In New York, Mr. Smith... had an interesting trajectory. Its NYC TV debut fell on June 26, 1959 on WCBS-TV (Channel 2), as the second presentation of the Schaefer Award Theatre which aired several times a year in place of their regular late night umbrella, The Late Show. It remained a staple of the station through the 1960's, after which it settled for a few years at WABC-TV (Channel 7); there, one of its airings was in 1968 (on July 29, in fact) on what was then known as The Big Show (before it attained the title that called attention to its start time - The 4:30 Movie). Then from 1969 and for much of the 1970's, it was a fixture on WOR-TV (Channel 9), playing every so often on the likes of Million Dollar Movie and their other showcases. Finally by the 1980's it was playing on WNEW-TV (Channel 5) in its last years as such before becoming WNYW.
However, on all these stations, this classic was played in some cases with cuts, and definitely in the form of a 16mm print that became even more used as the years went on (and frequently with auto aperture that affected the lightness in each station's film chains from one cut to the next). On TCM, one can see it in pristine glory.
