CBS Thursday Night Movie

CBS Thursday Night Movie

Still frame from the animated CBS "color" logo, used by the network at the start of each broadcast of the Thursday Night Movie that featured a color film.
Genre Film Anthology
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
Production
Running time 2 hours or more (depending on feature's length)
Release
Original network CBS
Original release September 16, 1965 – November 13, 1975

CBS Thursday Night Movie was CBS's first venture into the weekly televising of then-recent theatrical films, debuting at the start of the 1965-66 season, from 9:00 to 11 p.m. (Eastern Time). CBS was the last of the three U.S. major television networks to schedule a regular prime-time array of movies. Unlike its two competitors (NBC and ABC), CBS had delayed running feature films at the behest of the network's hierarchy.[1] Indeed, as far back as the early 1960s, when Paramount Pictures had been offering a huge backlog of post-1948 titles for sale to television,[2] James T. Aubrey, program director at CBS, negotiated with the studio to buy the package for the network. Aubrey summed up his thinking this way: "I decided that the feature film was the thing for TV. A $250,000 specially-tailored television show just could not compete with a film that cost three or four million dollars."[3] However, CBS's chairman, William Paley, who considered the scheduling of old movies "uncreative," vetoed the Paramount transaction.

It was not until after Aubrey's controversial ouster from CBS in early 1965 that Paley finally conceded on the issue and cleared the way for the network to embark on its own prime-time weekly movie broadcast.[4] After initial rounds of negotiations with various studios had been completed that year, CBS finally acquired the exclusive rights to televise a total of 90 titles from Columbia Pictures, United Artists, Paramount, and Warner Brothers—news of which resulted in rumors that the network would actually slate films for two prime-time nights rather than just one.[5] This scheduling addition, however, would not be made until a season later; but reports of further meetings between CBS and Columbia over the acquisition of 20 more titles signaled that the network was now a serious movie-night contender.[6] The Thursday Night Movie thus began on September 16, 1965, with the TV debut of the original The Manchurian Candidate (1962), starring Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey.

Controversy

Unfortunately, CBS's new anthology was not to escape notoriety, as the network learned the evening of September 30. During its running of the Jack Lemmon-Kim Novak comedy, The Notorious Landlady, someone at the controls of the film's broadcast inadvertently got the reels mixed up, and it was with some chagrin that a network announcer issued an apology during a commercial break before a substantial portion of the movie was then replayed just to get the continuity back on track. What started out, therefore, as a 2-hour-and-15-minute airing wound up lasting approximately three hours.[7] Then a month later, when the Burt Lancaster film Elmer Gantry (1960) was televised with approximately 30 minutes total in various deletions from its original 146-minute length, viewers called en masse to complain that because of all the omissions, the movie made little sense.[8] In fact, quite a few entries in the Thursday night anthology during the first season were over 2 hours long—and this was without commercial interruptions. These included The Counterfeit Traitor (1961; 140 minutes), Parrish (1961; 138 minutes), Ocean's 11 (1960; 127 minutes), Mary, Mary (1963; 126 minutes), and Sunrise at Campobello (1960; 144 minutes). Before their broadcast, each of these films was cut to accommodate what CBS executives deemed a feasible running-time. Sunrise at Campobello, in particular, suffered a loss of nearly an hour from its footage after the network pared it down to a 2-hour broadcast including advertisements. Even so, CBS's affiliated stations were still forced on more than a few occasions to delay the start of their local 11:00 (ET) nightly newscasts.

In one case, however—that of the Anthony Quinn film Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)—the network considered the entry too short. Requiem had a running time of 85 minutes, but this was judged untenable by CBS executives. Columbia Pictures, the film's theatrical distributor, was contacted and arrangements were made to "pad" the film with extra footage. According to the movie's producer, David Suskind, there were 40 minutes of outtakes from the film in the studio's vault that had to be located. It was from these that an extra 10 minutes was assembled and added to the CBS print. In fact, this is believed to be "the first time television has added footage to a movie."[9]

First season (1965–66)

An advertisement from TV Guide, promoting the anthology's third entry, The Notorious Landlady.

All lists of titles and show-dates in this article were culled from the archives of The New York Times, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel via microfilm.

  1. 1965-09-16: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
  2. 1965-09-23: The Counterfeit Traitor (1961)
  3. 1965-09-30: The Notorious Landlady (1962)
  4. 1965-10-07: Parrish (1961)
  5. 1965-10-14: Houseboat (1958)
  6. 1965-10-21: Ocean's 11 (1960)
  7. 1965-10-28: Mary, Mary (1963)
  8. 1965-11-04: Elmer Gantry (1960)
  9. 1965-11-11: The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960)
  10. 1965-11-18: Experiment in Terror (1962)
  11. 1965-11-25: Mysterious Island (1961)
  12. 1965-12-02: The Bramble Bush (1960)
  13. 1965-12-09: Merrill's Marauders (1962)
  14. 1965-12-16: Two Rode Together (1961)
  15. 1965-12-23: Sunrise at Campobello (1960)
  16. 1965-12-30: Rome Adventure (1962)
  17. 1966-01-06: Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)
  18. 1966-01-13: Cry for Happy (1961)
  19. 1966-01-20: The War Lover (1962)
  20. 1966-01-27: The Running Man (1963)
  21. 1966-02-03: Guns of Darkness (1962)
  22. 1966-02-10: A Fever in the Blood (1961)
  23. 1966-02-17: Susan Slade (1961)
  24. 1966-02-24: Harvey (1950)
  25. 1966-03-03: The Devil at 4 O'Clock (1961)
  26. 1966-03-10: The Interns (1962)
  27. 1966-03-17: The Notorious Landlady (1962) (An early rerun)
  28. 1966-03-24: The Ladies Man (1961)
  29. 1966-03-31: Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961)
  30. 1966-04-07: The Best of Enemies (1961)
  31. 1966-04-14: Elmer Gantry (1960) (Rerun)
  32. 1966-04-21: A Majority of One (1961)
  33. 1966-04-28: Houseboat (1958) (Rerun)
  34. 1966-05-05: John Paul Jones (1959)

From here through the summer, the remaining broadcasts consisted of reruns of many of the above films. The series' initial season thus comprised a total of 31 movies–12 from Warner Brothers, 13 from Columbia, 3 from Paramount, 2 from United Artists, plus one classic (Harvey) from Universal Studios in a transaction involving an aborted TV-movie deal. (See "1970-71 Season: The Rise of the Made-for-TV Movie" section below.) The next season, CBS would add a second anthology on Friday nights. The network's movie schedule for the 1966-67 season would begin in September with the Thursday Night Movie's television debut of the first half of The Music Man (1962), starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones. The concluding half of the film would be televised the following evening as the premiere offering of the new CBS Friday Night Movie.

1966-67 and '67-68 seasons: Thursdays and Fridays

Among the films CBS had acquired from Paramount Pictures in 1965, there included the Alfred Hitchcock shocker Psycho (1960), which the network had scheduled for its world television premiere the night of Friday, September 23, 1966. However, just days before the film was to air, U.S. Senator Charles H. Percy's (R-Illinois) college-aged daughter, Valerie, was reported slain by an unknown assailant, and details of the crime went viral in the national print and TV-radio media, including one news article that described the "blonde and pretty" Miss Percy as having been "beaten and stabbed to death in her bed."[10] The inevitable analogy between Valerie Percy and a "blonde and pretty" Janet Leigh, plus the fact that both the senator's daughter and the Leigh character in the film were both murdered while in a vulnerable state (Miss Leigh in the shower, Miss Percy while asleep) became too much of a coincidence for "some of the affiliates in the Midwest" who announced they would not carry the film.[11] Thus, shortly before Psycho's broadcast, CBS, without notice, yanked it in favor of a Frank Sinatra war film Kings Go Forth (1958). Later that year, CBS decided not to air Psycho at any future date.[12] The film was thus cancelled altogether despite the hefty $500,000 price that CBS had paid Paramount for exclusive rights to televise the movie.

