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"Friday the 13th" is a 1954 American television play by Sumner Locke Elliott. It originally aired as an episode of The Philco Television Playhouse produced by Fred Coe and directed by Arthur Penn.

Elliott originally wrote the script for television but then adapted it for radio and sent it back to Harry Dearthin Australia. He arranged a broadcast of the play on Australian radio in 1955 as an episode of Harry Dearth's Playhouse starring Gordon Glenwright and Charles Tingwell.

The script was filmed again for television for NBC Matinee Theater in 1956.

Premise

According to a description of the radio adaptation it is "The tense and dramatic story of three women involved in a car accident-a skillful combination of suspense and human interest-it is, in fact, an omnibus play for it tells three stories in one."

A longer description was provided by ABC Weekly which said "When the car containing Trilby Harris, Barbara Mack and Elaine Prescott skids off a wet road, crashes through a fence and careers over a cliff edge, one of the occupants is killed. But the husbands of the three women are not told which one. As they wait at the cliff top a single question drums in the mind of each man: “Was it my wife?”"

References

1. "Friday the 13th on Playhouse". The Times-Mail. 26 June 1954. p. 10.
2. ^ "Commercial", ABC Weekly, vol. 17, no. 6, Sydney: ABC, 5 February 1955, nla.obj-1698497561, retrieved 20 November 2023 – via Trove
3. "WEDNESDAY, FEB. 9". The Sunday Times. No. 2931. Western Australia. 6 February 1955. p. 19. Retrieved 20 November 2023 – via National Library of Australia.

External links

• "Friday the 13th" at AustLit
• "Friday the 13th" at IMDb
• "Friday the 13th" (NBC Matinee Theater production) at IMDb

• 1955 Australian radio dramas
• 1950s television plays
• Works by Sumner Locke Elliott