Movies on TV: The 145-Film 'MGM / 7' Package from 1968

[wbhist]

After the 742 films of RKO Radio Pictures that were syndicated by C&C Super Corporation following Howard Hughes' sale of the studio to General Teleradio (which ultimately became RKO General), there was the bonanza of 725 pre-1948 MGM films that were made available to local TV stations starting in 1956. Then came six post-1948 packages (the most recent up to that point, called 'MGM / 6' and featuring such titles as Texas Carnival, Neptune's Daughter, Forever Darling and Quo Vadis, having been snapped up in New York by WABC-TV; the other packages were strewn around all commercial NYC stations except possibly WPIX, as will be mentioned below). Then in 1968, was the most comprehensive package of post-1948 titles (more specifically, released between 1949 and 1965), 'MGM / 7'. 53 of the pictures were "first-run," while the other 92 had premieres on two of the three networks (except CBS) between 1963 and 1967. 93 of the 145 flicks were in color. Among the pics in this group were the most celebrated of the post-1950 musicals from the "Golden Age" of same. This was first mentioned in Broadcasting magazine, Aug. 12, 1968, and made available to TV stations starting Sept. 2. Based on TV listings, the first of the films in this package debuted as early as Sept. 16.

In two of the biggest markets - New York and Los Angeles - the package was divided between two stations apiece. In the latter city, it was split between KABC-TV and KHJ-TV. (In the third-biggest market, Chicago, only one station - WGN-TV - got the whole bunch.) In the former, WNBC-TV appeared to get the lion's share (no pun intended) of the titles (debut airings were stretched out over three years, the most recent being in 1971), while WOR-TV (then sister station to L.A.'s KHJ) got the rest. I don't have all the 145 titles here, but based on logs I've compiled of films that aired on WNBC's Movie 4 and Sunday Film Festival, coupled with MGM TV ads put in Broadcasting, as well as Googling other New York Times listings of the early 1970's, which films went where were as follows (and this is a very partial list; if anyone has more info and can say for certain who got what, I'd be happy to hear):

WNBC-TV:
- Ada
- Annie Get Your Gun (1950 film w/Betty Hutton)
- Bad Day at Black Rock
- The Band Wagon
- The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957 version w/Jennifer Jones)
- Bells Are Ringing
- Big Parade of Comedy
- Bridge to the Sun
- Brigadoon
- The Brothers Karamazov
- Count Your Blessings
- The Courtship of Eddie's Father (original 1963 film on which the 1969-72 TV series was based)
- Drums of Africa
- The Fastest Gun Alive
- Follow the Boys (1963)
- Gaby
- Get Yourself a College Girl (aired twice on Movie 4, in 1968 and 1974; most of the station's airings were on the late-night Great Great Show)
- The Great Caruso
- The High Cost of Loving
- High Society (1956)
- Home from the Hill
- The Honeymoon Machine
- House of Numbers (1957)
- Interrupted Melody
- Invitation to the Dance
- It Happened at the World's Fair
- Jumbo (1962)
- King Solomon's Mines (1950 version w/Stewart Granger)
- Kiss Me Kate
- Kissin' Cousins
- The Law and the Lady
- Les Girls
- Light in the Piazza
- The Long, Long Trailer
- The Magnificent Yankee
- Man on Fire (1957)
- Meet Me in Las Vegas
- Merry Andrew
- Mutiny on the Bounty (the overblown 1962 version w/Marlon Brando)
- The Naked Spur
- North by Northwest
- Of Human Bondage (1963)
- The Opposite Sex (1956)
- The Rack
- Ransom! (1956)
- Rhino!
- Ride the High Country
- Ring of Fire (1961)
- The Scapegoat
- The Secret Partner
- Seven Seas to Calais
- The Sheepman
- The Shiralee
- Singin' in the Rain
- Swordsmen of Siena
- Tamahine
- This Could Be the Night
- A Thunder of Drums
- The Time Machine
- The Tunnel of Love
- Two Loves
- The Vintage
- The Wheeler Dealers
- World in My Pocket

