October 10, 1963 (1963-10-10) – July 1, 1965 (1965-07-01)
The Kraft Suspense Theatre is an American television
anthology series that was produced and broadcast from 1963 to 1965 on
NBC. Sponsored by
Kraft Foods, it was seen three weeks out of every four and was pre-empted for
Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall specials once monthly. Como's production company, Roncom Films, also produced Kraft Suspense Theatre. (The company name, "Roncom Films" came from "RONnie COMo," Perry's son, who was in his early 20s when this series premiered). Writer, editor, critic, and radio playwright
Anthony Boucher served as consultant on the series.
Later syndicated under the title Crisis, it was one of the few suspense series then broadcast in color. While most of NBC's shows were in color then, all-color network line-ups did not become the norm until the 1966-67 season. It was also packaged with episodes of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre under the title Universal Star Time.
In Britain,
BBC2 screened episodes of this series and Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre under the banner of Impact.
Some episodes doubled as
pilots for potential series. The episode "Rapture At Two-Forty", in particular, was the pilot for the series Run for Your Life, which premiered on NBC in the fall of 1965 and ran till 1968.
The 1968
theatrical filmSergeant Ryker, starring
Lee Marvin, was a two-part
made-for-television film that was first broadcast on Kraft Suspense Theatre under the title "The Case Against Paul Ryker". It also served as a pilot for the 1966 series Court Martial, which
ABC would broadcast. Other episodes that were later expanded into theatrical films (initially for European release) included "Once Upon a Savage Night", released as Nightmare in Chicago, and "In Darkness, Waiting", which was released as Strategy of Terror.
Reruns of the series have been shown under the name Suspense Theatre, although many prints of episodes have had the syndicated rerun title Crisis. In the 1990s,
Sci-Fi Channel aired the series under the Suspense Theatre and Crisis titles as part of its late-night primetime programming lineup.
Retro TV and
Antenna TV, the small broadcast networks, ran the series in the early 2010s.