The Paper Chase - Season 1 - Eps 1: The Paper Chase
James Hart (James Stephens), a farmboy from Minnesota, starts his first year of law school. Being unprepared for his first day of ""Contracts"" he is 'shrouded' by Professor Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr. (John Houseman), pronouncing the hapless Hart as ""dead"" in his class. This means that he will never call on Hart and his part of the class's ""Socratic dialogue will be at an end. Hart finds out that Kingsfield shrouds one student each year and that student remains deceased all year long. Kingsfield is the reason Hart has chosen to come to this school; we are shown a couple of his nightmares now that he is the ""former Mr. Hart"". Another student, Franklin Ford III (Tom FitzSimmons), is organizing a study group and invites Hart to join. The members of the study group decide to have each member do an outline of one of the classes that they can then copy for each member of the group. Hart wants to do the Contracts outline but the others worry that Hart cannot be effective if he is shrouded. In
About The Paper Chase

Title: The Paper Chase
First Air Date: 1978-09-09
Last Air Date: 1986-05-02
Status: Ended
Rating: 7.556/10 (from 9 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 4
Total Episodes: 58
Network: CBS Showtime
Genres: Drama
Production Companies: Unknown
Synopsis
Critically lauded drama about the life and pressures of a group of students at a prestigious Eastern law school, with a strict and domineering contract-law professor named Charles Kingsfield, who alternately inspires and terrifies the students.
Cast

John Houseman
Charles Kingsfield

James Stephens
James T. Hart

Lainie Kazan
Rose Samuels

Penny Johnson Jerald
Vivian Conway

Peter Nelson
Tom Ford

Diana Douglas
Prof. Tyler

Michael Tucci
Gerald Golden

Betty Harford
Mrs Nottingham

James Keane
Willis Bell

Tom Fitzsimmons
Franklin Ford III