The preemption of Psycho aside, however, the 1966-67 season saw an increase over the previous season in the number of Paramount films televised on CBS. These included Grace Kelly's Academy-Award winning performance in The Country Girl (1954), Marlon Brando's only directorial effort, One-Eyed Jacks (1961), and the Jerry Lewis comedy, The Delicate Delinquent (1957). Columbia Pictures also made a strong showing during the Thursday Night Movie's second season with such entries as Sam Peckinpah's Civil War epic Major Dundee (1964) and the Jack Lemmon comedy, Good Neighbor Sam (1964). But Warner Brothers output, so prominent throughout the Thursday Night Movie's first season, was almost non-existent with only five feature-films—and one of those was the animated Gay Purr-ee (1963), a film targeting the pre-teen audience and broadcast just two days before Christmas. Additionally, United Artists pictures during the season totaled only four; however, the televising of one of those entries, Lilies of the Field (1963), became of particular interest when it was reported that its director, Ralph Nelson, was "given the privilege [by CBS] of editing his own movie for television presentation."[13] Further, Nelson was allowed to insert commercial breaks anywhere he wanted. He was even successful in negotiating a bit of risque dialogue delivered by Sidney Poitier, the film's star. Given that this occurred just a year after producer-director George Stevens had sued NBC over its telecast of his movie A Place in the Sun (1951), arguing that "the network would damage the film by interrupting the narrative with a series of commercials",[14] this move by CBS to collaborate with a filmmaker on the broadcast of his own work was indeed a hopeful sign that commerce could, on occasion, co-exist with art. Also of note, the religiously-themed film aired on Good Friday.

Thursday (1966–67 season):
1966-09-15: The Music Man (1962), Part 1
1966-09-22: Good Neighbor Sam (1964)
1966-09-29: By Love Possessed (1961)
1966-10-06: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1962)
1966-10-13: The Victors (1963)
1966-10-20: The Rat Race (1960)
1966-10-27: All in a Night's Work (1961)
1966-11-03: Fail Safe (1964)
1966-11-10: Advise & Consent (1962)
1966-11-17: The Country Girl (1954)
1966-11-24: Jason and the Argonauts (1963)
1966-12-01: Love Has Many Faces (1965)
1966-12-08: (Pre-empted by the network)[15]
1966-12-15: Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965)
1966-12-22: A Raisin in the Sun (1961)
1966-12-29: Five Finger Exercise (1962)
1967-01-05: Summer and Smoke (1961)
1967-01-12: A Summer Place (1959)
1967-01-19: My Geisha (1962)
1967-01-26: Behold a Pale Horse (1964)
1967-02-02: The Pleasure of His Company (1961)
1967-02-09: The Caretakers (1963)
1967-02-16: One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
1967-02-23: Two for the Seesaw (1962)
1967-03-02: Bye Bye Birdie (1963) (Rerun)
1967-03-09: The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961)
1967-03-16: Major Dundee (1964) (Rerun)
1967-03-23: The Counterfeit Traitor (1961) (Rerun from '65-'66)
1967-03-30: Underworld USA (1961)
1967-04-06: Branded (1950) (Rerun)
1967-04-13: About Mrs. Leslie (1954)
1967-04-20: A Raisin in the Sun (1961) (Rerun)
1967-04-27: Toys in the Attic (1963)

Friday (1966–67 season):
1966-09-16: The Music Man, Part 2
1966-09-23: Kings Go Forth (1958)
1966-09-30: The Geisha Boy (1958)
1966-10-07: Branded (1950)
1966-10-14: Bye Bye Birdie (1963)
1966-10-21: One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
1966-10-28: Gidget Goes to Rome (1963)
1966-11-04: First Men in the Moon (1964)
1966-11-11: Major Dundee (1964)
1966-11-18: Because They're Young (1960)
1966-11-25: Barabbas (1961)
1966-12-02: The Man from the Diner's Club (1963)
1966-12-09: Genghis Khan (1965)
1966-12-16: Sail a Crooked Ship (1961)
1966-12-23: Gay Purr-ee (1963)
1966-12-30: Damn the Defiant! (1962)
1967-01-06: Five Branded Women (1960)
1967-01-13: PT 109 (1963)
1967-01-20: The Delicate Delinquent (1957)
1967-01-27: Die! Die! My Darling! (1965)
1967-02-03: Island of Love (1963)
1967-02-10: Good Neighbor Sam (1964) (Rerun)
1967-02-17: Pepe (1960)
1967-02-24: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1962) (Rerun)
1967-03-03: The Pigeon That Took Rome (1961)
1967-03-10: The Geisha Boy (1958) (Rerun)
1967-03-17: Escape from Zahrain (1962)
1967-03-24: Lilies of the Field (1963)
1967-03-31: The Victors (1963) (Rerun)[16]
1967-04-07: The Long Ships (1963)
 1967-04-14: All in a Night's Work (1961) (Rerun)
1967-04-21: Gay Purr-ee (1963) (Rerun)
1967-04-28: Advise & Consent (1962) (Rerun)

The broadcast of Toys in the Attic in late April was the final CBS premiere of a theatrical film during the season. From May through August of that year, the series consisted of reruns. For the most part, features that had premiered on a Thursday night were rerun months later on a Friday night, while Friday's premieres aired later in the season on a Thursday.

The following September, the CBS Thursday Night Movie began its third season with a film from a new package of Metro-Goldwyn Mayer movies— Jack Cardiff's Young Cassidy (1965), a bio-pic on the life of Irish playwright Seán O'Casey. Then the next evening, the Friday Night Movie kicked off its sophomore year with an oddity: American-International Pictures' Beach Party (1963), the first of a series of zany romantic comedies featuring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. Additionally, throughout the season, the network poured forth the remainder of United Artists titles for which they had negotiated over two years earlier—a balance of 20 motion pictures, including Stanley Kramer's tense racial drama The Defiant Ones (1958), Jules Dassin's caper classic Topkapi (1964), as well as the inspirational One Man's Way (1964), based on the life of the influential pastor, Norman Vincent Peale. In fact, CBS aired this film the night of Martin Luther King's assassination; it seemed an especially apt gesture by the network, even if the film had been scheduled months earlier for just that very evening. Among the network's other offerings, Warner Brothers movies maintained their stolid minority presence, among them actor Vic Morrow's eccentric interpretation of Prohibition-era bootlegger Dutch Schultz in Portrait of a Mobster (1961)—a film so violent that its repeat performance in June 1968 had to be postponed, as it had been scheduled just two days after the slaying of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Appropriately, it was replaced by a rerun of the aforementioned One Man's Way.

As the CBS Thursday (and Friday) Night Movie entered the 1967-68 season, media critics took notice of how the networks' airing of recent theatrical films explored themes and story-lines that were (back then) considered forbidden topics in TV-land. Jack Gould, writing for the New York Times, for example, singled out the network's September 21, 1967 broadcast of Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960), with its frank yet satirical treatment of office politics and adultery. Gould noted "[t]he paradox...that in shows expressly produced for TV there continues to be the traditional concern over the preservation of blandness to suit all age groups. Matters of sex, let alone hints of extramarital relationships, are skirted like the plague."[17] But with the showing of The Apartment (an Academy Award-winner for Best Picture) and other movies that tackled risky subjects, Gould concluded that "as the networks buy even more recent films, the trend [to challenge previous taboos] will very likely increase." A week later, Gould observed that "there appears to be no denying that films of feature length...have established themselves as the most stable form of TV program"[18]—stable, at least, in the sense that all three major networks had, by then, each committed two nights per week of their prime-time schedules to old but recent films. And Gould's colleague, George Gent, writing on the same page and same issue of the Times, confirmed this sentiment after "national Nielsen figures" revealed that CBS's two-part TV-premiere of the POW drama The Great Escape (1963), on September 14 and 15, 1967, had been ranked #1 and #2 of that week's most-watched programs. "Audience taste," concluded Gent, "continues to run in the direction of feature-length movies."[19]

Not all critics, however, were receptive to this new trend in viewership. Syndicated entertainment writer Cynthia Lowry, for example, noted that CBS, as well as its two competitors, were engaged in the programming practice of front-loading—in other words, "piling in early the best feature-films." She warned that later "they will have to put on some of the turkeys -- and there are those in every package."[20] Lowry further complained that as a result of the popularity of old movies, new TV programs were "suffering seriously this season from the competition" while attempting to establish a loyal viewership of their own during the crucial first weeks of their broadcast. Ms. Lowry's objections notwithstanding, however, as long as movie anthologies continued to deliver better-than-average product, superior viewer ratings would continue to endure—which they did. Below is listed the entire CBS roster for a season that began with bubbling confidence.

