A Town Has Turned to Dust (Playhouse 90)

"A Town Has Turned to Dust"
Playhouse 90 episode
William Shatner as Jerry Paul
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 38
Directed by	John Frankenheimer
Written by	Rod Serling
Original air date	June 19, 1958 (1958-06-19)
Running time	90 minutes[1]
Guest appearances
Rod Steiger as Harvey Denton[2][1] William Shatner as Jerry Paul[2][1] Fay Spain as Annamay Paul[2][1] James Gregory as Hennify[2][1]
Episode chronology
← Previous "The Innocent Sleep" Next → "The Great Gatsby"

"A Town Has Turned to Dust" is an American television play broadcast live on June 19, 1958,^[2] as part of the second season of the CBS television series Playhouse 90. Rod Serling wrote the teleplay,^[2][1] and John Frankenheimer directed.^[2][1] Rod Steiger and William Shatner starred.

Serling originally wrote the story about the lynching of a young African-American in the Southern United States. Due to objections from the program's commercial sponsors, who were concerned with offending white Southern viewers, it was not produced and aired until Serling moved the story's setting out of the South and changed the victim from black to Mexican.