The ABC Sunday Night Movie

"The ABC Sunday Night Movie" was a television program that aired on Sunday nights, first for a brief time in 1962, and then regularly from 1964 to 1998, on ABC.

History

Edits for television

The program presented theatrical feature films airing on TV for the first time. The feature films were edited for content, to remove objectionable material, and for time - one such instance was the first network telecast of John Huston's 1956 film "Moby Dick", which runs 117 minutes uncut, and yet was shown in a two-hour time slot with commercials. In many cases, however, the broadcast was expanded from two to two-and-a-half hours to fit a film's longer running time, as in the two 1966 network telecasts of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" (not to be confused with the 1967 television adaptation of the musical, also broadcast by ABC). The first major network showing of "Superman" in 1982 was broadcast in two parts with previously unused footage.

Because the concept of letterboxing films for television had not been introduced yet, the films shown were also pan-and-scanned so the image would fit the standard 4:3 television screen.

James Bond franchise

In 1972, ABC bought the broadcasting rights to the James Bond franchise; this continued until 1990 where, "The Living Daylights" was the final film aired prior to Turner Broadcasting buying the TV airing rights. The Bond films have also aired on several cable channels not owned by Turner. ABC broadcast the films again for a brief period in the early 2000s.

"ABC Sunday Movie Special"

Occasionally, "The ABC Sunday Night Movie" would telecast what they termed an "ABC Sunday Movie Special", i.e. a film running three hours or more (counting the commercials). When the movie in question was a family film, the telecasts would begin at an earlier hour, so that the film would end at around 11:00 p.m, enabling younger viewers to watch without having to stay up too late. The Movie Specials invariably consisted of blockbusters, such as "The Bridge on the River Kwai", "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oliver!", "Patton", and "The Ten Commandments". The last-named film continues its television career on ABC today, having become, like "The Wizard of Oz", an annual television tradition. It is usually shown during the Palm Sunday or Easter weekend. The telecast of "Patton", which took place in 1972, was remarkably mature, in that very little of the film's profanity was cut for television.

Method of presenting films throughout the 1960s and 1970s

"The ABC Sunday Night Movie" had a rather unusual method of presenting their films throughout the 1960s and '70s. Except on rare occasions, such as the aforementioned "Movie Specials", or films which already had a pre-credits sequence that led directly into the main title and so could not be altered, the opening credits of the particular film in question generally would not be shown until after the movie had ended. Instead, a teaser from the film was shown, whereupon an offscreen announcer (e.g. Joel Crager) would say the name of the film and its stars, and then the credit "The ABC Sunday Night Movie" would appear. A commercial would then follow, and when the program started up again, one would see the screenwriter and the director's names respectively - superimposed over the film's opening scene in credits manufactured by ABC. At film's end, another commercial would follow, after which, somewhat anti-climactically, the movie's actual opening credits, together with the studio logo, would then be presented, as if the film were starting up again. None of the other networks' movie anthologies ever presented the opening credits of a film in this manner.

Weekday versions

From 1968 to 1970, ABC ran a concurrent movie series on Wednesday nights, under the title "The ABC Wednesday Night Movie".

A Tuesday night "ABC Movie of the Week" featuring only made-for-TV movies was added in 1969. The series was renamed "Tuesday Movie of the Week" and a Wednesday night "Wednesday Movie of the Week", also presenting only made-for-TV films, was added in 1972. Both series continued until 1975.

From 1975 to 1983 (and again, briefly, in 1999) ABC ran a concurrent movie series on Friday nights, under the title "The ABC Friday Night Movie".

Announcers

For many years, until the early 1980s, the announcer for all of ABC's movie shows was network staff announcer [http://www.musicradio77.com/joelcragerprofile.html Joel Crager] . Afterwards, the duties would be handled first by Ernie Anderson, and then others.

Decline due to the advent of cable networks

The advent of HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, and others, which broadcast theatrical films on cable before they appear on commercial television, led to the decline (relatively speaking) of theatrical films airing on network TV. Whereas one used to be able to see a theatrical film on prime time network television every night of the week, this is now done only occasionally.

References

External links

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