WOR-TV:
- Ask Any Girl
- Atlantis, the Lost Continent
- Battleground
- Because You're Mine
- Cry Terror!
- For the First Time
- The Gazebo
- The Great American Pastime
- Green Mansions
- The Haunting
- The Last Hunt
- The Last Voyage
- Looking for Love (the 1964 Connie Francis film in which then-Tonight Show host Johnny Carson made a cameo - and regretted it to the day he died, making a recurring running joke of buying up all prints so they could be destroyed)
- The Loved One
- Period of Adjustment
- The Prize
- The Seven Hills of Rome
- The Tartars
- Trial (1955)
- The V.I.P.'s
- Viva Las Vegas
- The Yellow Rolls Royce

(WNBC had previously acquired, in 1963, a package of 30 MGM films including Blackboard Jungle, The Cobweb, Silk Stockings, Dream Wife and It's Always Fair Weather; plus, in 1964, several pre-'48 titles, including The Thin Man, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Hucksters, The Harvey Girls, and the "Andy Hardy" and "Dr. Kildare/Dr. Gillespie" series of films, after WCBS-TV's rights to the films in question had expired. WOR acquired some other post-'48 MGM's in the past, including Forbidden Planet and Conspirator. WCBS had another of the post-'48's, including Andy Hardy Goes Home, and WNEW-TV had a package that included Across the Wide Missouri. I already mentioned the group WABC got.)

 

[Hal Erickson]

You might already have these lists, but here are the three packages of post-48 films that MGM put on the syndication market before the studio began leasing its titles to NBC's various "Night at the Movies" programs in the fall of 1963:

MGM 30/61 (available in 1961):
THE ACTRESS
AFFAIRS OF DOBIE GILLIS
THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
BATTLE CIRCUS
THE BIG LEAGUER
CARBINE WILLIAMS
A CHALLENGE TO LASSIE
CREST OF THE WAVE
THE GIRL IN WHITE
THE GOOD HUMOR MAN
IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME
KIND LADY
LADY WITHOUT A PASSPORT
LONE STAR
MR. IMPERIUM
NEPTUNE’S DAUGHTER
NO QUESTIONS ASKED
THE PEOPLE AGAINST O’HARA
THE RED DANUBE
THE REFORMER AND THE REDHEAD
ROYAL WEDDING
THE SCARLET COAT
THE SECRET GARDEN
THE SKIPPER SURPRISED HIS WIFE
THAT FORSYTHE WOMAN
THAT MIDNIGHT KISS
TO PLEASE A LADY
THE WILD NORTH
THE YELLOW CAB MAN
YOU FOR ME

MGM 30/62 (Available in early 1962):
ABOVE AND BEYOND
ACROSS THE WIDE MISSOURI
ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT
BANNERLINE
BHOWANI JUNCTION
BORDER INCIDENT
CAUSE FOR ALARM
CONSPIRATOR
CRISIS
THE DOCTOR AND THE GIRL
DON’T GO NEAR THE WATER
FORBIDDEN PLANET
THE GIRL IN WHITE
HER TWELVE MEN
INVITATION
IT’S A BIG COUNTRY
THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS
MADAME BOVARY
MOGAMBO
MOONFLEET
THE OUTRIDERS
PAGAN LOVE SONG
PLEASE BELIEVE ME
RIGHT CROSS
ROGUE COP
SCARAMOUCHE
SCENE OF THE CRIME
SMALL TOWN GIRL
SUMMER STOCK
TENSION

MGM 30/63 (available late 1962):
AMBUSH
ANGELS IN THE OUTFIELD
ANY NUMBER CAN PLAY
BEAU BRUMMEL
THE BIG HANGOVER
BLACK HAND
THE BLACKBOARD JUNGLE
THE COBWEB
DREAM WIFE
EAST SIDE WEST SIDE
FIEND WITHOUT A FACE
FIRST MAN INTO SPACE
GO FOR BROKE
THE GREAT SINNER
GREEN FIRE
THE HAUNTED STRANGLER
I ACCUSE
I’LL CRY TOMORROW
IT’S ALWAYS FAIR WEATHER
LATIN LOVERS
MALAYA
THE MARAUDERS
PAT AND MIKE
SAADIA
SILK STOCKINGS
SOMEBODY UP THERE LIKES ME
THE STRIP
THE TALL TARGET
THE TENDER TRAP
VALLEY OF THE KINGS

