Broadcast Log for NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, Season 2

NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was the first regularly scheduled network movie night to feature post-1948 movies when it premiered in September 1961. The movies were broadcast uncut and unedited and longer films that would not fit in the regular 9-11PM time slot were allowed to run past 11PM.

The second season bowed on September 22nd, 1962 and ended on September 14th, 1963. A total of 30 films were broadcast, followed by 22 summer repeats.

Season 2: 1962-1963
Ep. # Title Airdate Format
31. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 09/22/1962 Color
32. Broken Lance 09/29/1962 Color
33. The Egyptian 10/06/1962 Color
34. Three Coins in the Fountain 10/13/1962 Color
35. River of No Return 10/20/1962 Color
36. Mister Scoutmaster 10/27/1962 B&W
37. Beneath the 12-Mile Reef 11/03/1962 Color
38. The Desert Rats 11/10/1962 B&W
39. White Witch Doctor 11/17/1962 Color
40. Sailor of the King 11/24/1962 B&W
41. Night People 12/01/1962 Color
42. No Down Payment 12/08/1962 B&W
43. Desiree 12/15/1962 Color
44. Red Skies of Montana 12/22/1962 Color
45. Rawhide 12/29/1962 B&W
46. Decision Before Dawn 01/05/1963 B&W
47. The Sun Also Rises 01/12/1963 Color
48. Women’s World 01/19/1963 Color
49. Deadline U.S.A. 01/26/1963 B&W
50. Niagara 02/02/1963 Color
51. Kangaroo 02/09/1963 Color
52. The Long Hot Summer 02/16/1963 Color
53. The President’s Lady 02/23/1963 B&W
54. The Roots of Heaven 03/02/1963 Color
55. In Love and War 03/09/1963 Color
56. A Certain Smile 03/16/1963 Color
57. Fraulein 03/23/1963 Color
58. Ten North Frederick 03/30/1963 B&W
59. Night and the City 04/06/1963 B&W
60. I’d Climb the Highest Mountain 04/13/1963 Color
 
*Summer Repeats Begin*
 
REP Broken Lance 04/20/1963 Color
REP Three Coins in the Fountain 04/27/1963 Color
REP Night People 05/04/1963 Color
REP Red Skies in Montana 05/11/1963 Color
REP Gentlemen Prefer Blondes 05/18/1963 Color
REP The Egyptian 05/25/1963 Color
REP River with No Return 06/01/1963 Color
REP The Desert Rats 06/08/1963 B&W
REP Beneath the 12-Mile Reef 06/15/1963 Color
REP White Witch Doctor 06/22/1963 Color
REP Sailor of the King 06/29/1963 B&W
REP The President’s Lady 07/06/1963 B&W
REP The Sun Also Rises 07/13/1963 Color
REP Decision Before Dawn 07/20/1963 B&W
REP Woman’s World 07/27/1963 Color
REP Kangaroo 08/03/1963 Color
REP Niagara 08/10/1963 Color
REP The Long Hot Summer 08/17/1963 Color
REP The Roots of Heaven 08/24/1963 Color
REP Fraulein 08/31/1963 Color
REP A Certain Smile 09/07/1963 Color
REP Ten North Frederick 09/14/1963 B&W

NBC Saturday Night at the Movie remained on the air until September 1978. It has reappeared sporadically ever since.


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8 Replies to “Broadcast Log for NBC Saturday Night at the Movies, Season 2”

  1. Again, the network renewed their exclusive contract with 20th Century-Fox for another “package” of assorted 1950-’58 feature films– 19 of them in color (in summer repeats, more color films were shown than those in black and white, as NBC- and parent company RCA- was determined to “push” color TV to a mass audience, while CBS and ABC really had no interest in doing so at that time). But the ones originally released in “CinemaScope” [including “Beneath the 12-Mile Reef” and “Three Coins in the Fountain”] were subject to “pan and scan” repositionings in a standard screen ratio, enabling viewers to often see someone talking to another person “off-camera”, then seeing the other person for a brief moment before another “tracking shot” occured. Not the best way to see a “widescreen” film on TV back then…

    Meanwhile, MCA/Universal noticed how successful NBC’s Saturday movies were doing…and decided to make their own deal with the network to lease some of their theatrical “chestnuts”…AND what they called “Project 120” (basically expanded versions of the kind of stories often seen on a half-hour or hour-long “anthology” series)…but that happened the following season, so you’ll just have to wait to see what kind of deal THAT was.