Thursday (1967-68 season)
1967-09-07: Young Cassidy (1965)
1967-09-14: The Great Escape (1963), Part 1
1967-09-21: The Apartment (1960)
1967-09-28: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
1967-10-05: The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)
1967-10-12: Splendor in the Grass (1961)
1967-10-19: The Defiant Ones (1958)
1967-10-26: Critic's Choice (1963)
1967-11-02: Days of Wine and Roses (1962)
1967-11-09: The 7th Dawn (1964)
1967-11-16: Woman of Straw (1964)
1967-11-23: PT 109 (1963) (Rerun from 1966-67)
1967-11-30: The Money Trap (1965)
1967-12-07: Under Capricorn (1949)
1967-12-14: Party Girl (1958)
1967-12-21: I Could Go On Singing (1963)
1967-12-28: Stolen Hours (1963)
1968-01-04: The Music Man (1962), Part 1 (Rerun from 1966-67)
1968-01-11: Topkapi (1964)
1968-01-18: Torpedo Run (1958)[21]
1968-01-25: Where the Spies Are (1965)
1968-02-01: Young Dillinger (1965)
1968-02-08: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) (Rerun)
1968-02-15: I Want to Live! (1958)
1968-02-22: The Great Escape (1963), Part 1 (Rerun)
1968-02-29: Spencer's Mountain (1963) (Rerun)
1968-03-07: The Best Man (1964)
1968-03-14: The Thin Red Line (1964)
1968-03-21: Goodbye Again (1961)
1968-03-28: A Night to Remember (1958)
1968-04-04: One Man's Way (1964)
1968-04-11: Kings of the Sun (1963)

Friday (1967-68 season)
1967-09-08: Beach Party (1963)
1967-09-15: The Great Escape (1963), Part 2
1967-09-22: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
1967-09-29: North by Northwest (1959)
1967-10-06: Viva Las Vegas (1964)
1967-10-13: Spencer's Mountain (1963)
1967-10-20: Love Is a Ball (1963)
1967-10-27: Rampage (1963)
1967-11-03: McLintock! (1963)
1967-11-10: Palm Springs Weekend (1963)
1967-11-17: Call Me Bwana (1963)
1967-11-24: Around the World Under the Sea (1966)
1967-12-01: The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962)
1967-12-08: Tickle Me (1965)
1967-12-15: Wall of Noise (1963)
1967-12-22: Escape from East Berlin (1962)
1967-12-29: Portrait of a Mobster (1961)
1968-01-05: The Music Man (1962), Part 2 (Rerun from '66-'67)
1968-01-12: A Shot in the Dark (1964)
1968-01-19: 633 Squadron (1964)
1968-01-26: Island of Love (1963)
1968-02-02: The Apartment (1960) (Rerun)
1968-02-09: The Secret Invasion (1964)
1968-02-16: The World of Henry Orient (1964)
1968-02-23: The Great Escape (1963), Part 2 (Rerun)
1968-03-01: Flight from Ashiya (1964)
1968-03-08: The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961) (Rerun from '66-'67)
1968-03-15: McLintock! (1963) (Rerun)
1968-03-22: The Destructors (1968).[22]
1968-03-29: The Hellions (1961)
1968-04-05: Your Cheatin' Heart (1964)
1968-04-12: Joan of Arc (1948)

From mid-April through August 1968, many of the above films were re-issued as CBS prepared a new schedule for its anthology's fourth season, beginning in September. In terms of quality and viewer attention, it was to mark the beginning of a dismal time for network movies.

The 1968-69 and '69-70 seasons: A Decline in Audience

Just as the previous season had begun with the biography of a playwright (Seán O'Casey), CBS followed up in early September 1968 with another film based on a stage author's life. This time, it was Moss Hart, and the movie was Act One (1963), based on Hart's best-selling autobiography of the same title. Act One had already aired on local stations in a few markets, but this was its first network showing.[23] Thus, CBS declared the actual premiere date of the Thursday Night Movie's fourth season as September 26, when another biographical picture, the musical Gypsy, starring Natalie Wood as burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee, made its television bow. The next evening, a second Natalie Wood attraction, Sex and the Single Girl (1964), initiated a third year's roster for the CBS Friday Night Movie. This entry may have garnered a lot of box-office in its heyday, but most critics had labeled it a dud. In fact, a similar judgment could be passed on most of the other films CBS ran that season. With perhaps the exception of John Ford's Cheyenne Autumn (1964)—and even this could hardly rank among Ford's best—the movies offered by the network's anthology in the fall of 1968 were by and large an inferior collection. Warner Brothers contributions, for example, ranged from soap-opera pathos (Youngblood Hawke, which the New York Times called "as thin and glossy as wax paper".[24]) to wooden heroics (the Troy Donahue western, A Distant Trumpet, with a story that "looked implausible or just plain hollow";[25] and Ensign Pulver, an "uneven [and] pedestrian" sequel to Mister Roberts[26]). Additionally, such MGM fluff as Quick Before It Melts (1964) and When the Boys Meet the Girls (1965) could hardly be called game-savers. Top it all off with the Thanksgiving night showing of the nearly forgotten Marco the Magnificent (1965), described by one critic as "long on spectacle and short on plot",[27] and you have the ingredients to a disastrous season. Not that CBS was alone, however, because the movies ABC and NBC foisted on their viewers during that same fall were not much better.

Therefore, it was no surprise that when the Nielsen ratings were released for this period, not a single network movie telecast finished in the Top 20[28]—an interesting predicament considering the lofty pronouncements made a year earlier by top media observers concerning the popularity of feature films on television. As Rick Du Brow, UPI's television critic, noted, "the drop in audience occurred almost immediately after the season began. And there is no sign that televised network movies will recoup their former popularity, except for an occasional blockbuster, a fluke hit, or a film starring a personality who happens to be a tremendous favorite".[29] Further, Du Brow offered an interesting reason for this decline in audience, an explanation that went far beyond the inferiority of the films themselves. In short, he believed that audiences were "getting weary of the old-style approach" and that adherence to conventional modes of presentation by the networks had become constrictive, obsolete, and irrelevant for modern audiences. By means of contrast, the columnist held up newer, hip, innovative variety shows (like NBC's topical and sardonic Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) as a means of advancing toward that "new-style approach" that in the late 1960s attracted the most viewers. As for 3-year-old feature-films like some of those listed below, however, they were declared old-hat.