Many local stations picked up all three packages when available. In Milwaukee however, the then CBS affiliate WISN got
"30/61" and "30/62", while the then ABC affiliate WITI purchased "30/63". Ironically, neither station had color-telecasting facilities--and one of the big selling points of the MGMs was that several were in color. The only Milwaukee station able to colorcast then was NBC affiliate WTMJ, which wisely scooped up several of the post-1948 Warner Bros. packages from Seven Arts.

 

[wbhist]

In New York, WNBC acquired all but one title from the "MGM 30/63" package (which remained with the station through about 1971), while "MGM 30/61" and "MGM 30/62" were originally at WOR (which aired films in color starting in 1960; both packages had migrated by 1970 to WNEW, which also got "MGM 30/63" after WNBC's rights expired, and by the mid-1970's all of these first three pre-'63 packages were at WOR).

There was one week, Sept. 16-20, 1968, where Movie 4 aired MGM musicals. Four of them were from the new "MGM/7" package (The Band Wagon [the very first from "MGM/7" to be run by the station], Annie Get Your Gun, Jumbo and Kiss Me Kate) while the fifth inexplicably came from "MGM 30/63" (Silk Stockings). Of these "MGM 30/63" titles, the one that didn't air on any of WNBC's movie shows was The Marauders; this title wound up on WOR-TV, going, like the others, to WNEW in the mid-'70's; this 29-to-1 division seemed to foreshadow the splitting of "MGM/7" between WNBC and WOR in '68.

I wonder which of the packages offered between 1964 and '67 would have had Andy Hardy Comes Home and, therefore, went to WCBS-TV. I also noticed an MGM-distributed title, the Japanese monster flick The Mysterians, airing on WCBS pre-1968 and WNBC for several years after 1969.

Three of the pictures in "MGM 30/63" - Fiend Without a Face, First Man Into Space and The Haunted Strangler - were in regular rotation, along with 17 titles from Screen Gems' "Shock!" package and 13 from their "Son of Shock," plus a 1935 MGM picture Mad Love (apparently one from the pre-'48 group that WNBC got after WCBS's rights expired in '64) and the infamous 1956 British sci-fi flick Fire Maidens from Outer Space (whose "Fire Maidens' Dance" segments repeated ad nauseam the "Stranger in Paradise" melody from Borodin's "Polovetsian Dance No. 2," as deservedly skewered by Mystery Science Theatre 3000 in the '90's), on WNBC's short-lived (1965-68) stab at a horror movie showcase, Festival of Thrillers. Most of the films in that group (with the exception of Mad Love) later went to WNEW's Creature Features which lasted a year longer, in its original run, than WNBC's somewhat forgotten horror-film skein (not to mention having a wider variety of flicks in that genre).

It is a mystery to me, however, what were the other 59 titles in "MGM/7" (obviously, I only have 86 listed). I didn't have these lists, but they are very helpful in terms of which films were aired where at a given period.

 

[wbhist]

Another side note: I'll Cry Tomorrow, from the "MGM 30/63" group, was slated to debut on the Saturday night edition of WNBC's Movie 4 on Nov. 23, 1963 - unfortunately, it was one of many programs and film showings on TV stations across the country that were cancelled due to this being the weekend of mourning after the assassination of President Kennedy. Its debut was postponed to Jan. 18, 1964.

And the first film in "MGM 30/63" to be run by WNBC was Blackboard Jungle, on Sept. 21, 1963; the last showing of any film from that package on the weekday afternoon Movie 4 was Somebody Up There Likes Me, on June 5, 1970. The 29 films Channel 4 got in that package were all shifted, by the end of their run on the station, to the late-night Great Great Show and weekend afternoon movie airings.

