MOVIES ON NETWORK TV: 1961 ONWARD (PART 2)

[Hal Erickson]

The initial season of SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (1961-62) had been relatively successful for NBC. True, the network still lagged behind such rival offerings as ABC's LAWRENCE WELK and CBS' GUNSMOKE; on the other hand, the new movie package enabled NBC to post its best Saturday-night ratings in years.
Quickly following suit, ABC put together a first-run movie series for its Sunday-night lineup as a midseason replacement for a brace of cancelled Sunday-night series, BUS STOP and ADVENTURES IN PARADISE. Titled "Hollywood Special", the ABC offering was first planned as a weekly movie double feature, each film shown in a 90-minute slot with a network newscast as an intermission feature. Ultimately, HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL was limited to a single weekly 2-hour telecast, one movie per week.
While NBC had the advantage of the 20th Century-Fox vault, ABC had to make do with the extremely variable offerings from United Artists, which though they included some major releases also yielded quite a few programmers and "B" pictures. Launched in the spring of 1962, the first season of HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL consisted of 15 films released between 1955 and 1960; all were originally released by UA, with the exception of MOBY DICK, which was distributed in the US by Warner Bros. but by other companies overseas. Unlike the NBC package, none of the films were telecast in color, though several were filmed that way; ABC would not begin regular colorcasting until the fall of 1962. Also breaking from the NBC "tradition", a few of the films were edited by ABC for time and content.

Here's the lineup for the first, abbreviated season of HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL:

Run Silent Run Deep (first telecast 4/8/62)
The Indian Fighter (orig. in color) (4/15/62)
Shake Hands with the Devil (4/21/62)
Pork Chop Hill (4/29/62)
Witness for the Prosecution 5/6/62
Man of the West (orig. in color) (5/13/62)
Moby Dick (orig. in color) (5/20/62) [rerun 12/16/62]
The Kentuckian (orig. in color (5/27/62)
Men in War (6/3/62)
The Wonderful Country (orig. in color) (6/10/62)
Not as a Stranger (6/17/62)
Marty (6/24/62)
Ten Seconds to Hell (7/1/62)
Johnny Concho (7/8/62)
The Pride and the Passion (orig. in color) (7/15/62)
**
HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL did well enough to warrant a fall renewal. The second season included 28 first run features as well as a rebroadcast of MOBY DICK. There was also a 2-hour TV unsold pilot film, A STORY OF DAVID, which though not advertised as a genuine feature was nonetheless included within the HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL banner.
This season, the color films were telecast in color (except in those markets whose ABC affiliates were not equipped to do so). Also, the network "redressed" the films to make them more compatible with standard TV format. The opening titles were shown at the end of each telecast, and new lab-processed fade-outs and fade-ins were imposed just before and after each commercial break (this would be the manner in which ABC would present most of its theatrical-film telecasts well into the late 1960s). Once again, certain films were trimmed for contect and time constrictions, notably THE BIG COUNTRY.
Despite an upsurge in "quality" product (ABC was still being supplied exclusively by United Artists), there were more low-budget films shown during Season Two of HOLLWOOD SPECIAL than in Season One. While some of these cheaper movies were quite praiseworthy (I BURY THE LIVING, THUNDER ROAD, TERROR IN A TEXAS TOWN), many of them were nothing more than potboilers, several filmed abroad as tax dodges.