Thursday (1968-69 season):
1968-09-12: Act One (1963)
1968-09-19: Westward the Women (1951)[30]
1968-09-26: Gypsy (1962)
1968-10-03: The Night of the Iguana (1964)
1968-10-10: The Glass Bottom Boat (1965)
1968-10-17: Youngblood Hawke (1964)
1968-10-24: Harum Scarum (1965)
1968-10-31: The Nanny (1965)
1968-11-07: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (1959)
1968-11-14: God's Little Acre (1958)
1968-11-21: Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
1968-11-28: Marco the Magnificent (1965)
1968-12-05: In the Cool of the Day (1963)
1968-12-12: Lisa (1962)
1968-12-19: Guns at Batasi (1964)
1968-12-26: East of Sudan (1964)
1969-01-02: Splendor in the Grass (1961) (Rerun from '67-'68)
1969-01-09: Kisses for My President (1964)
1969-01-16: Man in the Middle (1964)
1969-01-23: Never Too Late (1965)
1969-01-30: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
1969-02-06: Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960)[31]
1969-02-13: Dead Ringer (1964)
1969-02-20: The Americanization of Emily (1964)
1969-02-27: Sex and the Single Girl (1964) (Rerun)
1969-03-06: Goodbye Charlie (1964) (Rerun)
1969-03-13: The Stripper (1963)
1969-03-20: Paris When It Sizzles (1964)
1969-03-27: The Night of the Iguana (1964) (Rerun)
1969-04-03: Seven Days in May (1964)
1969-04-10: The Chapman Report (1962)
1969-04-17: UMC (1969)[32]
1969-04-24: Act One (1963) (Rerun)
1969-05-01: Madison Avenue (1962)
1969-05-08: The Blue Angel (1959)
(Reruns from here until September)
Friday (1968-69 season):
1968-09-13: Viva Las Vegas (1964) (Rerun from '67-'68)
1968-09-20: (Pre-empted by the network)[33]
1968-09-27: Sex and the Single Girl (1964)
1968-10-04: The Singing Nun (1966)
1968-10-11: A Distant Trumpet (1964)
1968-10-18: Goodbye Charlie (1964)
1968-10-25: Shock Treatment (1964)
1968-11-01: Quick Before It Melts (1964)
1968-11-08: When the Boys Meet the Girls (1965)
1968-11-15: Diamond Head (1962)
1968-11-22: Ensign Pulver (1964)
1968-11-29: North by Northwest (1959)
1968-12-06: The Defector (1966)
1968-12-13: Advance to the Rear (1964)
1968-12-20: A Global Affair (1964)
1968-12-27: The House of the Seven Hawks (1959)
1969-01-03: The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964)
1969-01-10: Where the Boys Are (1960)
1969-01-17: 4 For Texas (1963)
1969-01-24: Girl Happy (1965)
1969-01-31: Made in Paris (1966)
1969-02-07: Penelope (1966)
1969-02-14: Boys' Night Out (1962)
 1969-02-21: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954)
1969-02-28: The Glass Bottom Boat (1965) (Rerun)
1969-03-07: All Hands on Deck (1961)
1969-03-14: Harum Scarum (1965) (Rerun)
1969-03-21: Stalag 17 (1953)[34]
1969-03-28: The Challengers (1969).[35] (Made-for-TV premiere)
1969-04-04: The Singing Nun (1966) (Rerun)
1969-04-11: Gypsy (1962) (Rerun)
1969-04-18: Escape from Fort Bravo (1953)[36]
1969-04-25: Siege of the Saxons (1963)
1969-05-02: Gigot (1962)
1969-05-09: The Alphabet Murders (1966)
(Reruns from here until September)

The 1968-69 TV season finally saw what many had already predicted—a network prime-time movie for all seven nights of the week. Author Robert Beverley Ray summed it up neatly when he observed that "television had an NBC Monday Night Movie, an NBC Tuesday Night Movie, an ABC Wednesday Night Movie, a CBS Thursday Night Movie, a CBS Friday Night Movie, an NBC Saturday Night Movie, and to complete the week, an ABC Sunday Night Movie."[37] Critic Jack Gould wondered whether a "battle of film-against-film may not be as remote as some in TV had originally thought."[38] And upon the arrival of 1969, another media critic made a hopeful New Year's prediction that "[s]ome network will bravely drop one of those nightly two-hour movie reruns" and replace it with "two half-hour situation-comedies plus a one-hour variety show [whose star is] a very young singer with a Southern accent and a guitar".[39] That prediction proved only half-correct—the singer with the Southern accent and guitar turned out to be Glen Campbell, whose weekly variety show premiered on CBS two weeks into January 1969. Campbell's broadcast, however, replaced neither of the network's movie anthologies.

The beginning of the 1969-70 season saw a brief surge in audience numbers with CBS's two-part world TV premiere of The Guns of Navarone (1961), based on the Alistair Maclean best-seller. Then 14 days later, the comedy Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding (1966) qualified as the sixth most-watched program of the Nielsen's rating period, while the Glenn Ford thriller Fate is the Hunter (1964) scored at #16 during the same week[40] But another trend became evident in CBS's film-anthologies as viewers began to notice a sharp increase of repeat broadcasts. As a result, there was a corresponding decrease in new films available for showing, and there were two reasons for this: (1) Production of new theatrical films had slackened to a near-standstill in Hollywood (ironically displaced by the popularity of in-home television viewing); and as a result (2) some studios, among them 20th Century Fox and Paramount, were "waiting to unload their expensive backlog of films" to the networks.[41] Indeed, CBS had completed a deal with Fox a year earlier for exclusive rights to televise some of its most recent films (Rio Conchos and Guns at Batasi, to name some), but the network had been allowing those to merely trickle through to viewers at a rate of 5 or 6 per season. This was becoming the programming strategy with product leased from other studios as well. Consequently, the films listed below for the new season, 1969–70, included a greater number of reruns than in previous years:

Thursday (1969-70 season):
1969-09-25: The Guns of Navarone (1961), Part 1
1969-10-02: The Sandpiper (1965)
1969-10-09: Fate is the Hunter (1964)
1969-10-16: Inside Daisy Clover (1965)
1969-10-23: Two on a Guillotine (1965)
1969-10-30: Dear Heart (1965)
1969-11-06: 4 for Texas (1963) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1969-11-13: Mister Buddwing (1966)
1969-11-20: The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1962)
1969-11-27: Rio Conchos (1964)
1969-12-04: Ten Little Indians (1965)
1969-12-11: Libel (1959)
1969-12-18: The Americanization of Emily (1964) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1969-12-25: Me and the Colonel (1959)
1970-01-70: All in a Night's Work (1961) (Rerun from '67-'68)
1970-01-08: My Blood Runs Cold (1965)
1970-01-15: Escape from Fort Bravo (1953) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1970-01-22: Never Too Late (1965)
1970-01-29: The Law and Jake Wade (1959)
1970-02-05: The Chapman Report (1962) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1970-02-12: Hatari! (1962), Part 1[42]
1970-02-19: Hud (1963)
1970-02-26: Peyton Place (1957), Part 1
1970-03-05: The African Queen (1952)
1970-03-12: Hunters Are for Killing (1970)[43]
1970-03-19: A New Kind of Love (1963)
1970-03-26: The Power (1968)
1970-04-02: Fate is the Hunter (1964) (Rerun)
1970-04-09: Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding (1966) (Rerun)
1970-04-16: Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968) (Rerun)[44]
1970-04-23: The Millionairess (1960)
1970-04-30: Operation Amsterdam (1959)
1970-05-07: Three Bites of the Apple (1967)
1970-05-14: Hotel Paradiso (1966)
1970-05-21: Pirates of Tortuga (1961)
1970-05-28: The Innocents (1961)
Friday (1969-70 season):
1969-09-26: The Guns of Navarone (1961), Part 2
1969-10-03: Double Trouble (1967)
1969-10-10: Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding (1966)
1969-10-17: Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968)
1969-10-24: The Last Challenge (1967)
1969-10-31: Come Fly with Me (1963)
1969-11-07: How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)
1969-11-14: Penelope (1966) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1969-11-21: Fanny (1961)
1969-11-28: Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1969-12-05: Having a Wild Weekend (1965)
1969-12-12: Paris When It Sizzles (1964) (Rerun)
1969-12-19: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1969-12-26: Anna and the King of Siam (1946)
1970-01-02: Girl Happy (1965) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1970-01-09: Sole Survivor (1970) (Made-for-TV premiere)
1970-01-16: Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964)
1970-01-23: Wake Me When It's Over (1960)
1970-01-30: The Venetian Affair (1967)
1970-02-06: Cutter's Trail (1970) (Made-for-TV premiere)
1970-02-13: Hatari! (1962), Part 2
 1970-02-20: The Challengers (1969) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1970-02-27: Peyton Place (1957), Part 2
1970-03-06: The Sandpiper (1965) (Rerun)
1970-03-13: Two on a Guillotine (1965) (Rerun)
1970-03-20: Rio Conchos (1964) (Rerun)
1970-03-27: Where the Boys Are (1960) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1970-04-03: (Pre-empted by the network)[45]
1970-04-10: Advance to the Rear (1964) (Rerun from '68-'69)
1970-04-17: The Third Day (1965)
1970-04-24: The Angel Wore Red (1960)
1970-05-01: Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966)
1970-05-08: The Crooked Road (1964)
1970-05-15: Come Fly with Me (1963) (Rerun)
1970-05-22: Hold On! (1966)
1970-05-29: The Visit (1964)