 

[Hal Erickson]

In Milwaukee, the "30/63" title that was supposed to have been shown on November 24 1963, but was pre-empted by the assassination coverage, was THE TALL TARGET--the story of an attempt on the life of President Lincoln, foiled by a detective named...John Kennedy. Spooky, isn't it?

ANDY HARDY COMES HOME was part of a package of 40 titles called "40/64", made available in 1964. I'm trying to determine exactly the other titles were also included, and have come up with such films as THE CLOWN, ALL THE FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS, THE HAPPY YEARS, TAKE THE HIGH GROUND and TEA AND SYMPATHY.

Though THE MYSTERIANS, a Toho production, was released by MGM, it was originally picked up for American distribution by RKO Radio. When RKO's distribution arm went kaput, the studio turned over several of its intended releases to other companies like Universal, Warners and Columbia. These films were syndicated to TV beginning in 1963 by Showcorporation. Others in this package included I MARRIED A WOMAN, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, STAGE STRUCK, THE GIRL MOST LIKELY and THE NAKED AND THE DEAD. Also in the Showcorporation offerings were Abbott and Costello's two independent films MEET CAPTAIN KIDD and JACK IN THE BEANSTALK, originally released by Warner Bros. but reissued by RKO Radio (through other distributors) in 1960.

 

[wbhist]

ANDY HARDY COMES HOME was part of a package of 40 titles called "40/64", made available in 1964. I'm trying to determine exactly the other titles were also included, and have come up with such films as THE CLOWN, ALL THE FINE YOUNG CANNIBALS, THE HAPPY YEARS, TAKE THE HIGH GROUND and TEA AND SYMPATHY.

So there it is. "MGM 40/64" went to WCBS-TV. Two of the pictures - All the Fine Young Cannibals and Tea and Sympathy - made their NY TV debuts under the banner of the prestigious Schaefer Award Theatre series of special first-run movie showings, in 1968 (on Feb. 24 and Oct. 12, respectively; WCBS had a point of stretching out debut showings over a period of several years from when they first purchased any given film package).

Now, I know that "MGM/6" (made available in 1967, I.I.N.M.) went over to WABC-TV. What was the fifth package, and which films were among it? The answer may explain which station got that one.

 

[wbhist]

Though THE MYSTERIANS, a Toho production, was released by MGM, it was originally picked up for American distribution by RKO Radio. When RKO's distribution arm went kaput, the studio turned over several of its intended releases to other companies like Universal, Warners and Columbia. These films were syndicated to TV beginning in 1963 by Showcorporation. Others in this package included I MARRIED A WOMAN, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, STAGE STRUCK, THE GIRL MOST LIKELY and THE NAKED AND THE DEAD. Also in the Showcorporation offerings were Abbott and Costello's two independent films MEET CAPTAIN KIDD and JACK IN THE BEANSTALK, originally released by Warner Bros. but reissued by RKO Radio (through other distributors) in 1960.

This may explain why, pre-1969, The Mysterians was on WCBS, which also ran The Naked and the Dead (which also had its premiere on Award Theatre) and The Girl Most Likely for years. I.I.N.M., the two A&C films you mentioned ran first on WOR, but by the early 1970's were run on WCBS while their Universal films all went en masse to WPIX after being scattered up to then among WOR, WNBC, WABC (all among the pre-'49) and WCBS (post-'49).

 

[wbhist]

I have another question: Were Love Me or Leave Me and Bend of the River also part of the "MGM 40/64" package, since these titles were also run by WCBS-TV in the latter part of the '60's (and debuted on Award Theatre).

 

[Hal Erickson]

LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME was part of 40/64. So were FATHER'S LITTLE DIVIDEND, CALLAWAY WENT THATAWAY, THE HAPPY YEARS, ON THE TOWN, THE STRATTON STORY, TIP ON A DEAD JOCKEY and TWO WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN. I know of several others, but haven't managed to confirm all 40 titles.

BEND OF THE RIVER was a Universal-International release, and as such was one of 215 pre-1957 Universal films released to TV by Seven Arts in four different packages (each containing from 53 to 54 films) in early 1964.

BTW: Just recently discovered that the 112 Screen Gems "Triple Crown" package of 1958 was followed within a year by the "Sweet 65" package (26 Columbias, 39 Unversals) and the "Powerhouse" package (26 Columbias, 52 Universals). I've put together most of the "Sweet 65" manifest in my research, but after that things get hazy: so many local stations bought all three packages, or selected portions of each, that it's hard to tell which film goes with which block. (Adding to the confusion, some titles like HERE COMES MR.JORDAN and THE LOVES OF CARMEN were offered on an individual basis, if the station was willing to pay a higher price).

 

[wbhist]

BEND OF THE RIVER was a Universal-International release, and as such was one of 215 pre-1957 Universal films released to TV by Seven Arts in four different packages (each containing from 53 to 54 films) in early 1964.

Ah, should have known. That's what one gets for relying on Wikipedia. The presence of Julie Adams in the cast should've been the tipoff.

Was wondering how many of those four packages of 1949-57 U-I films put together by Seven Arts/W-7/Warner Bros. Television that WCBS had snapped up in the 1960's. I know Creature from the Black Lagoon and its sequel, Revenge of the Creature, were among the titles Channel 2 got; plus the latter Abbott & Costellos and such Rock Hudson flicks as Magnificent Obsession and Pillow Talk, plus the Doris Day film Midnight Lace.

 

[Hal Erickson]

PILLOW TALK and MIDNIGHT LACE were part of a fifth 7Arts Package released in 1965, consisting of 100 or so films produced by U-I after 1956, plus a handful of pre-1956 releases like AGAINST ALL FLAGS and MEET DANNY WILSON. Others in this block included OPERATION PETTICOAT, BATTLE HYMN, MISTER CORY, MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, NEVER STEAL ANYTHING SMALL, THE GREAT IMPOSTOR, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR, TOUCH OF EVIL and THE OUTSIDER.
In Milwaukee, the NBC affiliate WTMJ got this fifth package. The other four (215 titles) were acquired en masse by ABC affiliate WITI, which ran them to death!

 

[wbhist]

PILLOW TALK and MIDNIGHT LACE were part of a fifth 7Arts Package released in 1965, consisting of 100 or so films produced by U-I after 1956, plus a handful of pre-1956 releases like AGAINST ALL FLAGS and MEET DANNY WILSON. Others in this block included OPERATION PETTICOAT, BATTLE HYMN, MISTER CORY, MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, NEVER STEAL ANYTHING SMALL, THE GREAT IMPOSTOR, TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR, TOUCH OF EVIL and THE OUTSIDER.
In Milwaukee, the NBC affiliate WTMJ got this fifth package. The other four (215 titles) were acquired en masse by ABC affiliate WITI, which ran them to death!

Ah, thanks. Which of these 7 Arts packages would have originally contained Indiscreet? So I see in NYC, WCBS had the fifth package, probably the other four as well. I know that Operation Petticoat disappeared from that fifth 7 Arts package at the same time That Touch of Mink fell out of the 50-film MCA/Universal package of 1968, and for the same reasons.

 

[Hal Erickson]

INDISCREET was a Warner Bros. film. It was in the fourth of five packages of post-1949 WBs sent out by 7 Arts beginning in 1961. Others in this package (I believe there were 36 titles)included AUNTIE MAME, THE BAD SEED, DAMN YANKEES, THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, PAJAMA GAME, THE SILVER CHALICE, SAYONARA, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW, STORY OF MANKIND and TOO MUCH TOO SOON.

 

[wbhist]

INDISCREET was a Warner Bros. film. It was in the fourth of five packages of post-1949 WBs sent out by 7 Arts beginning in 1961. Others in this package (I believe there were 36 titles)included AUNTIE MAME, THE BAD SEED, DAMN YANKEES, THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, PAJAMA GAME, THE SILVER CHALICE, SAYONARA, SEVEN MEN FROM NOW, STORY OF MANKIND and TOO MUCH TOO SOON.

