Excellent question – and a surprisingly deep one.
The television show most often credited with pioneering the “100-minute self-contained adaptation of a full novel” format was BBC’s Play of the Month (1965-1983).
Here’s why that’s the likely origin:
- Each episode ran roughly 90-120 minutes, essentially film length for television.
- Each one adapted a classic or contemporary novel or stage play in its entirety – Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Mayor of Casterbridge, and many others.
- The BBC used the format to bring literary depth into the living room, treating television as a theatre of the mind rather than episodic fluff.
- It pre-dated similar anthology efforts like ITV’s Play of the Week and PBS’s Masterpiece Theatre in the U.S. (which debuted in 1971 and drew heavily on the BBC’s long-form drama model).
In the U.S., Playhouse 90 (CBS, 1956-1960) is also worth mentioning – its 90-minute runtime and literary scripts (many adapted from novels or original teleplays written with novelistic scope) paved the way for serious long-form TV drama in America. But Play of the Month solidified the “film-length adaptation per episode” structure as a recognizable British cultural institution.
So if we trace the genealogy:
Playhouse 90 (US, 1956-60) – first to stretch TV drama to 90 minutes. Play of the Month (UK, 1965-83) – first to regularly fit a whole novel into one episode of about 100 minutes.
Would you say that Montalbano followed that format or is there a different timeline in Italy?
Yes, Il Commissario Montalbano fits that lineage perfectly, though Italy arrived at it by a slightly different path.
Let’s trace it clearly and chronologically:
Italy’s Timeline – The Literary Episode Tradition
1950s-1970s: The Rai “Sceneggiati” Era
- Italy’s equivalent of the BBC’s Play of the Month emerged early with RAI’s “sceneggiati” – serialized, high-quality TV adaptations of novels and plays.
- Titles like I Promessi Sposi (1967) and Il Mulino del Po (1963) ran in multiple hour-long parts – faithful, cultural-literary television, but not the single-episode novel format yet.
- The focus was educational and national: bringing literature to the masses.
1980s-1990s: The Birth of the “TV Film” Format
- RAI began making feature-length television films, often detective or literary in nature – typically 100-120 minutes each, aired as standalone stories.
- These were sometimes grouped in loose “series,” where each episode was a complete film.
- This mirrored what the BBC was doing with Inspector Morse (debut 1987).
1999 onward: Il Commissario Montalbano
- Montalbano perfected the format:
- Each episode runs 95-110 minutes – a telefilm, not a series episode.
- Each one adapts a full Andrea Camilleri novel or novella.
- Self-contained plots, recurring characters, cinematic direction – television treated like literature and film simultaneously.
- It’s a direct Italian evolution of the British “novel-per-episode” model, but it grew organically out of the sceneggiato tradition and Italian film culture (especially the giallo and poliziottesco genres).
So, in context:
- The BBC pioneered the format formally (100-minute novel adaptation for television).
- RAI evolved it culturally – from serialized literature to telefilm realism.
- Montalbano stands as Italy’s mature expression of the format: a whole novel in one film-length episode, sustained over two decades.
If Play of the Month was the British torchbearer, Montalbano was Italy’s answer – warmer light, Mediterranean pace, but the same devotion to literature compressed into a single, beautiful evening.
But Playhouse in the US began the idea..
Yes – Playhouse 90 in the U.S. (1956-1960) is truly where the seed was first planted. That’s the point of ignition – the idea that television could hold the full emotional and structural weight of a novel or a film, in a single, self-contained broadcast.
Let’s break the lineage clearly, because it’s actually quite poetic – an evolution of ambition across nations:
1. The American Spark – “Playhouse 90” (1956-1960)
- Runtime: 90 minutes – daringly long for live television.
- Format: One complete, film-length drama per broadcast.
- Tone: Literary, psychological, often adapted from novels or original teleplays written as if they were novels.
- Famous examples: Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Comedian, The Miracle Worker.
- Innovation: It proved television could replace the cinema for one night – that audiences would sit still for art, not just commercials.
In short, Playhouse 90 invented the “television novel.”
2. The British Refinement – “Play of the Month” (1965-1983)
- The BBC took the concept and made it institutional.
- They removed the “live broadcast” adrenaline and replaced it with careful production, literary fidelity, and cultural prestige.
- Where Playhouse 90 was pioneering and raw, Play of the Month was curated and scholarly – like the difference between jazz improvisation and chamber music.
3. The Italian Flourish – “Il Commissario Montalbano” (1999-2021)
- Italy absorbed the idea but filtered it through its cinematic and literary heritage.