Upon the arrival of the summer months, many of the above titles were re-broadcast. However, there was also a smattering of premieres on CBS throughout this period. Island in the Sun (1957), based on Alec Waugh's best-selling post-WWII novel about interracial tensions on a Caribbean island, was shown for the first time the evening of June 11, 1970. And on August 14, there was the TV debut of Nine Hours to Rama (1963), starring Horst Buchholz as the Hindu extremist who assassinated Gandhi. Moreover, to fill out its summer movie fare, the network followed through on a surprise April announcement[46] that it would add yet a third movie anthology on Tuesday nights (7:30-9:30 pm, ET). It featured a combination of reruns plus some novel fare, like the 1962 fantasy Five Weeks in a Balloon, with Barbara Eden (on June 30); a 1968 doomsday thriller Panic in the City, featuring Howard Duff (on July 7); and the 1965 remake of the classic She, starring Ursula Andress (July 21). For viewers, however, this third movie-night proved to be only a summer fling because at the beginning of the 1970-71 season, CBS cancelled its Tuesday anthology to make room for its customary sitcom fodder with new episodes of those old stand-bys, The Beverly Hillbillies and Green Acres[47]

The 1970-71 season: The rise of the Made-for-TV Movie

With the scheduling of more recent films from Hollywood, the three major networks were faced with the question of how best to present increasingly risque material without offending the mainstream tastes of their audiences. Up until 1970, censors would simply bleep salty dialogue or edit shots, trusting that such excisions would not detract from a film's storyline. In some cases, however, it became necessary to remove so much of a film that additional scenes had to be written and produced by a network and then inserted into the film so that a movie-telecast not only filled a 2-hour time slot but also made sense to viewers. NBC, for example, had contracted with Universal to run the R-rated Three into Two Won't Go (1969) during the Fall of 1970. Questionable scenes from this British-made thriller were either severely chopped or eliminated completely and replaced with 17 minutes of new footage produced in a Hollywood studio and featuring actors who had not appeared in the original conception.[48] As a result of such practices, the networks were "beginning to smart under the criticisms of their cutting and re-shaping" of additional films such as Secret Ceremony (1968) and The Night of the Following Day (1968).[49][50] This was a consequence of the displacement impact of broadcast television. Motion picture studios, having withstood the long decline of theater-attendance by families (who presumably preferred to stay home and watch TV), had increasingly re-crafted their product during the 1960s to appeal to a smaller, more mature (adult) audience in both theme and presentation. As a result, recently released films became essentially impossible to re-cut or revise into family broadcast-ready entertainment. Recognizing this, NBC soon abandoned these attempts at the bowdlerization and/or alteration of a theatrical film's content. But at the same time, it became apparent to all three networks that if some movies could not be successfully repackaged for family viewing, then perhaps a stronger emphasis should be focused on producing more films specifically for television. As a result, this hybrid genre began to exert a larger presence on American home screens.

The origin of the American network TV-movie had actually occurred years earlier, when NBC had entered into an agreement with Universal wherein the studio produce films approximately 98 minutes long to be broadcast initially on the network. Universal, however, retained the distribution rights to re-release these productions in overseas theatre and television markets. Moreover, NBC agreed to pay "from 30 to 65 percent of the production costs" in return for U.S. theatrical and syndication rights as well as "the right to show the films first."[51] This pact resulted in such successful TV-films as the disaster movie The Doomsday Flight (1966) starring Jack Lord; The Borgia Stick (1967), a spy melodrama with Don Murray and Inger Stevens; and Prescription: Murder (1968), the original manifestation of Peter Falk's police detective/character, Lt. Columbo. NBC thus remained the acknowledged pioneer in TV-movies until 1969, when the ABC network experienced better-that-expected results with its experimental weekly series of made-for-TV films, The ABC Movie of the Week, in terms of both audience ratings as well as critical reviews. Some features gained such high popularity that they were later released to theatres in America and Europe for further exhibition, among them Buzz Kulik's Brian's Song (1971) and Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971).[52][53] As a result, ABC planned a second anthology of new offerings under the title, Movie of the Weekend.[54]

By contrast, however, CBS had contributed a scant number of made-for-TV feature-length films; and what little they had scheduled were mostly produced in association with independent companies like QM Productions or the network's own theatrical film-producing arm, Cinema Center 100. Actually, as far back as 1965, CBS had entered into an arrangement with Universal Studios wherein the network agreed to contribute $340,000 to the million-dollar budgeted remake of the classic western The Plainsman (1966). In return, CBS was granted the right to exclusively premiere the film as a Thursday Night Movie telecast. However, once production was completed and The Plainsman was screened for Universal's top brass, they concluded they had a hit movie on their hands. Thus, the studio re-negotiated with CBS to drop its commitment to run the film first so that Universal could instead open The Plainsman in theaters. The network agreed, but only on condition Universal promise in return "to give [CBS] an existing feature film from their backlog."[55] (That replacement feature turned out to be the 1950 fantasy Harvey, starring James Stewart.) Nevertheless, CBS vice-president Michael Dann, a fan of the TV-movie innovation, predicted two months afterward that in the near-future "the studios will be making 50 to 75 such pictures a year."[56] The 1970-71 season would prove him correct. And when the Thursday Night Movie opened its fall schedule with the premiere of a low-budget, made-for-TV movie, rather than a proven Hollywood blockbuster guaranteed to lure mass viewership, it became CBS's way of declaring its commitment to product that, although cheaply manufactured, was nevertheless new and topical. In this case, the movie was The Brotherhood of the Bell, and the film's star was Glenn Ford, a movie actor who had never appeared in a television-film. In fact, before shooting on the project even began, Ford had been warned by friends in the industry that he would hate the experience. Instead, the actor reported that "it was five of the most enjoyable weeks I've ever spent working...it was a good solid script with people like Maurice Evans and Dean Jagger working with me".[57] Such enthusiasm must have translated into a good movie because the film did receive respectable notices from the critics. As a result, the new season would witness CBS's determination to increase its output of works produced directly for television—especially during late February to early April 1971, when 5 out of 11 features shown were made-for-TV world premieres.

