Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS programs of that era to be broadcast in color. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live.
Episode 1
Private Detective Philip Marlowe decides to help out a friend Lennox when his wife is found brutally murdered. Marlowe winds up in jail accused of her murder and tries to solve the case after his release.
Episode 2
When his friend is murdered, Edward Wales sets out to capture the killer. He stages a seance and invites 13 people, any one of who may have killed the dead man, but it ends in chaos when the killer strikes again during a blackout.
Episode 3
American spy James Bond must outsmart card wiz and crime boss LeChiffre while monitoring his actions. The first dramatization of a James Bond novel.
Episode 4
A neurotic invalid whose only contact with the outside world is her phone. One night, because of a crossed wire, she hears plans for a murder which turns out to be her own. Her frantic efforts to get help and her growing terror and realisation of the truth chill you to the bone.
Episode 5
The death of his crippled wife causes upheaval for the husband and his mistress. Only his family friend believes in his innocence.
Episode 6
A steward aboard a yacht thinks his job is easy sailing until the dream voyage turns into a nightmare. The ship's officer is thrown overboard and another is hacked to death who is next.
Episode 7
A carnival huckster ingratiates himself with an elderly farmer and his naïve daughter; she soon falls for her new suitor and marries him, only to wind up dead shortly afterwards, the husband quick to confess.
Episode 8
An unsuspecting Iron Curtain refugee is used as a pawn by two French traitors while he is at a resort in France.
Episode 9
A woman receives some mysterious white carnations, which seem to be an innocent gift but lead to terror.
Episode 10
Thru romantic eyes she knew not what he was.
Episode 11
Private investigators Cool and Lam become involved in this suspenseful tale of thugs, thieves and legal chicanery.
Episode 12
An American engineer in Germany crosses over into the Soviet Zone on business and becomes entangled with the secret police.
Episode 13
The Mojave Kid is warned to stay away from a small town feud.
Episode 14
The story revolves around two women, one a successful career woman, the other an ambitious girl. After giving the daughter of an old friend a job, the successful businesswoman realizes the drawbacks of her generosity.
Episode 15
Lt. Comm. Knowles is assigned to skipper the USS Hamilton from England back to New York. While he and his crew celebrate New Year's Eve 1943, an unknown danger lurks nearby.
Episode 16
A hated columnist becomes involved in murder after receiving an innocent-looking box of chocolates with a note from the manufacturer asking him to try them.
Episode 17
They were strangers to each other, even the married ones, and they all dreamed in human ways. But the least of these eight persons did something about his little dream. In so doing, he bound the strangers in an intimate circle, whether they knew it or not. He touched them all in passing and changed their lives and dreams forever, according to their own choices. In one turn of the earth something happened.
Episode 18
The action of this tale of intrigue and espionage takes place in the jungles of East Africa in 1914. The destinies of Germany and Great Britain are dependent upon one man whose decision is influenced by one of the two women in his life.
Episode 19
An ex-cop is released from San Quentin after five years and sets out on revenge against the men who framed him for manslaughter.
Episode 20
The famous story deals with a boxer whose rise to fame has been at the expense of friends and associates. Through flashbacks, we see how Midge Kelly rose from the Chicago slums to a world championship.
Episode 21
A woman doctor probes the twisted minds of her patients in a mental institution.
Episode 22
A doctor forsakes the medical profession following a court trial where he was the defendant. Now a successful businessman travelling under an assumed name, he must decide between keeping his secret and saving the eyesight of a fellow passenger.
Episode 23
The threat of scandal, revolving around the death of a man in London, prompts an ambitious lawyer to disregard both legan and moral principles. His concern for his own career puts an innocent man's life in jeopardy.
Episode 24
A courageous nun suffers ordeals while trying to escape from behind the Iron Curtain.
Episode 25
A Scottish student has the historical Stone of Scone stolen from Westminster Abbey. His purpose is to get England to recognize Scotland's independence.
Episode 26
An American, in the Italian Army during World War I, who meets a nurse and falls in love with her. Together they try to find a haven from the turbulence around them.
Episode 27
The life of an ordinary, mild-mannered man is changed when he identifies the murderer of his employer's brother.
Episode 28
A gold miner returns to his righteous California hometown, circa1857. He has great wealth, but also a burdened conscious; he has killed a man.
Episode 29
All the pent-up prejudices and hatreds of postwar Europe are revived when a Nazi lieutenant recovers consciousness in a British hospital after being in a coma for years.
Episode 30
No overview available.
Episode 31
A handsome, devil-may-care fortune hunter [from South America] makes his home with a well-to-do Southern family. He is attracted at first to the daughter, until he discovers the mother is the one who holds the key to the family fortune.
Episode 32
No overview available.
Episode 33
A brilliant surgeon, burdened with a self-centered wife and a beautiful heiress who's in love with him, becomes tormented by doubts about his ability after losing a patient during a difficult operation.
Episode 34
Classic Stevenson tale of a scientist whose experiments into the duality of man transform him into the misshapen, murderous Mr. Hyde.
Episode 35
In 1937, the members of a jazz ensemble come to the aid of one of their colleagues who is stricken with tuberculosis.
Episode 36
A small town banker and his family are threatened with death if he identifies the leader of the gang that tried to rob his bank.
Episode 37
True story of ballplayer battling mental illness and domineering father.
Episode 38
A teenage boy gets into a dispute with an abusive movie theater manager Mr. Grubbs. The boy's father Tom Ditmar accepts the manager's somewhat twisted version of the incident and doesn't give his son a chance to explain his side of the matter.
