Panic Button (Playhouse 90)
12th episode of the second season of Playhouse 90
"Panic Button" was an American television play broadcast on November 28, 1957, as part of the second season of the CBS television series Playhouse 90. Rod Serling wrote the teleplay. Franklin Schaffner directed, Martin Manulis was the producer, and Dominick Dunne was the executive assistant. Robert Stack, Vera Miles, and Lee J. Cobb starred.
Plot
The investigation into a plane crash concludes that it was caused by pilot error. At the inquiry, the co-pilot (Robert Stack) seeks to place the blame on the captain who died in the crash. In the end, the co-pilot is found to have been responsible for the crash, and his pilot's license is revoked.
Cast
Reception
Television reviewer Harriet Van Horne praised Serling's story and cited it as proof that television drama had grown up, no longer having the need for a happy ending. She also praised the performances of Stack, Cobb, Seldes and Miles as valiant and true.
San Francisco Examiner reviewer Dwight Nelson praised the performances of Cobb and Stack but opined that Serling's story was "neither dull nor exciting.
“Panic Button (Playhouse 90)” enters the record as 12th episode of the second season of Playhouse 90. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Panic, Button and Playhouse can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Panic Button (Playhouse 90)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.