Thursday (1970-71 season):
1970-09-17: The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970) (Made-for-TV premiere)
1970-09-24: The Dirty Dozen (1967)
1970-10-01: Butterfield 8 (1960)
1970-10-08: The Great Race (1965), Part 1
1970-10-15: Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) (Rerun from '69-'70)
1970-10-22: The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968)
1970-10-29: Heaven with a Gun (1969)
1970-11-05: The Shuttered Room (1967)
1970-11-12: This Property Is Condemned (1966)
1970-11-19: A Place in the Sun (1951)[58]
1970-11-26: Oklahoma (1955)
1970-12-03: Peyton Place (1957), Part 1. (Rerun from '69-'70)
1970-12-10: Chuka (1967)
1970-12-17: Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows (1968) (Rerun from '69-'70)
1970-12-24: The Password Is Courage (1962)
1970-12-31: Chamber of Horrors (1966)
1971-01-07: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Part 1[59]
1971-01-14: Five Branded Women (1960) (Rerun from '66-'67)
1971-01-21: The African Queen (1951) (Rerun from '69-'70)
1971-01-28: Return to Peyton Place (1961)
1971-02-04: The Power (1968)
1971-02-11: The Cincinnati Kid (1966) (Rerun)
1971-02-18: Battle of the Bulge (1965), Part 1
1971-02-25: Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966) (Rerun)
1971-03-04: None but the Brave (1965) (Rerun)
1971-03-11: Travis Logan, D.A. (1971) (Made-for-TV premiere)[60]
1971-03-18: The Shuttered Room (1967) (Rerun)
1971-03-25: Casino Royale (1967) (Rerun)
1971-04-01: Brainstorm (1965)
1971-04-08: Who's Minding the Store? (1963)
1971-04-15: Kid Rodelo (1966)
1971-04-22: Term of Trial (1963)
1971-04-29: Judith (1966)
1971-05-06: The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965)
1971-05-13: A Covenant with Death (1967)
1971-05-20: Chamber of Horrors (1966) (Rerun)
Friday (1970–71):
1970-09-18: Casino Royale (1967)
1970-09-25: The Cincinnati Kid (1966)
1970-10-02: None but the Brave (1965)
1970-10-09: The Great Race (1965), Part 2
1970-10-16: Stay Away, Joe (1968)
1970-10-23: Not with My Wife, You Don't! (1966)
1970-10-30: Warning Shot (1967)
1970-11-06: One-Eyed Jacks (1961) (Rerun from '66-'67)
1970-11-13: The Guns of Navarone (1961) (Rerun from a previous season)
1970-11-20: Night Chase (1970) (Made-for-TV premiere)[61]
1970-11-27: The Last Challenge (1967) (Rerun from '69-'70)
1970-12-04: Peyton Place (1957), Part 2. (Rerun from '69-'70)
1970-12-11: Easy Come, Easy Go (1967)
1970-12-18: Once a Thief (1965)
1970-12-25: Life With Father (1947)
1971-01-01: Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963)
1971-01-08: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Part 2
1971-01-15: Marriage on the Rocks (1965)
1971-01-22: She (1965) (Rerun from '69-'70)
1971-01-29: The Rounders (1965)
1971-02-05: First to Fight (1967)
1971-02-12: The Rat Race (1960) (Rerun from '66-'67)
1971-02-19: Battle of the Bulge (1965), Part 2
1971-02-26: A Step Out of Line (1971) (Made-for-TV premiere)[62]
1971-03-05: The Biggest Bundle of Them All (1968) (Rerun)
1971-03-12: Harpy (1971) (Made-for-TV premiere).[63]
1971-03-19: This Property Is Condemned (1966) (Rerun)
1971-03-26: Cannon (1971) (Made-for-TV premiere)[64]
1971-04-02: O'Hara, United States Treasury (1971) (Made-for-TV premiere).[65]
1971-04-09: Tarzan and the Great River (1967)
1971-04-16: Powderkeg (1971) (Made-for-TV premiere)[66]
1971-04-23: Sons and Lovers (1960)
1971-04-30: Jack of Diamonds (1967)
1971-05-07: The Disorderly Orderly (1964)
1971-05-14: Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963) (Rerun)
1971-05-21: The Cool Ones (1967)

The above schedule was augmented on February 14, 1971, by a special Sunday-night world TV premiere of the film Ben-Hur (1959), starring Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd. This Academy-Award winner for Best Picture was five hours long when aired with commercial interruptions, running from 7 pm to midnight (ET). In addition, just as the network had done during the previous year, CBS premiered a handful of movies throughout its summer schedule. Among those were included: The Violent Ones (1967; shown June 3), Night Must Fall (1964; debuting June 10), The Wrong Box (1966; premiering Sunday, June 20), The Frozen Dead (1967; June 24), Doctor Faustus (1968; June 25), The Money Jungle (1968; July 1), and An American Dream (1966; July 2).

The 1971-72 Season: Thursdays and Sundays

Throughout the summer of 1971, CBS prepared its own weekly series of TV-movies for the new fall season. It was dubbed The New CBS Friday Night Movies. but one network representative modestly advertised it as "nothing more than an old-fashioned suspense anthology series," much like the old U.S. Steel Hour or Playhouse 90—only "tricked out with film," as opposed to live studio broadcasts, the norm for presentation during the early 1950s. This new project was originally envisioned by producer Philip Barry, Jr. (son of the playwright Philip Barry) to exclusively consist of "all-suspense of various sorts." Barry further promised viewers that the new anthology would avoid "doing any law enforcement shows, no doctors, no lawyers, none of the usual things."[67] Director Alf Kjellin, who had learned his craft under fellow Swede Ingmar Bergman, was hired to helm one of the show's premiere entries, The Deadly Dream[68] Though Kjellin responded positively to the 90-minute television format for filmmaking, he was bothered by certain impractical restrictions, telling one interviewer, "Ten days is not a long time to make a picture."[69] Nonetheless, the New CBS Friday Night Movie began its run in September 1971, occupying the 9:30-11:00 time slot (ET). It was not to be a successful outing, chiefly because it was scheduled opposite NBC's own World Premiere series, which began one hour earlier.

To accommodate its new suspense anthology, CBS found it necessary to shuffle its Sunday night line-up to make room for its alternative presentation-format for old movies. Thus what had been known for the past 5 years as the CBS Friday Night Movie became the CBS Sunday Night Movie, airing from 7:30 to 9:30 pm (Eastern Time). It was an inauspicious, unheralded move in that this switch to Sundays made it necessary for the network to cancel one of its own signature variety series, the long-running Ed Sullivan Show. After 23 successful years, this icon of the airwaves was told to vacate the premises[70] and beginning in September, the CBS Sunday Night Movie launched its 1971-72 season with the TV premiere of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn 1967 comedy-drama, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. But this would also be remembered as the year that the holiday classic The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971), starring Patricia Neal, had its network premiere. Critics lavished unqualified praise, including one writer who labeled it "a lovely pre-holiday program—sweet but never cloying and sparked with humor."[71] Not only was this TV-movie production repeated each year at Yule time throughout the decade, but it also served as the pilot film for the long-running family-drama series The Waltons.

Thursday (1971-72 season):
1971-09-16: Harper (1965)
1971-09-23: The Ambushers (1967)
1971-09-30: How to Save a Marriage and Ruin Your Life (1968)
1971-10-07: BUtterfield 8 (1960)
1971-10-14: The Dirty Dozen (1967)[72]
1971-10-21: Pre-empted by CBS Reports[73]
1971-10-28: The Comedians (1967)
1971-11-04: Berserk! (1968)
1971-11-11: Don't Make Waves (1967)
1971-11-18: Pendulum (1968)
1971-11-25: Pre-empted by CBS Reports[74]
1971-12-02: The Impossible Years (1968)
1971-12-09: The Comic (1969)
1971-12-16: Arrivederci, Baby! (1966)
1971-12-23: Pre-empted by CBS Reports[75]
1971-12-30: Pre-empted by CBS Reports[76]
1972-01-06: Heaven with a Gun (1969) (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-01-13: The Liquidator (1965)
1972-01-20: Chuka (1967)
1972-01-27: Pre-empted by CBS Reports[77]
1972-02-03: Hunters are for Killing (1970) (Rerun from '69-'70)
1972-02-10: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
1972-02-17: My Blood Runs Cold (1965) (Rerun from '69-'70)
1972-02-24: Bandolero! (1968) (Rerun)
1972-03-02: Harper (1966) (rerun)
1972-03-09: Pre-empted by CBS Reports[78]
1972-03-16: Return to Peyton Place (1961) (Rerun from '70-71)
1972-03-23: Promise Her Anything (1966)
1972-03-30: Berserk! (1968) (Rerun)
1972-04-06: The Impossible Years (1968) (Rerun)
1972-04-13: Pendulum (1968) (Rerun)
1972-04-20: Interlude (1968)
1972-04-27: Kona Coast (1968)
1972-05-04: Apache Uprising (1968)
1972-05-11: Pre-empted for a CBS sports special[79]
1972-05-18: Duffy (1968)
1972-05-25: The Bobo (1967)
Sunday (1971–72):
1971-09-19: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
1971-09-26: Bandolero! (1968)
1971-10-03: To Sir, with Love (1967)
1971-10-10: The Sand Pebbles (1965) Part One
1971-10-17: The Sand Pebbles (1965) Part Two
1971-10-24: Battle of the Bulge (1965) Part One
1971-10-31: Battle of the Bulge (1965) Part Two
1971-11-07: Marriage on the Rocks (1965) (Rerun from '70-'71)
1971-11-14: Anzio (1968)
1971-11-21: Born Free (1966)
1971-11-28: The Great Race (1965) Part One
1971-12-05: The Great Race (1965) Part Two
1971-12-12: Will Penny (1967)
1971-12-19: The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971) (Made-for-TV premiere)
1971-12-26: D-Day the Sixth of June (1956)
1972-01-02: Up the Down Staircase (1967)
1972-01-09: Stay Away, Joe (1968) (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-01-16: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Part One (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-01-23: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) Part Two (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-01-30: Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972) (Made-for-TV premiere)
1972-02-06: The Brotherhood of the Bell (1970) (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-02-13: Ben-Hur (1959) Part One (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-02-20: Ben-Hur (1959) Part Two (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-02-27: Anzio (1968) (Rerun)
1972-03-05: A Fine Madness (1966)
1972-03-12: Five Million Years to Earth (1968)
1972-03-19: Easy Come, Easy Go (1967) (Rerun from '70-'71)
1972-03-26: Pre-empted by a CBS entertainment special[80]
1972-04-02: The Shoes of the Fisherman (1969)
1972-04-09: Don't Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968)
1972-04-16: Tarzan and the Jungle Boy (1968)
1972-04-23: Funeral in Berlin (1967)
1972-04-30: Up the Down Staircase (1967) (Rerun)
1972-05-07: Enter Laughing (1967)
1972-05-14: The Firechasers (1969)
1972-05-21: Gentle Giant (1967)
1972-05-28: A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

