Previously presented on Broadway with Tallulah Bankhead and filmed in 1939 with Bette Davis, the classic stage tearjerker Dark Victory was whittled down to an hour's running time for this live presentation on the CBS anthology Front Row Center. Margaret Field (the mother of Oscar winner Sally Field), stars as madcap socialite Judith Traherne, whose footloose lifestyle comes to a sudden and tragic halt when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness. At first outraged with the doctor (Kent Smith) who withheld the bad news because he'd fallen in love with her, Judith slowly undergoes a profound change of personality, metamorphosing from a selfish debutante to a warm and generous woman. The climax, in which Judith faces her oncoming blindness and death with courage and dignity, played as well for the lesser-known Margaret Field as it had for her more famous predecessors. This version of Dark Victory was staged by the prolific Fletcher Markle. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi