Famous Film Festival


Famous Film Festival was American television's first prime-time movie series. It aired Sunday nights 7:30-9:00 pm on ABC during the 1955-56 television season, switching to Saturday nights during its second and final season, 1956-57.
In 1955, ABC obtained the rights to broadcast 35 British movies, the rights of which were owned by English film mogul J. Arthur Rank. Titles of these included The Man in Grey, The Lavender Hill Mob, Odd Man Out, Caesar and Cleopatra, The Red Shoes, and Hamlet. However, many of these, such as Hamlet, ran two full hours or longer, and were either drastically cut to fit a ninety-minute time slot or shown in two installments a week apart. It was not until November 3, 1956, with CBS's first presentation of MGM's The Wizard of Oz, that an uncut film lasting more than ninety minutes was telecast in one evening on a television network.
Unfortunately, all films in this series were broadcast in black-and-white, despite the fact that several of them had been originally photographed and exhibited theatrically in color. Thus, such films as Stairway to Heaven and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp would not be seen by American viewers in color until years later when they were released for rental and exhibition by local and independent television stations.
Other British films from J. Arthur Rank Productions obtained at the same time were shown as part of ABC's daytime Afternoon Film Festival, which aired weekdays from 3:00-5:00 pm. This show premiered January 16, 1956 and ended August 2, 1957, replaced by American Bandstand, which introduced Dick Clark to network television audiences and went on to become one of daytime's most popular programs, especially with teenagers.

Season One (1955-1956 Season)

All titles listed below for the series' two seasons were cited from the TV listings of The New York Times via microfilm copies of its backlogged issues, September 1955-May 1957.
  1. Odd Man Out
  2. Adam and Evalyn
  3. The Clouded Yellow
  4. Island Rescue
  5. Madonna of the Seven Moons
  6. The Man in Grey
  7. Notorious Gentleman
  8. Caesar and Cleopatra
  9. Caesar and Cleopatra
  10. The Lavender Hill Mob
  11. Tight Little Island
  12. The Woman in Question
  13. The Promoter
  14. The Blue Lagoon
  15. The Red Shoes
  16. The Red Shoes
  17. White Corridors
  18. Ivory Hunter
  19. In Which We Serve
  20. The Mikado
  21. Stairway to Heaven
  22. The Importance of Being Earnest
The remainder of this first season consisted of reruns of the films above, some of which were repeated twice before the beginning of the second season in October 1956, when the series moved to a new night: Saturdays from 7:30 to 9:00 pm.

Season Two (1956-1957 Season)

  1. The Captive Heart
  2. Genevieve
  3. The Rainbow Jacket
  4. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
  5. The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
  6. Tonight at 8:30
  7. Golden Salamander
  8. The Titfield Thunderbolt
  9. Hamlet
  10. Hamlet
  11. Miranda
  12. Desperate Moment
  13. School for Secrets
  14. Hungry Hill
  15. English Without Tears
  16. Forbidden Cargo
  17. A Queen Is Crowned
  18. Madness of the Heart
  19. The Girl in the Painting
  20. Don't Take It to Heart
  21. Broken Journey
  22. The Long Dark Hall
  23. The Man in Grey
  24. Bitter Springs
  25. A Place of One's Own
  26. They Were Not Divided
  27. The October Man
  28. The Cruel Sea
  29. One Woman's Story
  30. The Stranger In Between
  31. Frieda
  32. Eureka Stockade
  33. The Rocking Horse Winner
  34. The Spider and the Fly
After re-running Tonight at 8:30 on June 8, ABC ceased airing its Famous Film Festival series. Instead, through the summer of 1957, the network used its 7:30-9:00 time-slot on Saturdays to broadcast televised sermons by Billy Graham and then later ABC aired Country Music Hayride.