The Silver Chalice, from my understanding, was part of another package of 41 WB films marketed by 7 Arts for television, that was acquired by WNBC-TV in 1961 and in that station's vaults through 1965 when the films migrated to WNEW-TV. That package also included:
- Along the Great Divide
- The Bounty Hunter
- The Breaking Point
- Bright Leaf
- By the Light of the Silvery Moon
- Captain Horatio Hornblower
- Cattle Town
- The Charge at Feather River
- Close to My Heart
- Crime Wave
- East of Eden
- Force of Arms
- Goodbye, My Fancy
- The Hasty Heart
- His Majesty O'Keefe
- I Confess
- I'll See You in My Dreams
- Illegal (1955, with Edward G. Robinson and Nina Foch)
- Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison
- Jim Thorpe - All American
- Jump Into Hell
- Lucky Me
- The Man Behind the Gun
- Mara Maru (a later Errol Flynn picture)
- The McConnell Story
- Operation Pacific
- Phantom of the Rue Morgue
- Pretty Baby (1950 film with Dennis Morgan and Betsy Drake)
- Raton Pass
- Rocky Mountain
- She's Working Her Way Through College
- Storm Warning
- The Story of Will Rogers
- The System
- The Tanks Are Coming
- Thunder Over the Plains
- Trouble Along the Way
- The West Point Story
- Young at Heart
(One title I have not yet been able to account for.)

WNBC's acquisition was directly influenced by the parent NBC network's purchase of the 30 or so post-'48 Fox films for airing in the first season of Saturday Night at the Movies. Another consequence was that "New York Television Premiere" nights on Movie 4, beginning with the airing of East of Eden on Sept. 23, 1961, were exclusively on Saturdays. Doubtless WCBS's The Late Show largely followed. (And it was WCBS that got that fourth 7 Arts package, with Indiscreet, Sayonara, The Pajama Game, Auntie Mame, Damn Yankees and The FBI Story all having their NY TV debuts under the special Award Theatre banner, and all the titles being fixtures of the station through the early 1970's.)

Yet another 7 Arts package of WB films, snapped up by WOR-TV in 1961, included The High and the Mighty, Rebel Without a Cause, and the 1954 Judy Garland version of A Star Is Born.

 

[wbhist]

A later package, of off-network Warner Bros. features (originally released to theatres between 1959 and 1963) that had aired in the first season of The CBS Thursday Night Movies (1965-66), marked the first "off-network" syndie package of films acquired by WNBC-TV in 1966, for airing on their new Saturday Film Festival which premiered on Sept. 17, 1966 and spotlighted top Hollywood and foreign films, largely released after 1960 (the station also purchased packages from Allied Artists, Embassy Pictures and the Walter Reade Organization for that purpose, with a few lesser titles [such as Machiste Against Hercules in the Valley of Woe] that went to Movie 4 and a few others going to The Great Great Show); WNBC thus became the second network O&O in New York to go the "off-network" route, after WABC (WCBS, by its purchase of Paramount's "Portfolio II" in 1968, with the first titles airing in 1969, was the last). The titles included:
- The Bramble Bush
- Claudelle Inglish
- John Paul Jones
- A Majority of One
- Mary, Mary
- Merrill's Marauders
- Ocean's 11 (the original Frank/Dean/Sammy/Peter/Joey version from 1960)
- Parrish
- Rome Adventure
- Sunrise at Campobello
- Susan Slade
and were held by WNBC through 1973, after which they went to WABC.

 

[wbhist]

