Of course, NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was not the very first movie anthology show to air on an American broadcast network. ABC had aired an earlier movie anthology series, Famous Film Festival, in the 1955-1956 season. What set Famous Film Festival apart from Saturday Night at the Movies is that it was only aired in black and white and it aired British films from J. Arthur Rank Productions. Furthermore, it was only ninety minutes in length, so that films were either heavily edited or aired in two parts. In 1957 ABC aired Hollywood Film Festival, which aired movies from RKO made before 1948. What set NBC Saturday Night at the Movies apart from these two earlier movie anthologies is that it aired films made after 1948 in colour and with minimal editing for time and content (at least in the early days).
The impetus behind the creation behind the creation of Saturday Night at the Movies was quite simply rival CBS's line-up on Saturday night. CBS dominated the night with Perry Mason (no. 16 in the Nielsen ratings for the 1960-1961 season), Checkmate (no. 21 for the same season), Have Gun--Will Travel (no. 3 for the year), and Gunsmoke (the no. 1 show on television). It was then in order to better compete with CBS that NBC bought the broadcast rights to 31 films made after 1949 from 20th Century Fox. The first movie aired on Saturday Night at the Movies was How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). While the film was eight years old, it was still much more recent than many of the films that had previously aired on American television. Other films aired in the first season of Saturday Night at the Movies included There's No Business Like Show Business (1954), Broken Arrow (1950), Cheaper By The Dozen (1950), and The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). The most recent film aired that first season was Soldier of Fortune (1955).
The length of any given edition of NBC Saturday Night at the Movies could vary. When a film did not fill out the entire two hours scheduled, theatrical trailers or "making of" featurettes would be shown after the movie. Sometimes longer movies would run past the two hours usually scheduled, pushing back the late local news by a few minutes. As some of the films were filmed in widescreen processes, some films were panned-and-scanned to fit the aspect ratio of television screens of the era. Letterboxing would not exist for decades.
Saturday Night at the Movies did indeed make NBC more competitive with its rival CBS. In fact, Gunsmoke began dropping gradually in the ratings over the following seasons. In the 1961-1962 season it had dropped to no. 3. In the 1962-1963 season it dropped to no.10. By the 1966-1967 season Gunsmoke had dropped out of the top 30 of the Nielsen ratings for the year and CBS executives cancelled the show. The furore that ensued over the cancellation of the Western, not to mention the fact that it was the favourite show of Babe Paley (wife of CBS's CEO William S. Paley) led to it being returned to the schedule in a new Monday night timeslot.
The success of Saturday Night at the Movies also led to further movie anthologies, both on NBC and other networks. It was during the 1962-1963 season that NBC found itself without sponsors for the shows It's a Man's World and Saints and Sinners on Monday night. As it is, neither show ever had any success in the Nielsen ratings. At the same time NBC wanted to compete with rival CBS's powerful Monday night line-up, which included such hits as The Lucy Show, The Danny Thomas Show, and The Andy Griffith Show. NBC then decided to air another movie anthology show on Monday nights. They purchased $15 million worth of movies from MGM and 20th Century Fox, including The Asphalt Jungle (1950), Father of the Bride (1950), Life is a Many Spendored Thing (1955), and Executive Suite (1954) among others. Monday Night at the Movies debuted on February 4 1963. It did not repeat the success of Saturday Night at the Movies. so NBC moved its second movie anthology to Wednesday nights for the 1964-1965 season. For the 1965-1966 season NBC's second movie anthology was moved to Tuesday nights, where it would remain for years.
It was not long after NBC debuted Monday Night at the Movies that ABC debuted its first movie anthology, Hollywood Special, on Sunday night. ABC had purchased 15 United Artists movies for Hollywood Special. Debuting on April 8 1962, it would not return for the 1963-1964 season. It was at the start of the 1964-1965 season that ABC launched the successor to Hollywood Special, The ABC Sunday Night Movie. It remained on the air until 1998. As to CBS, as the no. 1 network, it held off on its first movie anthology until the 1965-1966 season. That season CBS launched CBS Thursday Night Movies.
The demand for movies on the various movie anthology shows on the networks would lead to the production of made-for-TV movies. While the first made-for-TV movie is generally considered See How They Run in 1964 (more on that later), an argument can be made that they had existed since the Fifties. There were filmed TV specials that exceeded an hour in length, such as The Pied Piper of Hamelin in 1957, that could be counted as made-for-TV movies. There were also filmed episodes of such anthology shows as Hallmark Hall of Fame and Playhouse 90 that were longer than an hour that could also qualify as made-for-TV movies. Regardless, it was in the 1963-1964 season that NBC and Universal (then two separate companies) decided to produce made-for-TV movies. The first made-for-TV movie in the project was to have been an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's The Killers, but it was deemed too violent for broadcast and was released theatrically instead. The first to actually be broadcast was then See How They Run, starring John Forsythe. It aired on October 7 1964 and ushered in the era of made-for-TV movies.
