ABC Movie of the Week
The ABC Movie of the Week was a weekly television anthology series featuring made-for-TV movies, that aired on the ABC network in various permutations from 1969 to 1975.
History
In the 1960s, movie studios viewed television as a second-rate medium but also as a threat to their theatrical revenue, so they charged high fees for the privilege to broadcast their films. The networks experimented with having films made specifically for TV to lower expenses. NBC created the first weekly umbrella for such films with their World Premiere Movie in 1966, running in a two-hour time slot.Until the late 1960s, ABC ran a distant third behind rivals CBS and NBC, leading to jokes about its acronym meaning "Almost Broadcasting Company" or coming in fourth among the three networks. Desperation and a looser corporate structure allowed ABC to consider plans that the other two networks would not. Barry Diller, then a junior executive at ABC and later a co-founder of the Fox network, is often cited as the creator of the Movie of the Week, but the concept was actually originated by producer Roy Huggins. Huggins reasoned that many older theatrical films ran shorter than 90 minutes so requiring a 120-minute time slot was unnecessary. His proposal was rejected by all three networks but became the subject of a cover story in Variety magazine. ABC's interest was renewed but they lacked confidence that Huggins could produce an entire season of telefilms by himself. As the Variety article had effectively placed the concept into the public domain, ABC continued to develop it without Huggins' permission or involvement. They approached Universal, which demanded a larger budget than ABC wanted to spend, as well as the exclusive right to produce all future TV movies for ABC, conditions that pushed ABC to control production on their own, assigning them to various studios and production companies. ABC consoled Huggins by allowing him to produce several films, including The Young Country, precursor to Alias Smith and Jones.
The shorter format allowed a smaller budget than previous two-hour films. It featured the work of producers like Aaron Spelling and David Wolper, and was produced by different production companies such as Bing Crosby Productions, Spelling-Goldberg Productions, Thomas-Spelling Productions and the network's own ABC Circle Films.
The MotW provided ABC with a ratings hit and, along with Monday Night Football, helped establish the network as a legitimate competitor to rivals CBS and NBC. The films themselves varied in quality and were often escapist or sensationalistic in nature, but some were critically well received. For example, Duel, based on a Richard Matheson short story from Playboy, was director Steven Spielberg's first feature film, catapulting his career and enabling him to move from television to theatrical films.
ABC earned four Emmys, a Peabody Award and citations from the NAACP and American Cancer Society for an airing of Brian's Song in 1972. The 1971-72 season of the series finished as the fifth highest rated series of the year.
The series was documented by Michael Karol in his 2005 book, The ABC Movie of the Week Companion: A Loving Tribute to the Classic Series, which was updated in 2008, and by Michael McKenna in The ABC Movie of the Week: Big Movies for the Small Screen.
Time slots
The MotW originally aired on Tuesday nights at 8:30 pm Eastern/7:30 pm Central. Established series The Mod Squad acted as a lead-in from 7:30 to 8:30, bringing the younger demographic. The shorter running time of the film freed the 10 p.m. time slot for a full 60-minute program, initially Marcus Welby, M.D. during the first season. Starting earlier at 8:30 could also prevent viewers from switching to competing movies at 9:00. Beginning with the 1971 season, ABC added a second MotW on Saturday night and adjusted the titles of the shows to the Movie of the Week and Movie of the Weekend. The following season, the Saturday installment was moved to Wednesday night, and the titles were adjusted to Tuesday Movie of the Week and Wednesday Movie of the Week.During the 1973-74 season, ABC added another movie on Saturday nights to their schedule, this time titled the ABC Suspense Movie, and usually consisting of thriller, mystery and horror type films.
Title sequence
The title sequence was designed by Harry Marks and animated by Douglas Trumbull using the slit-scan process that he had created for '.The accompanying theme music was an orchestral version of "Nikki", a song composed by Burt Bacharach and named for his daughter. The theme was arranged and performed by Harry Betts.
Over the music was narration voiced by Dick Tufeld. "The Movie of the Week. Presenting the world premiere of an original motion picture produced especially for ABC." That would be followed by a promotional teaser for the movie.
The opening for the Saturday Movie of the Weekend featured footage of a silhouetted "rotating cameraman" operating a 35 mm movie camera. This footage would later be incorporated into the opening of ABC's New York City television station WABC-TV's various movie umbrellas beginning around 1972-73, including and especially their weekday afternoon movie showcase '.
TV series pilots
The series was often used as a platform to show pilots for possible series for the network. It allowed the network to air pilots that it had already commissioned and paid for but had not ordered as regular series. As well, pilots that had already been sold as ongoing series or were being tested such as Kung Fu, The Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky and Hutch, Longstreet, Toma, Alias Smith and Jones and Get Christie Love! premiered here and returned on the regular schedule after minor to major alterations to the premise and/or cast. Other programs are sometimes mistakenly believed to have aired under the Movie of the Week banner. Marcus Welby, M.D. is believed to be a MotW but actually premiered after Seven in Darkness and was the lead-out for the Tuesday installment. Still others like Earth II and Nick Carter did air during that era, but were actually on other nights under different banners - the ABC Sunday Night Movie in the case of Nick Carter and Earth II.Actors
Most of the actors in non-recurring roles appeared only once or twice in the series. Notable exceptions who appeared in three or more films as different characters include Doug McClure, Darren McGavin, Dennis Weaver, Earl Holliman, Leonard Nimoy, Barbara Eden, Elizabeth Montgomery, Donna Mills, Ed Nelson, Ken Berry, Connie Stevens, Myrna Loy and William Windom.Many of the telefilms had actors credited as guest stars, special guest stars and "special appearance by," even if the movie was not a pilot for a series. Death Race and The Weekend Nun billed their lead actors as special guest stars. In the unusual case of Assault on the Wayne, all of the first-billed cast members were credited as guest stars.