Here's the line-up for ABC's second movie season:

The Big Country (color) (9/23/62)
The Night Fighters (9/30/62)
The Hoodlum Priest (10/7/62)
The Horse Soldiers (color) (10/14/62)
Timbuktu (10/21/62)
I Bury the Living (10/28/62)
Vera Cruz (color) (11/4/62)
Apache (color) (11/11/62)
A Story of David (a 2-hour color TV pilot film) (11/18/62)
Trooper Hook (11/25/62)
The Gallant Hours (12/2/62)
The Big Caper (12/9/62)
The Devil's Disciple (12/23/62)
Subway in the Sky (12/30/62)
Solomon and Sheba (color) (1/6/63)
Inherit the Wind (1/13/63)
Cast a Long Shadow (1/20/63)
On the Beach (1/27/63)
The Magnificent Seven (color) (2/3/63)
The Naked Maja (color) (2/10/63)
Terror in a Texas Town (2/17/63)
Trapeze (color) (2/24/63)
Tiger Bay (3/3/63)
Thunder Road (3/10/63)
Ten Days to Tulara (3/17/63)
Fury at Showdown (3/24/63)
Tunes of Glory (color) (3/31/63)
Hidden Fear (4/7/63)
The Unforgiven (color) (4/14/63)

Lukewarm ratings, coupled with viewer and sponsor complaints over a preponderance of second-rate features, led ABC to abandon its prime-time movie series during the 1963-64 season. But when its Sunday-night lineup turned out to be a disaster that year, the network returned with another first-run package from United Artists, this one under the blanket title THE ABC SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE, a designation that the network held onto for years to come.
The 1964-65 season offered a much better lineup than before, with only one "quickie" in the bunch (THE RIDE BACK), and that one chosen only because it could be pruned down to a 65-minute running time for a 75-minute timeslot, due to schedule conflicts on the evening of broadcast (the rest of the films, with the exception of the likewise re-edited THE ROAD TO HONG KONG, were seen in a two-hour timeslot, occasionally expanded to 2 1/2 or 3).
Again, the color films were shown in color, the films were "reprocessed" to accomodate commercial breaks and to relocate the opening credits to the end of the film, and certain titles were recut due to content and time restrictions. For example, ONE TWO THREE was reedited so that all the swear words were removed ("hell" was re-recorded as "heck"), while some of Marilyn Monroe's scenes in SOME LIKE IT HOT were "blown up" to obscure her cleavage. Also, at the end of BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ, Edmond O'Brien's original closing narration was replaced by a staff announcer informing the audience that Robert Stroud had died since the film was released. Finally, both SOLOMON AND SHEBA and THE BIG COUNTRY, originally telecast during the 1962-63 season, were rebroadcast, with BIG COUNTRY shown in its entirety this time around.

Here's the lineup for the 1964-65 season of ABC SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE (and this is the end of this posting!)

The Vikings (color) (9/20/64)
Some Like It Hot (9/27/64)
The Facts of Life (10/4/64)
The Miracle Worker (10/11/64)
A Hole in the Head (color) (10/18/64)
Geronimo (color) (10/25/64)
Road to Hong Kong (11/1/64) (shown in a 90-minute timeslot)
Last Days of Pompeii (1961) (color) (11/8/64)
Birdman of Alcatraz (11/15/64)
The Naked Edge (11/22/64)
Last Time I Saw Archie (12/6/64)
X-15 (color) (12/13/64)
Pocketful of Miracles (color) (12/20/64)
The Ride Back (12/27/64) (shown in a 75-minute timeslot)
The Misfits (1/3/65)
Exodus, Part One (color) (1/10/65)
Exodus, Part Two (color) (1/17/65)
Follow That Dream (color) (1/24/65)
One, Two, Three (1/31/65)
The Young Savages (2/7/65)
Alias Jesse James (color) (2/14/65)
The Young Doctors (2/21/65)
Kid Galahad (Presley version) (color) (2/28/65)
Judgment at Nuremburg (3/7/65) (shown in a 3-hour timeslot)
The Happy Thieves (3/14/65)
Taras Bulba (1962) (color) (3/21/65)
Paris Blues (3/28/65)
War Hunt (4/4/65)

 

[wbhist]

