One of the first episodes I watched after getting my copy of The Golden Age of TV Drama was “Playmates,” an installment of ABC’s Pepsi-Cola Playhouse, starring Alan Napier and Natalie Wood. It originally aired on Sunday, August 29th, 1954 from 7:30-8PM. Wood, who at the time would have been 16, played a slightly younger girl named Monica while Napier played her Uncle Everton.

The print used in The Golden Age of TV Drama doesn’t include any opening credits, beginning with a simple title card. According to The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows: 1946-Present, Anita Colby was serving as hostess for the series in August of 1954 (having replaced Arlene Dahl in April of that year; she herself was replaced in October of 1954 by Polly Bergen). What exactly her hostessing duties were I don’t know. I assume she introduced each week’s episode. But she doesn’t make an appearance here.

Pepsi-Cola Playhouse – “Playmates”

The story is simple: the local vicar drops by to inquire after Monica, who has been looking a little morose. Everton insists she’s different and doesn’t want her growing up like other children. But there’s something a little off about Monica. She plays all alone upstairs in a room she calls the “school room” with her “playmates.” Everton decides she’s just imaginative; the maid thinks she spends too much time alone. According to Monica her seven playmates — among them Mary and Elsie — are scared by Everton.

After talking with Monica, Everton leaves. When he shuts the door her hears his niece calling for her friends. And then he hears a group of girls laughing. He tells the maid that it was nothing more than telepathic transfer of thought. He’s not concerned about himself, having analyzed the situation, but he is worried about Monica. Ultimately, after the vicar drops by with his daughter, Gladys, who is frightened by Monica’s playmates, it is revealed that Everton’s house used to be a school for girls.

Pepsi-Cola Playhouse – “Playmates”

One of the pupils at the school was the vicar’s aunt: Mary Hewitt. She, and six other girls, died of diphtheria. Monica isn’t imagining things. She does have seven playmates in the school room. The vicar tells Everton he’ll figure out what to do and Everton does. He sits down with Monica and has a long chat. He’s going to send her to school where she’ll never be lonely again.

Everton: “If you were to keep on living in a little world of you own, one day you might find other friends not as kind or as helpful as Mary and Elsie.”
Monica: “Oh but they’ve been wonderful to me, Uncle Steven.”
Everton: “Of course they have. But conversing with beings invisible and inaudible to others is not to be recommended. And if you don’t understand all this now you must try to believe that what I’m doing is for your own good and happiness.”

He sends her to wash up for dinner. Sitting alone in the school room, he hears girls singing. He asks them not to go and thanks them for everything they’ve done.

Pepsi-Cola Playhouse – “Playmates”

I had hoped that “Playmates” would have something of a Twilight Zone feel to it. It didn’t. The “twist” that Monica’s playmates were the spirits of seven dead girls wasn’t shocking. Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to be. The point of the episode, I’m sure, was that children need real playmates (or else the ghosts of long-dead girls will show up and play with them instead). Everton certainly didn’t understand that. The vicar suggests that “those strange visitations were heaven sent. Perhaps not so much for Monica but for you.”

What I found it a little unsettling was the ending when Everton seems to want the playmates to stay. Does he want the company, not having any friends of his own and now far too old to make any? Will the little playmates keep the house from feeling too cold and empty? Natalie Wood was fine in this light role and Alan Napier was as stiff as his character called for. I haven’t seen any other episodes of Pepsi-Cola Playhouse so I can’t comment on how this episode compares. As an overall production “Playmates” was stilted and the story far too weak to maintain interest.

Rounding out the cast were Moyna Macgill, Nelson Welch and Linda Green. The episode runs 25:11.

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