  2. ‘NBC Saturday Night at the Movies’ failed to crack the Top 30 again in season two, ending the regular season with a 19.3HH/32% average. Some of the titles got breakthrough numbers:

    #35. RIVER OF NO RETURN oad:10/20/1962 25.9HH/44% (Saturday season high)

    #52. THE LONG HOT SUMMER oad:02/16/1963 24.6HH/40%

    Starting at midseason, NBC also opened up a “spinoff” second movie night for theatricals, skedding the ‘NBC Monday Night at the Movies’ skein 7:30-9:30 pm and replacing two hour-longers, ‘It’s a Mans World’ and ‘Saints & Sinners’. The premiere of the new movie series came two nights after the big Nielsen for THE LONG HOT SUMMER, and the Saturday movie skein was no doubt chock-a-bock full of promos for the new movie night.

    ‘NBC Monday Night at the Movies’ averaged a 17.7HH/28% over the 1962/63 regular season. The new series debuted on Monday February 18, 1963 with the broadcast premiere of HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON which did well up against fresh episodes of ‘The Dakotas’ / ‘The Rifleman’ / ‘Stoney Burke’ on ABC and ‘To Tell the Truth’ / ‘I’ve Got a Secret’ / ‘The Lucy Show’ / ‘The Danny Thomas Show’ on CBS:

    #1. HEAVEN KNOWS, MR. ALLISON oad: 02/18/63 25.7HH/38% (season high)

    I don’t have the ‘NBC Monday Night at the Movies’ titles handy for the rest of the season through to early April, but I’ll try to dig them up.

    The other movie skein that debuted in the 1962-63 season was the one-season ‘The ABC Sunday Night Movie’ on Sundays at 8-10 pm…it would return in the 1964-65 season as a 9-11 pm series.

    In its debut season, ‘The ABC Sunday Night Movie’ debuted with a 16.2HH/24%, which while not as high as NBC’s Saturday and Monday entries, still outpaced the Alphabet season average that year of 14.9HH.

    I also have a notation (probably from Variety) that the average license fee paid for ‘NBC Saturday Night at the Movies’ was $100,000 per title. I don’t have the license fee numbers for ABC that year.

    One of the things I remember about why these feature film series became au courant in the early sixties was that the major movie distributors had become a little too successful peddling their films to independent stations and network affiliates, who would often pre-empt network fare to show a film. The network movie nights were a pre-emptive move that helped their affiliates compete against indies, especially in the major markets.

    Around this time, the major movie distributors also loosened up access to their libraries, no longer licensing just their old B&W titles, although the head of MGM declared solemnly to worry-bead-grasping film exhibitors that GONE WITH THE WIND would never ever be shown on television (that declaration was upheld until the 1970s).

  3. VERY pertinent information, ‘DuMont’, and I’m sure ‘RGJ’ appreciates it as well.

    Yes, as ABC did, when faced with the collapse of most of their Sunday night schedule in April 1962, replaced it with “HOLLYWOOD SPECIAL” (which, I believe, initially leased films from the United Artists catalogue)- officially becoming “THE SUNDAY NIGHT MOVIE” when it resumed in September 1964- NBC plugged the “hole” in their mid-season Monday night line-up with “MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES”, although that edition ended after the 1963-’64 season [yet returned to fill another “programming hole” in the fall of 1968].

    The theatrical exhibitors had NOTHING to worry about when it came to “Gone With the Wind”- MGM was making too much money reissuing it every few years or so- especially in that cropped 70mm “letterbox” edition in the ’60s- to release it for network and local stations’ use, finally leasing it to NBC for a “one time only” November 1976 telecast {as a two-part “BIG EVENT” special} because the network gave Metro a “big payday” for the right to telecast it….

  4. Oh, yes, speaking of MGM- they were among the first of the major studios, other than Fox, to lease NBC some of their post-’49 library features for showing on their “movie nights”, beginning in the fall of 1963. For example, “Singin’ In the Rain” was supposed to be presented on network television for the first time on the November 25, 1963 installment of “MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES”- but President Kennedy’s assassination that weekend, and his funeral on Monday [NO regular commercial telecasts were carried on the three networks from 2pm(et) on November 22nd through the end of the broadcast day on the 25th], it was postponed and rescheduled for early ’64.

