"The Blue Hotel" was adapted as an American Short Story Theater teleplay, a product of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in 1974. It was directed by Jan Kadar and the original Crane story was adapted for television by Harry Mark Petrakis. David Warner played the Swede, Rex Everhart was Scully, and James Keach was Johnnie.

While generally faithful to the original storyline, the teleplay did not project Crane's subtle mood of repressed violence and intensifying danger. Lacking Crane's subtlety in blending action with philosophical discourse, the teleplay seemed disjointed and flat. In addition, Warner's attempted enactment of the provocative and unstable Swede seemed to lack conviction and produced an effect far short of the way Crane's protagonist comes across to the reader.