Peggy McCay Movies

This video anthology contains excerpts from a number of daily serials from the early '50s including "Guiding Light," "Portia Faces Life" and "The Secret Storm." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Balzac's celebrated novel Eugenie Grandet was boiled down to 60 minutes for this Matinee Theatre presentation. Originally telecast live on December 21, 1956, the play stars Peggy McCay and Dayton Lummis. The story: A headstrong young heiress wants to marry her handsome cousin. Her father is against this union, insisting that it can only end in tragedy. He's right. A color kinescope of Eugenie Grandet was included in the 1959 syndicated TV package Cameo Theatre. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Journey Into Darkness was originally telecast live and in color on the NBC anthology series Matinee Theatre. Skip Homeier plays a young man who holds down two jobs for two years. After suffering a nervous breakdown, Homeier moves himself and his family to Florida, where he takes a less taxing job. One morning, he is knocked unconscious-and when awakens, he has lost his memory and has been transported some 900 miles from home. This 60-minute drama offers a fascinating depiction of Homeier's tortured subconscious, utilizing black backdrops, cubist props and off-kilter camera angles. Peggy McKay costars as Homeier's anxious wife. Originally telecast March 6, 1958, Journey Into Darkness resurfaced in kinescope form as part of the syndicated Cameo Theatre series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After the mysterious death of her motel-owner father Glenn (Russell Thorson), Stephanie Falkner (Peggy McCay) is left with nothing but her dad's property and a huge pile of debts. Enter big-time gambler George Castle (Joe De Santis), who dearly covets Stephanie's land. Unbeknownst to the girl, George had killed her father over a gambling debt--or perhaps Stephanie has known this all along. Whatever the case, when George himself turns up murdered, Stephanie is charged with the crime...and that's when Perry Mason (Perry Mason) takes a hand in matters. This episode is based on a 1958 novel by Perry Mason creator Erle Stanley Gardner. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a naive woman lets a magazine salesman into to her house to have him demonstrate his wares. She does not know that he is really a fugitive from a mental hospital. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

When scatterbrained millionairess Kiz Bouchet (Kathleen Crowley) insists that somebody is trying to murder her, Beau Maverick (Roger Moore) is convinced that the girl is out of her mind. But he soon comes to believe Kiz's story--and in so doing, he tries to thwart a scheme hatched by the girl's cousin (Peggy McCay) and a crooked doctor (Tristam Coffin) to cheat Kiz out of her inheritance. Devotees of humorist Mark Twain will get a chuckle out of the character name bestowed upon supporting actor Whit Bissell. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This sentimental children's film is based on the true adventures of author Albert Payson Terhune's collie dog, as immortalized in Terhune's early 1920's novel. The story about the dog Lad's saving graces is very much directed toward the youngest moppets whose love of animals has yet to be jaded by ruined carpets, chewed-up books, or all-night barking. Lad comes to the rescue again and again, implying in more than one instance that dogs can be smarter than at least a few people. The canine saves his little mistress Angela (a nine-year-old Angela Cartwright just before her role in TV's Lost in Space) from a poisonous snake bite and is mistakenly ill-treated as a consequence, his actions help cure her need for a wheelchair, and furthermore, the dog prevents a local troublemaker from torching the family's barn. A younger Carroll O'Connor of redneck Archie Bunker TV fame, plays a crotchety neighbor. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Now travelling under the name "Sanford", fugitive Richard Kimble (David Janssen) takes a job at the Long Island estate of wealthy Harlan Guthrie (Robert Webber). It doesn't take Kimble long to figure out that Guthrie only married his long-suffering wife Ann (Peggy McCay) for her money, and that his new boss would rather dally with Ann's younger sister Carol (Pippa Scott). What no one knows is that Guthrie is planning to murder his wife--and pin the blame on Kimble. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The citizens of Cliffside Heights hire Perry (Raymond Burr) to press a libel suit against novelist Richard Harris (Michael Pate), the author of a Peyton Place-style "roman a clef." A financial settlement is reached, but turned down by publisher Albert McCann (David Lewis), who for some reason is afraid of Harris. Likewise fearful is Harris' ex-wife Margaret Layton (Peggy McCay), who is desperate to hide her lurid past from her children--so desperate, in fact, that she becomes the Number One Suspect when Harris is murdered. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Adapted by John Collier from a story by H.G. Wells, this episode is built around the talents of child actor John Megna, best remembered for his role as the Truman Capote counterpart in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird. Obsessed by magic and magicians, Tony Grainger (Megna) begs his father, Steven (Leslie Nielsen), to take him to Mr. Dulong's magic shop as a ninth birthday present. What seems to be a harmless excursion into the black arts becomes something else entirely when Tony steps into a magic cabinet and temporarily disappears -- followed by Mr. Dulong (David Opatoshu), who disappears for keeps. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It's a personal matter for FBI assistant director Arthur Ward (Phillip Abbott) when Marianne Lowe (Pamela McMyler), the daughter of Ward's good friend Philip Lowe (Lin McCarthy), is kidnapped. A clue in Marianne's diary leads Inspector Erskine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) to suspect that an employee at the girl's favorite beauty parlor is in on the abduction scheme. Meanwhile, the captive Marianne chips away at the conscience of the conscience of her abductor Beau Manley (Mark Jenkins), who unlike his partner Alex Drake (Joe Don Baker) is reluctant to kill her...maybe. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Shelly Winters and John Randolph star in Death of Innocence as distraught small-town parents who learn that their estranged daughter is on trial for murder. They journey to New York City and attend the girl's trial, where the mother learns several details of her daughter's recent life that she'd rather not know. Filmed at the height of the "generation gap" era, Death of Innocence was based on a novel by Zelda Popkin. One of the better TV movies of 1971, the film was first telecast opposite a George Plimpton "wish fulfillment" special, thereby losing out on the large audience it deserved. Casting note: Kim Stanley was to have played the principal juror, but fell ill before shooting. She was replaced by Ann Sothern--the mother of Tisha Sterling, who plays the defendant in the case! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Wounded in an ambush, Joe Cartwright is rescued by the Griswolds, a farming family. Delirious with fever, Joe experiences surrealistic flashbacks and bizarre disturbing visions (in one, he sees Hoss trying to kill him!) As his condition worsens, it becomes obvious that emergency surgery is called for-but Joe is too seriously injured to be moved from the Griswold farm. Featured in the cast of this superbly directed and photographed episode are Richard O'Brien and Peggy McCoy as Mr. and Mrs. Griswold, and David Huddleston as Doc Scully. Originally telecast October 3, 1971, "Bushwacked!" was written by Preston Wood. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide