's Hallmark Channel, and are available on home video and DVD under Hallmark Entertainment (now RHI Entertainment), often distributed through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores.
Selected Recent Filmography
The following selected filmography is extremely limited in comparison to the hundreds of shows that the series has produced over more than half a century, and does not even include the many Hallmark programs produced on film since about 1980. Only a fraction of Hallmark Hall of Fame's programs have been made available on VHS and DVD, and nearly all are relatively recent productions. The earliest aired movie from the series to be released on DVD is The Secret Garden, first broadcast in 1987.
 1990 Decoration Day
1991 Sarah, Plain and Tall
1991 One Against the Wind
1996 The Summer of Ben Tyler
1997 Rose Hill
1997 What the Deaf Man Heard
1998 The Love Letter
1999 A Season for Miracles
2000 The Runaway
2000 Cupid & Cate
2001 The Seventh Stream
2001 In Love and War
2005 The Magic of Ordinary Days
2005 Silver Bells
2006 The Water is Wide
2007
2007 Pictures of Hollis Woods
2008 The Russell Girl
2008 Sweet Nothing in My Ear
External links
Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie List
50 Years of Hallmark Hall of Fame (UCLA Film and Television Archive)
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