See One of the Greatest Courtroom Dramas Ever Performed on Live TV: An Expert Restoration of Part One of Reginald Rose’s Two-Hour Pilot The Defender, Starring a Sensational Ralph Bellamy, with a Young William Shatner, Martin Balsam and “Steven McQueen”

[Part II.]


By Nicholas Stix

I watched this on April 5, 2020, exactly one year after it was posted, and watched Part II yesterday, and I can’t think of anything else. I haven’t seen live theater in 24 years, and this gave me the feeling back.

Filmed plays tend to falter by losing the immediacy of the theater. The way a director recovers said immediacy is through intense close-ups. There are shots by director Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird) and his uncredited director of photography, in which Ralph Bellamy’s big, weary head fills the screen.

This was the pilot for what would become the legendary courtroom drama, The Defenders (1961-1965), which would star E.G. Marshall and Robert Reed as a father-and-son lawyer team, which won 14 Emmys during its four-year run.


LIVE TV RESTORATION: Studio One -The Defender - Part One
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•Apr 5, 2019
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Part one of a two-part drama. Originally Aired February 25, 1957 and stars Ralph Bellamy, Martin Balsam, Steve McQueen, and William Shatner.