  5. …and MGM was among the first studios, other than 20th Century-Fox, to lease their more recent films for NBC’s movie nights in the fall of 1963. For example, “Singin’ In the Rain” (1952) was supposed to premiere as the November 25, 1963 installment of “NBC MONDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES”. But President Kennedy’s assassination on the 22nd- and funeral on the 25th- forced all three networks to suspend their normal programming schedules until Tuesday morning, the 26th. As a result, “Singin’ In the Rain” was postponed until the beginning of 1964. I’m sure ‘RGJ’ will reveal the full story of NBC’s 1963-’64 Saturday and Monday movie nights in his next article…

  6. Actually, the “Hollywood Special” title was only in use for its first few months on ABC; it was by fall 1962 that “The Sunday Night Movie” became the title (as, indeed, it would be known when it came back to stay in 1964; modified to “The ABC Sunday Night Movie” after the alphabet network added Wednesday movies to its schedule in 1967).

    CBS, of course, was the last to make the plunge to showing major movies, in 1965 (the year they started airing in color on a regular basis), with “The CBS Thursday Night Movies” which featured flicks from such studios as Warner Bros., Paramount, Columbia and United Artists. The WB films shown in that maiden season (among them the original Frank Sinatra “Ocean’s 11”) later became part of the “Warner Bros. Two” package that was syndicated to local stations by Warners’ starting in 1966 (WNBC-TV in New York ran films in that package – a combo of first-run and off-network – on its local movie shows through 1973, after which they went to WABC-TV for a few years).

  7. Actually Volume 13 Was Syndicated To Local Stations including NBC Affilliate KING-TV Channel 5 In September 1969 Was Movies From Warner Bros Including “The Battle Of The Villa Fiorita (1965)”,”The Bramble Bush (1960)”,”Cheyenne Autumn (1964)”,”Claudelle Inglish (1961)”,”FBI Code 98 (1964)”,”Four For Texas (1963)”,”A Majority Of One (1962)”,Merrill’s Mauraders (1962)”,”The Music Man (1962)”,”Parrish (1961)”,”Rome Adventure (1962)”, And “The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die (1965)” on the other hand Volume 14 Was Syndicated To Local Stations Including NBC Affilliate KING-TV Channel 5 In September 1970 Was Movies From Warner Bros Including “Badman’s Country (1958)”,”Black Gold (1963)”,”The Couch (1962)”,”House Of Women (1962)”,”Lad A Dog (1962)”,”Never Too Late (1965)”,”Ocean’s 11 (1960)”,”Robin And The Seven Hoods (1964)”,”Sunrise At Campobello (1960)”,”Susan Slade (1961)”,”The Third Day (1965)” And “What Ever Happened To Baby Jane (1962)” Volume 15 Was Syndicated To Local Stations Including NBC Affilliate KING-TV Channel 5 In September 1971 Was Movies From Warner Bros As Well As Other Independent Producers “An American Dream (1966)”,”The Cool Ones (1967)”,”Mary,Mary (1963)” And 21 More Volume 16 Was Syndicated To Local Stations Including NBC Affilliate KING-TV Channel 5 In September 1972 Including “Harper (1966)”,”The Battle Of The Bulge (1965)”,”30 (1959)” Volume 17 Was Syndicated To Local Stations In September 1973 Including NBC Affilliate KING-TV Channel 5 In Seattle Had 18 Features Including “America America (1963)”,Brainstorm (1965)”,”Chamber Of Horrors (1966)”,”Chubasco (1968)”,”Countdown (1968)”,”Dr.Crippen (1964)”,”The Family Way (1967)”,”First To Fight (1967)”,”The Great Bank Robbery (1969)”,”The Green Berets (1968)”,”The Illustrated Man (1969)”,”Kung Fu (1972)”,”The Naked Runner (1967)”,”Petulia (1968)”,”Probe (1972)”,”The Streets Of San Francisco (1972)”,”Two On A Gullotine (1965)”,”Wait Until Dark (1967)”,Volume 18 Was Syndicated To Local Stations Including NBC Affilliate KING-TV Channel 5 In Seattle Had 18 Features Including “Any Wednesday (1966)”,”Assignment To Kill (1968)”,”Bonnie And Clyde (1967)”,”Bullitt (1968),”Chisum (1970)”,”Cool Hand Luke (1967)”,”Climb An Angry Mountain (1972)”,”The Delphi Bureau (1972)”,”The Eyes Of Charles Sand (1972)”,”Fanny (1961)”,”Flap (1970)”,”Giant (1956)”,”Key West (1973)”,”Moon Zero Two (1970)””My Blood Runs Cold (1965)”,”One You Kiss A Stranger (1969)”,The Phynx (1970)”,”Rabbit Run (1970)”,”Trog (1970)”

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