Typical of the period was ABC's New York O&O, WABC-TV; pre-1964, all movies shown on their local movie shows (The Night Show as it was called until September 1963, after which it was renamed The Best of Broadway; The Big Show, started in 1963 and an ancestor of The 4:30 Movie; The Sunday Show, which ran Marty on 12/30/62 - the ad in TV Guide was notable in that it was the first time the now-iconic "circle 7" logo was seen; and the AM movie show Movie of the Day) were aired in B&W, even though a couple of the films were originally in color. Several of those titles as seen on Hollywood Special were later aired locally on Channel 7, with some held for quite a few decades. However, there was one case I seek to speak of: The Pride and the Passion. After its Hollywood Special airing, the film was shown (albeit in B&W) on one of WABC's local movie shows around 1963. During the 1970's, though, TP&TP was held by WNEW-TV (Ch. 5), but it returned to Channel 7 by 1987, as per this clip on YouTube (starting at the 0:40 point) which had the last few seconds of the ending credits of the film before coming to the "spinning cameraman" title sequence of their Saturday Night Movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WiQmbrwmPw

Interestingly, despite ABC's "cash-poor" status, WABC was actually ahead in showing color films in color as opposed to the way-more prosperous CBS-owned WCBS-TV, which didn't begin airing color films in color until mid-1965. (The leaders in that regard were WNBC-TV [of course!] and independent WOR-TV, the latter of which first ran movies in color in 1960. WPIX first showed color programming in 1965, and WNEW-TV was the last of the commercial VHF outlets in New York to do so, in 1966.)

Meanwhile: Who would have been the announcer for the 1962-63 Hollywood Special? And at what point would Joel Crager have become the voice of The ABC Sunday Night Movie?

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

Beginning in the Fall of 1963, apparently because the Saturday night show was doing so well, NBC started showing "NBC's Monday Night At The Movies".

 

[Hal Erickson]

Beginning in the Fall of 1963, apparently because the Saturday night show was doing so well, NBC started showing "NBC's Monday Night At The Movies".

Actually, MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES began on February 4, 1963, with a telecast of THE ENEMY BELOW.
The series was hastily inserted in the NBC schedule after two other shows, IT'S A MAN'S WORLD and SAINTS AND SINNERS, posted the network's worst ratings of the year.
For the record, here's the first season of MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (all were 20th Century-Fox films):

The Enemy Below (color) (2/4/63)
The Bravados (color) (2/11/63)
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (color) (2/18/63)
King of the Khyber Rifles (color) (2/25/63)
Hell and High Water (color) (3/4/63)
Prince Valiant (color) (3/11/63)
Boy On a Dolphin (color) (3/18/63)
From Hell to Texas (color) (3/25/63)
My Cousin Rachel (4/1/63)
April Love (color) (4/8/63)
An Affair to Remember (color) (4/15/63)
The Barbarian and the Geisha (color) (4/22/63)
The Hunters (color) (4/29/63)
Harry Black and the Tiger (color) (5/6/63)
The Mudlark (5/13/63)
Mardi Gras (color) (5/20/63)

DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK was scheduled to air on Monday that season, but went directly to syndication instead; it was probably considered bad taste to show the recently deceased Marilyn Monroe as a nutcase.
Likewise, LYDIA BAILEY was removed from NBC's Saturday 1962-63 manifest (don't worry, I won't list THAT one here!) due to its miscegenation theme.

 

[wbhist]

Another aspect of ABC's entry into the movie show business is that in-between the end of Hollywood Special and the 1964 startup of The ABC Sunday Night Movie, WABC-TV had a movie show that started at 10 PM on Sundays called The World's Greatest Movies. It was the first place where the station ran color movies in color (in early 1964, from what I've seen in old New York-Metro TV Guides). After ABC's long-running Sunday movie show debuted in 1964, WABC began showing color movies in color on all their local movie shows.

As for those 1963 NBC Monday Night at the Movies titles: Many if not all of them also went to WABC's 4:30 Movie. As did a great deal of the titles shown by ABC in their early years of showing first-run feature films.