While the television networks began making made-for-TV movies, the feature films aired on the various movie anthologies gradually became more recent in vintage. When How to Marry a Millionaire aired on the first edition of Saturday Night at the Movies, it was eight years old. In the 1963-1964 season there was another Marilyn Monroe vehicle, Lets Make Love (1960). It was only three years old when it aired on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies. As the Sixties progressed, films aired on the various network movie anthologies could be as young as two years old, a sharp contrast to when Saturday Night at the Movies had debuted.
Over the years a number of different announcers worked on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies In its early years the most familiar might have been Don Stanley, who also served as an announcer for other NBC shows as well as for KNBC in Los Angeles. Later on such announcers as Donald Rickles, Peggy Taylor, and Victor Bozeman worked on the show. For much of the movie anthology's run, its announcers all worked out of NBC's studios in Burbank, but towards the end of its run their announcers from New York would announce the movies, even though the bumpers were still handled by the West Coast announcing staff.
As mentioned earlier, movies were occasionally edited to fit in the allotted time and for content as well. Editing for content would become a greater cause for concern as the Sixties progressed. In fact, in at least one instance a film was edited so heavily that it became an entirely different movie. Under the title Kiss of Evil, the Hammer film The Kiss of the Vampire (1963) aired on NBC Saturday Night at the Movies on March 18 1967. In editing the film for television, the movie's American distributor, Universal, trimmed so much time that new footage had to be shot in order for it to fit in the allotted time. The new footage introduced characters who interact with no one else in the movie.
The success of NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was so great that by 1968 there was a movie anthology on every night of the week. NBC itself had three different movie anthologies on the schedule. It was perhaps because of the glut of movie anthologies on the network's schedule that eventually NBC Saturday Night at the Movies would go into decline. While other movie anthologies would continue into the Nineties and even the Naughts, NBC Saturday Night at the Movies ended its original run in October 1978. It was revived for a time in the 2000-2001 season. Since then NBC has only occasionally shown theatrical movies. Since May 2020 NBC has irregularly aired movies under the title NBC Movie Night.
While NBC Saturday Night at the Movies would not last as long as other movie anthologies, it was the one that had the most impact. It was the first to air recently released movies and in colour at that. Its success spurred the creation of further movie anthologies, some of which lasted into this century. In the end NBC Saturday Night at the Movies changed American television to such a point that it would not be the same without it.
3 comments:
Hi Terence, here's my post for tonight's blogathon... hope all good with you
https://weegiemidget.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/films-venom-1981/
Terence, I really enjoyed your fine write-up on the influential NBC SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES(1961-78). It brings back some very fond memories. I grew up out in the hinterlands, so I didn't live down the street from a movie theater, as if my parents would take me to see a movie, anyway. For people out in the hinterlands NBC SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES was a big event. My Mother would sometimes fix popcorn and our family would watch the movie, and what really good movies they were, as I look back. Also, we watched the NBC MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES, later on the NBC WEDNESDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES, and the NBC TUESDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES.
The first movies that I remember anything about, if my memory serves me right, were: THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK(filmed 1958, released 1959), THE NAKED SPUR(filmed 1952, released 1953), THE WINGS OF EAGLES(filmed 1956, released 1957), and THE LOST WORLD(1960). I would whistle the “Anchors Aweigh” tune from THE WINGS OF EAGLES. All these wonderful movies had their prime time network premieres on the NBC SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES and the NBC MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES during the 1963-64 season.
The earliest made-for-tv movie that I recall viewing was THE BORGIA STICK starring Don Murray, Inger Stevens, and Barry Nelson. It first aired on the NBC SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES on 2/25/67. If my memory serves me right, announcer Don Stanley told the audience that we were to be presented with a NBC WORLD PREMIERE MOVIE. Some how, or other I missed the airing of SEE HOW THEY RUN, but I did catch it later on the WREC Channel 3 Memphis, Tennessee FRIDAY NIGHT MOVIE in 1969.
Well, I've rambled on enough. Thank you for the memories. Take care and have good health.
Best,
Walter S.
A few other announcers may have worked on the program in the early years besides Mr. Stanley and Mr. Rickles, including John Storm, Arch Presby, and definitely Frank Barton and Eddy King. About a year after Storm's 1969 retirement, was when Victor Bozeman first joined NBC Burbank's announcing staff (he was only the second African-American full-time staff announcer hired by the network, after New York-based Fred Facey in 1967); and following Presby's retirement in 1972, Peggy Taylor joined in the early spring of 1973. (Mr. Barton retired in 1974, and Mr. King in or about 1977; neither would be replaced, and indeed the quartet of Stanley, Rickles, Bozeman and Taylor would hold until Rickles' death in 1985, Bozeman's in 1986, Ms. Taylor's retirement in 1989, and Mr. Stanley's in 1992 - in fact, he was the last, as he would put it, to "turn off the lights" in the Burbank announcer's booth).
And it was Ms. Taylor who was bumper announcer on one of the very last "Saturday Night at the Movies" editions - the October 1978 airing of the infamous "Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park." But she was not exactly finished with that film, nor it with her. A few years later it was repeated on their graveyard, late-Sunday-night "NBC Late Night Movie." The announcer handling bumpers for that broadcast? Peggy Taylor.
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