American TV series or program
The NBC Monday Movie
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Also known as
| Monday Night at the Movies
Wednesday Night at the Movies
Tuesday Night at the Movies
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Country of origin
| United States
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Original language
| English
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|
Running time
| 120 mins. (approx)
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Network
| NBC
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Release
| February 4, 1963
(
1963-02-04
)
?
2003
(
2003
)
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The NBC Monday Movie
was a television
anthology series
of films that debuted on February 4, 1963 (in the middle of the
1962-63 season)
. It was referred to as
Monday Night at the Movies
prior to the mid-1980s. Contrary to popular contemporary belief, the corporate initials, "NBC", were, at first, not part of the official title for the network's anthologies of old movies, and would not be for years to come. Thus, in 1964, when the show was transferred by the network's programming executives to Wednesday nights, it became
Wednesday Night at the Movies
. And in 1965, when the program moved to Tuesdays, it became
Tuesday Night at the Movies
. It would remain there until 1969.
[1]
The name would henceforth change depending on whichever night of the week the program aired. Moreover, by 1968, there was once again a weekly
Monday Night at the Movies
on the air.
[2]
It ran until 1997.
In the latter years of
Monday Night at the Movies'
run, more and more
made-for-TV movies
were showcased, while theatrical films, fewer in number, were
edited
for content, to remove objectionable material, and occasionally, but not always, to reduce the film's running time to fit into the two-hour time slot. Most widescreen films were
pan-and-scanned
so the image would fit the standard 4:3 television screen (as opposed to
letterbox
format). An exception was the 1951 film version of
Show Boat
, which made its television debut on
Monday Night at the Movies
in 1972.
Show Boat
had been produced by
MGM
before the advent of widescreen American films in 1953. It was a rather unusual offering since (then) it was a twenty-one-year-old film. (In fact, the oldest film shown on any of NBC's "At the Movies" anthologies was
Saratoga Trunk
(1945), which aired on
Saturday Night at the Movies
, January 13, 1968,
[3]
23 years after its Hollywood premiere.)
Background
[
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]
The idea for the show came about when advertisers opted out of two 60-minute shows the network ran on Monday nights for the 1962?1963 season --
It's A Man's World
(from 7:30-8:30 pm, Eastern Time) and
Saints and Sinners
(from 8:30-9:30), the latter of which suffered from having "no chemistry, and never any real ratings."
[4]
Having experienced some audience success with
Saturday Night at the Movies
ever since its premiere in Fall 1961, the network decided to acquire more
feature films
as a stop-gap measure for NBC's dismal numbers on Monday nights. Thus, a package of 42 movies from
20th Century Fox
and 35 titles from
MGM
were purchased by the network for both its Monday and Saturday night movie series at a cost of $14 million.
[5]
With a 7:30 pm (EST) start time, the movies of the show's first season were made up of mostly action-adventures, an occasional romance such as
My Cousin Rachel
, and two
Pat Boone
musicals. These films usually ran under 100 minutes, the normal running-time for a two-hour movie slot (with commercial interruptions) in 1963.
The first two series of films (February 1963-April 1964)
[
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]
The first incarnation of
Monday Night at the Movies
lasted from February 1963 until early September 1964. Despite the promise of big name stars each week, the series was no match for the
CBS
lineup of game shows and sitcoms such as
The Lucy Show
and
The Danny Thomas Show
. In hopes of better ratings and to re-coup some of their investment, the films in the second list below would be re-broadcast on
Saturday Night at the Movies
in the late spring and summer of 1964.
[6]
Unless otherwise indicated, all films aired from 7:30pm?9:30pm Eastern Time on Monday Nights. The last number in the second list below notes the Nielsen rating the movie received:
[7]
These first sixteen titles (all produced by 20th Century Fox studios) were aired on the following dates:
[8]
From here through September 9, the above titles were rerun on Monday nights. None of them appeared on NBC's other film series,
Saturday Night at the Movies
. The second season began below and mixed in MGM titles with those of 20th Century Fox. Like the above-listed films, these were all television premieres. The Nielsen ratings are listed next to the release year of each title.
One interesting note: There is no entry below for November 25, 1963. This was the Monday after the Friday that
President John Kennedy
was assassinated. Monday was the date of the state funeral, which was given all-day coverage by the networks. Understandably, NBC thus postponed broadcasting the musical
Singin' in the Rain
(originally slated for 1963-11-25) until later in the season.
From here, reruns were shown for the remainder of the season until mid-September 1964, when NBC announced that it would discontinue
Monday Night at the Movies
. Instead, a new prime-time movie night, Wednesdays, from 9 until 11 p.m. (ET), became the time slot for the network's alternative film anthology during
the 1964?65 season
[9]
while Saturday nights remained a mainstay for NBC's film broadcasts.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Luft, Eric v d (21 September 2009).
Die at the Right Time!: A Subjective Cultural History of the American Sixties
. Gegensatz Press.
ISBN
978-1-933237-39-8
. Retrieved
14 December
2023
– via Google Books.
- ^
Prime Time TV Schedule 1967 Season
getty.net (Cached by
Internet Archive
)
- ^
"View" TV Magazine.
Gettysburg Times
(January 13, 1968): p. 2.
)
- ^
Hyatt, Wesley (6 October 2015).
Short-Lived Television Series, 1948-1978: Thirty Years of More Than 1,000 Flops
. McFarland.
ISBN
978-1-4766-0515-9
. Retrieved
14 December
2023
– via Google Books.
- ^
UPI Interview with Don Bays, in charge of movies at NBC. Western Kansas Press, Great Bend, April 27, 1963
- ^
TV Listings Pages;San Antonio Light Newspaper; San Antonio, TX; September 1963-April 1964
- ^
World Radio History
- ^
February?May 1963 TV listings of
The New York Times
- ^
Adams, Val. "NBC-TV Acquires Post-1948 Movies: Buys Paramount Features for Showing in Fall."
New York Times
. (February 12, 1964): p. 67.
External links
[
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]
Motion picture television series on NBC
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Movie umbrella titles
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