Climax! is an American anthology series that aired on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan

William Lundigan

William Lundigan was an American film actor. His films include Dodge City , The Fighting 69th , The Sea Hawk , Santa Fe Trail , Dishonored Lady , Pinky , Love Nest with Marilyn Monroe, The House on Telegraph Hill , I'd Climb the Highest Mountain and Inferno...

 and later co-hosted by Mary Costa

Mary Costa

Mary Costa is an American singer, actress, and Disney Legend. She is best known for playing the voice of Princess Aurora in the 1959 Disney film Sleeping Beauty. She is also a professional opera singer....

. Many of the episodes were performed and broadcast live.

Notable episodes

In 1954, an episode of Climax!

Casino Royale (Climax!)

Casino Royale is a 1954 television adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming. The show is the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel and stars Barry Nelson and Peter Lorre...

 featured Ian Fleming

Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...

's secret agent James Bond

James Bond

James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

 in a television adaptation of Casino Royale

Casino Royale (novel)

Casino Royale is Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. It paved the way for a further eleven novels by Fleming himself, in addition to two short story collections, followed by many "continuation" Bond novels by other authors....

. It starred American Barry Nelson

Barry Nelson

Barry Nelson was an American actor, noted as the first actor to portray Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.-Early life:...

 as American secret agent 'Jimmy Bond' and Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre

Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...

 as the villain Le Chiffre. This was the first screen adaptation of a James Bond novel, made before EON Productions

EON Productions

Eon Productions is a film production company known for producing the James Bond film series. The company is based in London's Piccadilly and also operates from Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom...

 acquired the Bond film rights - although EON would not, in fact, obtain the rights to Casino Royale until the late 1990s. This adaptation is available on DVD as a bonus feature on the MGM DVD release of the 1967 film adaptation

Casino Royale (1967 film)

Casino Royale is a 1967 comedy spy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures starring an ensemble cast of directors and actors. It is set as a satire of the James Bond film series and the spy genre, and is loosely based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel.The film stars David Niven as the...

 of the novel, which is in every other respect a satire

Satire

Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...

 of the Bond genre.

The only other episode of Climax! available on DVD is a Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...

 penned adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Stevenson

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....

 story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, referred to on Climax! as simply "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde". It stars Michael Rennie

Michael Rennie

Michael Rennie was an English film, television, and stage actor, perhaps best known for his starring role as the space visitor Klaatu in the 1951 classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still. However, he appeared in over 50 other films since 1936, many with Jean Simmons and other...

, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, and Lowell Gilmore; it is available in the DVD box set "Classic Sci-Fi TV - 150 Episodes" from Mill Creek Entertainment

Mill Creek Entertainment

Mill Creek Entertainment is a home entertainment company that manufactures movie and television DVD compilation box sets at "value" prices. Nashville's Amity Entertainment is an affiliate to Mill Creek...

.

In an earlier episode of Climax!, during an adaptation of Raymond Chandler

Raymond Chandler

Raymond Thornton Chandler was an American novelist and screenwriter.In 1932, at age forty-five, Raymond Chandler decided to become a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive during the Depression. His first short story, "Blackmailers Don't Shoot", was published in...

's The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye (novel)

The Long Goodbye is a 1953 novel by Raymond Chandler, centered on his famous detective Philip Marlowe. While some critics consider it inferior to The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, others rank it as the best of his work...

, actor Tristram Coffin, playing a dead body, arose in shot and walked off stage. The event was widely covered in the media of the day, later becoming an urban legend

Urban legend

An urban legend, urban myth, urban tale, or contemporary legend, is a form of modern folklore consisting of stories that may or may not have been believed by their tellers to be true...

that was attributed to Peter Lorre and the previously mentioned adaptation of Casino Royale.