The ABC Sunday Night Movie
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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 1988, on ABC. The program presented theatrical feature films airing on TV for the first time, as well as made-for-TV movies. 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 version of Moby Dick, which runs 117 minutes uncut, and yet was shown in a two-hour time slot with commercials. In many cases, however, rather than being edited for time, the broadcast was expanded from two to two-and-a-half hours to fit a film's longer running time, as in the 1966 network telecast of the film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. They were also pan-and-scanned so the image would fit the standard 4:3 television screen (as opposed to letterbox format).
Occasionally, the program would telecast what they termed an "ABC Sunday Night Movie Special", i.e. a film running three hours or more (counting the commercials). These telecasts would begin at an earlier hour, so that the film would end at around 11:30 P.M., and invariably consisted of blockbusters, such as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Fiddler on the Roof, Oliver!, 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 Easter weekend.
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 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" 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.
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