Colgate Theatre — Season 1, Episode 5: Fountain of Youth
Drama • 30 min • 1 season, 8 episodes • ★ 9.0/10
Episode synopsis
A newly married woman receives as a wedding gift from her vengeful scientist ex-boyfriend a vial containing a potion that can provide a person with 200 years of youthful vigor and good looks — but there is only enough potion in the vial for one person, leading to conflict as she ponders whether to take the potion herself or give it to her new husband. (Note: Written, directed, narrated, designed, and produced by Orson Welles, this episode won a 1958 Peabody Award and is widely regarded as one of the most important works of early television experimentation. It is considered a foundational example of Welles’s essay-film style, directly anticipating later works such as F for Fake, and remains the most critically significant and historically influential episode of Colgate Theatre.)
About Colgate Theatre
A 1958 American anthology television series broadcast on NBC, composed entirely of unsold television pilots. Created as a summer replacement program, the series repackaged unaired pilots originally produced for proposed television shows, presenting them as standalone dramatic episodes. Hosted by Bill Goodwin, the series served as filler programming following the cancellation of the quiz show Dotto and ran for eight consecutive weeks. Notable episodes included Orson Welles’s The Fountain of Youth, which won a Peabody Award and became one of the most celebrated television productions of the era.