Summer premieres on CBS's anthologies included the Vince Edwards crime drama Hammerhead (1968; airing on June 15), the spy melodrama Assignment K (1968; on June 22), with Stephen Boyd and Camilla Sparv, the domestic comedy The Tiger Makes Out (1967; on June 29), featuring the husband-and-wife team, Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, and a German-produced western, Rampage at Apache Wells (1966; on August 17), starring Stewart Granger. There was also the TV debut of the Danny Kaye military comedy On the Double (1961; telecast on June 8), which included a controversial, bawdy sequence in a wartime Berlin cabaret where the comedian/hero, in drag, impersonates Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel and is later "seduced" in a dressing room by a drunken Luftwaffe officer. In earlier years, this scene would have been considered too racy for prime-time audiences, what with its satire of transvestism and gay sex. As it happened, however, CBS had broadcast another film with similar scenes, albeit in a more serious framework, less than four months prior—Luchino Visconti's The Damned (1969), originally rated X when it first opened in theaters. Obviously, the network had to arrange for the film to "undergo some severe editing to conform" with a TV audience's acceptance.[81] The resulting presentation, which was pre-screened for affiliates via closed-circuit, was so incoherent that many stations refused to run it.

The Damned was never intended for prime-time airing. (Cynics claimed the network wouldn't dare.) Instead, it was among the initial presentations by CBS for television's first late-night network film anthology, for on the evening of Valentine's Day 1972, CBS mailed a love-letter to America's film fans when it broke with network late-night tradition by cancelling its Merv Griffin talk-show to make way for The CBS Late Movie. In so doing, the organization that years earlier had spurned the scheduling of old movies as "uncreative" was suddenly running a total of 7 feature-films each week. The axing of the Griffin show was of little consequence when taking into consideration that his program was being broadcast on only 129 affiliates, whereas the CBS Late Movie debuted on 179. It was also a wise business decision when taking into account that the network was paying only $30,000 for each of the 220 movies leased from Warner Brothers and MGM. At such cheap rates, CBS was clearing $100,000 per late-movie broadcast.[82]