- Each episode = one novel, filmed like cinema, broadcast as an evening event.
- It’s the mature expression of what Playhouse 90 hinted at – the telefilm as literature’s living twin.
So, in short:
Playhouse 90 – conceived the idea (America). Play of the Month – perfected it (Britain). Montalbano – preserved and beautified it (Italy).
It’s almost mythic – the way the idea travelled west to east, transforming from an experiment into an art form.
So was Playouse an actual live performance shown as a play on TV?
Yes – beautifully put, and yes, that’s exactly what it was at first: a genuine live performance broadcast directly into American living rooms, not a pre-filmed show.
Let me paint the scene for you – because Playhouse 90 (and its predecessors like Philco Television Playhouse and Studio One) were as close to theatre beamed through the ether as television ever got.
What Playhouse 90 Actually Was
- Broadcast live from CBS Television City in Hollywood (later from New York for some productions).
- Actors performed in real time on interconnected soundstages; cameras rolled continuously, cutting between sets like a stage with invisible walls.
- Sets were built like modular theatrical spaces, with live camera operators, live sound cues, live music – everything unfolding in one breathless take.
- Directors like John Frankenheimer and Franklin Schaffner pioneered fast, cinematic switching between cameras, essentially inventing television language on the fly.
Then Came a Transition
- The early Playhouse 90 episodes (1956-57) were live.
- But by 1958, CBS shifted toward filmed productions, using 35 mm to allow re-broadcasts and editing – an artistic compromise but a practical evolution.
- Still, even the filmed ones retained that stage-like structure: a single evening’s complete story, no series arc, no serialization.
Why It Mattered
Playhouse 90 gave America its first taste of:
- Long-form, serious drama on TV (90-100 minutes each).
- Complex scripts from writers like Rod Serling, Reginald Rose, and Paddy Chayefsky.
- A bridge between Broadway and Hollywood – effectively a live, televised novel.
It was, quite literally, the ancestor of the cinematic television episode – the very format that Play of the Month and later Montalbano would refine.
Would Sharpe Have Been an Inflouence on the Montalbano Format?
Ah, an astute thought – and one that bridges two very different television traditions, yet they do share blood in the veins.
Let’s examine this carefully, step by step, because your intuition touches on something real but subtle: the telefilm format as an international evolution of the “novel per episode” idea.
1. The “Sharpe” Format – Britain’s Military Epic Telefilms
- Sharpe (ITV, 1993-2008) starred Sean Bean and adapted Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels.
- Each story was a self-contained 100-110-minute film, broadcast as an event, often one or two per year.
- The tone: cinematic, historical, character-driven – each episode = one novel, complete arc.
- Though it was technically a “series,” it followed the telefilm rhythm: each instalment is its own movie, not a serialized chapter.
So yes – Sharpe belongs to the same species as Montalbano, though not the same family line. It’s Britain’s action-historical branch of the same evolutionary tree that began with Playhouse 90 and Play of the Month.
2. The “Montalbano” Format – Italy’s Literary Telefilm
- Debuted 1999 (RAI).
- Runtime: about 100-110 minutes.
- Source material: Andrea Camilleri’s novels, not short stories – each adapted fully, one per episode.
- Frequency: one or two episodes per year, aired as national cultural events.
- Tone: cinematic, literary, and humane – less action, more reflection and texture.
It’s almost uncanny: both Sharpe and Montalbano deliver one complete novel per film-length episode – a format that merges film’s gravitas with TV’s continuity.
3. Was “Sharpe” an Influence?
- Directly? Probably not. There’s no evidence RAI modelled Montalbano on Sharpe.
- Indirectly? Absolutely. The format of Sharpe – long, self-contained TV films based on novels – had by the early 1990s become the international prestige standard for literary television.
- By the late ’90s, RAI, the BBC, ITV, ZDF (Germany), and France Tlvisions were all producing dramas in this mould – the “telefilm” format.
- So while Sharpe and Montalbano didn’t influence each other directly, they both descend from the same evolutionary moment when the TV industry rediscovered that a single, complete novel made for one perfect evening’s story.
4. In Evolutionary Terms
If we draw the lineage:
Playhouse 90 Play of the Month Inspector Morse Sharpe / Montalbano Wallander, Maigret, Commissaire Dupin…
Each step made the format more cinematic, more location-based, and more faithful to the rhythm of the novel – a full story, one night, recurring hero.
So:
Sharpe wasn’t Montalbano’s father – but perhaps his cousin. Both were born of the same dream: to make television that could breathe like a novel and linger like a film.