As for the 'MGM / 6' package that was snapped up by WABC-TV in or around 1966, this package was notable for its containing the bulk of Esther Williams' musicals of the first half of the 1950's (that is, what was left after what made it to the early post-'48 MGM packages). I haven't gotten all the titles down (if anyone knows what else was part of this package, I'd be happy to hear), but based on old New York Times TV listings (and those in TV Guide), I've gathered these were part of it:
- Adam's Rib
- The Asphalt Jungle
- Athena (1954)
- Betrayed (1954, Clark Gable's last film as an MGM contract player)
- Dangerous When Wet
- Deep in My Heart (1954)
- Designing Woman (1957, starring Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall)
- The Devil Makes Three
- Diane (1956)
- Duchess of Idaho
- Easy to Love
- Everything I Have Is Yours
- Executive Suite
- Father of the Bride
- Forever Darling
- The Great Diamond Robbery (1954, Red Skelton's final film as an MGM contract player)
- Gun Glory
- Holiday for Sinners
- Jailhouse Rock
- Julie (1956)
- Jupiter's Darling
- Key to the City
- Kismet (1955)
- The Light Touch (1952)
- Many Rivers to Cross
- Million Dollar Mermaid
- The Miniver Story
- My Man and I
- The Prodigal (1955)
- Quo Vadis
- Raintree County
- Remains to Be Seen (1953)
- Rose Marie (1954)
- The Seventh Sin (1957)
- Sombrero (1953)
- Strictly Dishonorable (1951)
- The Student Prince (1954)
- The Swan
- The Teahouse of the August Moon
- Texas Carnival
- Two Weeks with Love
- Until They Sail
- When in Rome (1952)
- The Wings of Eagles
(In later years, such MGM films as Gigi and BUtterfield 8 would appear frequently on WABC.)

Scanning old WCBS movie listings, I saw the likes of The Barkleys of Broadway, Ivanhoe, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Skirts Ahoy! and The Red Badge of Courage being shown at one time or another; would they too have been part of '40/64'?

As for another MGM release, The Story of Three Loves, it appears to have been a part of 'MGM/7' - and part of the group that was allotted to WOR.

 

[Hal Erickson]

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME and BARKELEYS OF BROADWAY were part of the original MGM pre-48 package released to TV in 1956. Though both were offiicially released in 1949, both were copyrighted and completed before the September 1948 cutoff date.

 

[wbhist]

TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME and BARKELEYS OF BROADWAY were part of the original MGM pre-48 package released to TV in 1956. Though both were offiicially released in 1949, both were copyrighted and completed before the September 1948 cutoff date.

That's interesting. But what about the others? And were there any other titles that were part of MGM/6 that you know of besides the 44 films I mentioned? (Or for that matter, MGM/7?) And what would have been included in their fifth post-'48 package released to TV?

 

[Hal Erickson]

RED BADGE OF COURAGE was in MGM 40/64. I don't know about the others. So many MGM films appeared all at once in the Milwaukee-Green Bay-Madison market in the years 1965-67 that it's hard to tell which packages they were in.

 

[wbhist]

I noticed that, as with at least two other packages (30/63 and MGM/7), 40/64 was divided between two stations in New York. (And apparently more than 40 films were in this package. More like 70.) While most titles went in New York to WCBS-TV, The Red Badge of Courage was aired on WOR-TV, which got whatever films in each package the other stations (WCBS and WNBC) either didn't want or whatever. Gorgo, which Channel 9 got, seemed to be a part of 40/64.

I counted more than 40 post-'50 MGM titles held by WCBS as of the mid-to-late 1960's.

I also saw a few other titles held by WABC that could've constituted the balance of MGM/6 (though some may postdate it, I'll admit):
- Action of the Tiger
- All Fall Down
- Arena (1953)
- The Big Operator
- Calling Bulldog Drummond
- Confidentially Connie
- Corridors of Blood
- Decision Against Time
- Dunkirk (1958)
- Fast Company (1953)
- The Girl Who Had Everything
- Girls Town (?)
- Give a Girl a Break
- Go Naked in the World
- Half a Hero
- The Hired Gun
- Hot Summer Night
- The House of the Seven Hawks (?)
- Imitation General
- Inside Straight
- Intruder in the Dust
- Jeopardy (1953)
- Julius Caesar (1953)
- King of Kings (1961)
- Lolita (1962)
- Lust for Life
- The Mating Game
- A Matter of Who
- Mystery Street
- Never So Few
- Night of the Quarter Moon
- Prisoner of War (1954)
- Ride, Vaquero!
- Shadow in the Sky
- Slander
- Soldiers Three (1951)
- Some Came Running
- Something of Value
- Sunday in New York (?)
- 36 Hours (?)
- Three Guys Named Mike
- Too Young to Kiss
- Underwater Warrior
- The Unknown Man
- Washington Story
- Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory (?)
- Young Man with Ideas