References

  1. ↑ Edgerton, Gary T. The Columbia History of American Television. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2007. p. 250.
  2. ↑ Segrave, Kerry. Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999. p. 75.
  3. ↑ Oulihan, Richard and William Lambert. "The Tyrant's Fall That Rocked the TV World." Life (Magazine). Vol. 59, No. 11. (Sept. 10, 1965): p. 95.
  4. ↑ Ibid
  5. ↑ Adams, Val. "CBS May Offer 2 'Movie Nights': $8 Million Deal Suggests Plan for 2d Series in '66." New York Times. (August 27, 1965): p. 59.
  6. ↑ "A.B.C. and M-G-M Close 21-Film Deal." New York Times. (August 23, 1965): p. 51.
  7. ↑ Erickson, Hal. "Movies on Network TV: 1961 Onward (Part 3)." Radio Discussions.. See also Trivia for The Notorious Landlady at the Internet Movie Database.
  8. ↑ Ibid.
  9. ↑ Adams, Val. "10 Minutes Will Be Added to Feature Film for TV." New York Times. (December 27, 1965): p. 51.
  10. ↑ "Clues Studied in Girl's Slaying." Corpus Christi Times. September 19, 1966: p. 2.
  11. ↑ "'Psycho' Date Up in Air." Corpus Christi Caller Times. October 9, 1966: p. 15F.
  12. ↑ Adams, Val. "CBS Drops 'Psycho' from Film List." (New York Times News Service) Corpus Christi Caller-Times. December 18, 1966: p. 22G.
  13. ↑ Kleiner, Dick. "New Specter Rising in TV-Movie Marriage." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (March 26, 1967): p. 11F.
  14. ↑ Rich, John. Warm Up the Snake: A Hollywood Memoir. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006. p. 98.
  15. ↑ On Dec. 8, 1966, the Thursday Night Movie was pre-empted by a taped special presentation of Tennessee Williams's The Glass Menagerie, featuring Shirley Booth and Hal Holbrook.
  16. ↑ When The Victors premiered earlier in the season, 70 minutes had been chopped from its 3-hour running time. This repeat broadcast restored many of those cuts. (See Segrave, Kerry. Movies at Home: How Hollywood Came to Television, p. 96, source listed above.)
  17. ↑ Gould, Jack. "TV Chipping Away at Well-Entrenched Taboos." New York Times. (October 2, 1967): p. 95.
  18. ↑ Gould, Jack. "Television: The Movie Revolution." New York Times. (October 8, 1967): p. D27
  19. ↑ Gent, George. "Everyone Wants to Stay Home -- And Watch Steve McQueen." New York Times. (October 8, 1967): p. D27.
  20. ↑ Lowry, Cynthia. "After the Better Films, TV May Test Out Turkeys." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (October 13, 1967): p. 4B.
  21. ↑ This was not a television premiere. NBC had already aired Torpedo Run during the 1964-65 season. See "TV Previews." Milwaukee Journal. (October 14, 1964): Part 2, p. 8.
  22. ↑ Information for this action-adventure can be found at the Internet Movie Database page for The Destructors (1968)
  23. ↑ "Drama Puts Spotlight on Halls of Congress." Corpus Christi Times. (September 12, 1968): p. 6B.
  24. ↑ "'Youngblood Hawke' Opens at 2 Theaters." New York Times. (November 6, 1964)
  25. ↑ Moss, Marilyn Ann. Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood's Legendary Director. Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 2011.
  26. ↑ Erickson, Hal. Military Comedy Films: A Critical Survey and Filmography of Hollywood Releases Since 1918. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2012. p. 169.
  27. ↑ Harty, Kevin J. The Reel Middle Ages: American, Western, and Eastern European and Middle European and Asian Films About Medieval Europe. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., 2006. p. 177.
  28. ↑ Gould, Jack. "Too Many Flicks Spoil the Ratings." New York Times. (December 29, 1968): p. D21.
  29. ↑ Du Brow, Rick. "TV in Review." The Daily Banner. (Dec. 20, 1968): p. 7.
  30. ↑ First time on CBS; however, Westward the Women had been previously shown on NBC during the 1965-66 season. See "TV Previews." Milwaukee Journal. (January 8, 1966): p. 8.
  31. ↑ Having premiered on NBC during a previous season, this was the film's first showing on CBS.
  32. ↑ This was the two-hour pilot episode for the CBS-TV series Medical Center, which debuted the following season.
  33. ↑ The Friday Night Movie was pre-empted for the premiere of the two-hour pilot episode of Hawaii Five-O, starring Jack Lord.
  34. ↑ Previously shown on NBC during an earlier season: See "TV Previews." Milwaukee Journal. (December 3, 1966): p. 10.
  35. ↑ A made-for-TV film debut, this race-car opus featured Darren McGavin, Anne Baxter, and Sean Garrison. See more information at the Internet Movie Database page for The Challengers.
  36. ↑ Previously run by NBC during the 1964-65 season. See "TV Previews." Milwaukee Journal. (October 10, 1964): p. 8.
  37. ↑ Ray, Robert B. How a Film Theory Got Lost and Other Mysteries in Cultural Studies. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2001. p. 155.
  38. ↑ Gould, Jack. "In the Fall, Movies May be All." New York Times. (Feb. 28, 1968): p. D21.
  39. ↑ Lowry, Cynthia. '"Reviewer Predicts Future: Says It's Easy Because TV Seldom Changes." Corpus Christi Times. (January 7, 1969): p. 3B.
  40. ↑ "ABC Blasts to Top In Incredible Week." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (October 18, 1969): p. 13A.
  41. ↑ Thomas, Bob. "Stars Lose Their Allure." Corpus Christi Times. (November 17, 1969): p. 4C.
  42. ↑ First time on CBS. However, Hatari's TV premiere had occurred 2 years earlier on ABC's Sunday Night Movie. See "TV Listings", Bryan Daily Eagle, (January 14, 1968): p. 8.
  43. ↑ This made-for-TV film about a vengeful ex-convict starred Burt Reynolds, Melvyn Douglas, and Suzanne Pleshette. See more info on Hunters Are for Killing at the Internet Movie Database page for the film. (Made-for-TV premiere)
  44. ↑ Originally, the unsuccessful one-hour TV pilot project Crisis (1968) was scheduled. The other hour was anticipated by the CBS network to feature the Apollo 13 astronauts walking and exploring the moon's surface. The mission, however, was aborted in mid-flight earlier that week, so the 60-minute pilot was replaced by the 2-hour Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows.
  45. ↑ CBS Friday Night Movie was pre-empted for two one-hour variety specials featuring, in order, Don Knotts and Dinah Shore.
  46. ↑ Buck, Jerry. "Some Original Shows Slated This Summer." Corpus Christi Times. (April 22, 1970): p. 6C.
  47. ↑ Ferreti, Fred. "CBS Shuffles Its Fall Lineup." New York Times. (July 22, 1970): p. 83.
  48. ↑ Canby, Vincent. "TV's Movie Butchery." (New York Times News Service) Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (November 8, 1970): p. H-17.
  49. ↑ "NBC Makes Midseason Changes." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (December 6, 1970): p. K-10.
  50. ↑ Losey, Joseph and Michel Ciment. Conversations with Losey. London, UK: Methuen, 1985. p. 296. Also see Trivia for Night of the Following Day on the Internet Movie Database
  51. ↑ Bart, Peter. "TV Moviemaking Begins in Earnest." New York Times. (March 10, 1966): p. 26.
  52. ↑ McKenna, Michael. The ABC Movie of the Week: Big Movies for the Small Screen. Plymouth, UK: Scarecrow Press, 2013. p. 50.
  53. ↑ Buckland, Warren. Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster. New York: Continuum, 2006. p. 72.
  54. ↑ Lowry, Cynthia. "Season of Change." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (August 15, 1971): p. H-10.
  55. ↑ Adams, Val. "CBS Won't Show 'The Plainsman'." New York Times. (Jan. 19, 1966): p. 83.
  56. ↑ Bart, Peter, etc.
  57. ↑ Lowry, Cynthia. "The Ford Festival." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (October 25, 1970): p. D-11.
  58. ↑ Though this was the movie's first time on CBS, A Place in the Sun had peen previously run on NBC the evening of March 12, 1966. See Merck, Mandy. Hollywood's American Tragedies: Dreiser, Eisenstein, Sternberg, Stevens. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2007. p. 147.
  59. ↑ First time on CBS. Bridge on the River Kwai, however, originally premiered on ABC the evening of September 25, 1966. See "TV Time." Port Arthur News. (Sept. 25, 1966): p. 14D.
  60. ↑ Information for this critically acclaimed made-for-TV crime story, starring Vic Morrow in the title role, can be accessed at the Internet Movie Database page for the film.
  61. ↑ Information for this made-for-TV suspense film, featuring David Janssen and Yaphet Kotto, can be found at the Internet Movie Database page for Night Chase (1970).
  62. ↑ Information for this crime film, starring Peter Falk, Vic Morrow, and Peter Lawford, can be found at the Internet Movie Database page for A Step Out of Line (1971).
  63. ↑ Information for this made-for-TV movie, which starred Hugh O'Brian and Elizabeth Ashley, can be found at the Internet Movie Database for Harpy (1971)
  64. ↑ This was the 2-hour pilot episode for the successful CBS series, Cannon, starring William Conrad.
  65. ↑ This was the 2-hour pilot episode for the short-lived series O'Hara, U.S. Treasury, starring David Janssen
  66. ↑ This was the 2-hour pilot episode for the ill-fated 1971 CBS western series, Bearcats!, starring Rod Taylor and Dennis Cole.
  67. ↑ Kliener, Dick. "Borrowing from the Past." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (June 20, 1971): p. H-13.
  68. ↑ Details for this macabre thriller starring Lloyd Bridges and Janet Leigh can be accessed at the Internet Movie Database's webpage for The Deadly Dream.
  69. ↑ Buck, Jerry. "Grab the Audience and Run." Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (August 8, 1971): p. H-10.
  70. ↑ Buck, Jerry. "CBS Changes Schedule Drastically." Corpus Christi Times. (March 17. 1971): p. 12B.
  71. ↑ Lowry, Cynthia. "Story Warm and Moving." Corpus Christi Times. (Dec. 20, 1971): p. 9D.
  72. ↑ The Dirty Dozen was shown over two nights -- Part One, a 2-hour broadcast on Thursday; Part Two, a 90-minute airing on Friday, pre-empting the New CBS Friday Night Movie.
  73. ↑ The Thursday Night Movie was pre-empted by two editions of CBS Reports: One segment on Pablo Picasso at 90 years old, the other on the burgeoning Chicano political movement.
  74. ↑ For the second time this season, CBS pre-empted the Thursday Night Movie with news specials. This time, there was a 60-minute documentary on "The World of Crime'", followed by a CBS Reports broadcast on difficulties in obtaining "The American Dream."
  75. ↑ In place of the Thursday Night Movie, CBS ran a "Correspondents' Report," a one-hour panel discussion by CBS journalists. This was followed by a 60-minute report on the use of surveillance devices by the Philadelphia Police Department.
  76. ↑ For the second week in a row, CBS ran information programming instead of a movie. This time, it was the second-part of a "Correspondent's Report" panel discussion, followed by "To the Top of Everest." a documentary hosted by Charles Kuralt.
  77. ↑ This news special offered an interview with former president Lyndon B. Johnson, followed by "A Night in Jail, A Day in Court," a documentary on the American justice system.
  78. ↑ A one-hour special on President Nixon's historic trip to China, followed by a 60-minute documentary on school busing.
  79. ↑ A rerun of Arrivederci, Baby! (1968) was pre-empted for Game 6 of the NHL Stanley Cup Finals, featuring the Boston Bruins and the New York Rangers
  80. ↑ The special was titled "Clowning Around," hosted by Ed Sullivan and featuring Dick Van Dyke and Bill Cosby.
  81. ↑ "Television Today." San Antonio Express. (Feb. 28, 1972): p. 6-D.
  82. ↑ Mark, Norman. "Feeling Superior to 'The Green Slime.'" (Chicago Daily News Service) Corpus Christi Caller-Times. (May 7, 1972): p. 6-D.
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