The 4:30 Movie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 4:30 Movie was a television program that aired weekday afternoons on WABC-TV (Channel 7) in New York from 1968 to 1981. The program was mainly known for individual theme weeks devoted to theatrical feature films or made-for-TV movies starring a certain actor or actress, or to a particular genre, or to films that spawned sequels. The more popular episodes were "Monster Week," "Planet of the Apes Week" and "Vincent Price Week." Some films, such as Ben-Hur and How the West Was Won, were of such length that an entire week was devoted to running the whole movie. Other films that ran longer than the program's 90-minute length were often divided into two parts and shown over two days.

Variations of The 4:30 Movie were aired on other stations around the United States, most notably those also owned and operated by WABC-TV's parent network, ABC.

Contents

[edit] History

The 4:30 Movie got its start on January 8, 1968. In its first several months in that time slot, it was broadcast under the title The Big Show. This earlier title dated back to September 1963, when WABC first aired movies in the late afternoons to compete with WCBS-TV's long-running The Early Show and WNBC-TV's Movie Four. The movies were shown at 5:00 until 1965, and at 6:00 from then to January 5, 1968.

At first, The 4:30 Movie was two hours, but after the early evening Eyewitness News was expanded from 30 minutes to an hour on September 8, 1969, the movie show's length was set at 90 minutes, which it would remain for the rest of its run. After the autumn of 1972, the program was preempted once a month on Wednesday in the school months to run an episode of the ABC After School Special.

The announcer on The 4:30 Movie was Scott Vincent until his death in 1979, and Gilbert Hodges thereafter. The copy for The 4:30 Movie's openings, bumpers, and promos was written by John Kal.

The instrumental used as the theme music to The 4:30 Movie was an original composition, "Moving Pictures," written by Joe Raposo. The piece was commissioned by WABC-TV around 1969, applied to its other movie umbrellas, and subsequently used by some of ABC's other O&Os.

The most famous image associated with the show's opening, a silhouetted image of a "rotating cameraman" operating a 35 mm movie camera, was animated by Harry Marks and used on WABC-TV from around 1973 to 1980. This opening was also applied to the station's other movie shows, and was used for their Saturday Night Movie and Sunday Night Movie as late as 1987, with the theme music still in use up to 1991. The "rotating cameraman" footage originated from the opening titles for the weekend edition of the ABC Movie of the Week in 1971 [1]. From 1980 to the end, The 4:30 Movie's opening titles were similar to what was used for The ABC Sunday Night Movie and The ABC Friday Night Movie in the late 1970s, except with different theme music.

The 4:30 Movie was cancelled by WABC-TV in November 1981, and was replaced effective November 30 by The People's Court and a 5:00 edition of Eyewitness News. As with many once-popular movie shows on both the networks and local television stations, the factors most commonly cited in The 4:30 Movie's demise ranged from the proliferation of cable television channels such as HBO, Cinemax and Showtime, to the increasing popularity of videocassette recorders.

[edit] Equivalents in other cities

[edit] Chicago

On WLS-TV, this show was called The 3:30 Movie, which was a nearly identical show, except for the title. From 1980 until its cancellation in 1984, it would air a half-hour earlier as The 3:00 Movie.

[edit] Los Angeles

KABC-TV's weekday movie umbrella was called The 6:00 Movie until 1971, The 6:30 Movie up to 1974, and The 3:30 Movie thereafter. The program was officially cancelled by KABC in 1981, when it was replaced by a program called The World of People and an additional hour of Eyewitness News at the 4:00 slot.

[edit] Detroit

WXYZ-TV's afternoon movie show, like WABC's, was known for years as The 4:30 Movie, then around 1980 or so moved down a half-hour and was retitled The 4:00 Movie.

[edit] San Francisco

On KGO-TV, the equivalent was The 6:30 Movie in the early 1970s; by decade's end, after a change in time slot, it became The 3:30 Movie. The program was cancelled in 1986 to make room for Oprah at 3:00 p.m. and Donahue at 4:00 p.m.

In all the above cases, these movie umbrellas originally went by the same title of The Big Show as WABC, with KGO's movie show running as early as 1962. The programs changed to the later titles around the same time as the New York station.

From 1982 to 1983, WOR-TV in New York ran a late afternoon movie program called The 4:30 Movie, but it bore no relation to WABC's movie umbrella.

[edit] List of The 4:30 Movie's theme weeks

[edit] Actors and actresses

[edit] Continuing movie series

[edit] Movie genres

[edit] Individual movies airing the whole week

On occasion, The 4:30 Movie repeated some miniseries that originally aired nationally on ABC a few years before, most notably Roots, as well as Rich Man, Poor Man and its sequel. The length of each of these films was such that two whole weeks were dedicated to running the entire movie, rather than just one week.

[edit] External links