Festival of Thrillers

Festival of Thrillers was a horror film television program that ran late at night on weekends on WNBC-TV (Channel 4) in New York City from 1965 to 1968. Throughout its run, it aired directly after weekend reruns of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. The program's base list consisted of the classic 1930s and 1940s Universal Horror films, and a few later 1950s horror titles from other studios.

Contents

Background and history

WNBC-TV was the third station in the New York area to run the Universal Horror movies. WABC-TV was the first, in 1957, under the Shock Theater banner, and WOR-TV had its first stint running the films in the early 1960s on its Supernatural Theatre. This was WNBC-TV's effort to compete with not only WOR-TV's Supernatural Theatre, but also WPIX's Chiller Theatre.

Festival of Thrillers was launched on May 1, 1965, with a showing of Frankenstein (1931). Its debut was heralded by a full-page ad in TV Guide, with the image of the Frankenstein monster against a black background.[1] Also, Johnny Carson frequently did promos for the series throughout its run. The show has well-promoted, with full-page TV Guide ads for The Mummy ("Attention Archeologists, Demonologists and their Apologists! THE MUMMY - 1:00 AM") and The Black Cat . In its early months, the core group of films consisted of seventeen Universal Horror titles (all from the original 1957 Shock! package), one low-budget British science fiction release, and four films of varying vintage as released or distributed by MGM,[2] as follows:

By the end of 1965, WNBC-TV acquired thirteen more titles (some extra Universal Horror films and a few originally released by Columbia Pictures, all culled from the 1958 Son of Shock supplementary package), after WOR-TV's rights to those movies had expired. The titles that went to WNBC were as follows:

Some of these titles were also shown on Movie 4 over the three years Festival of Thrillers was on the air.

In only a small number of cases did Festival of Thrillers deviate from its playlist of 35 horror movies.[3] In 1967, two horror films released by Hammer Film Productions, The Curse of the Werewolf and The Brides of Dracula, had their first New York TV showings on the program; a few weeks later, the 1955 version of Svengali (starring Hildegard Knef) was presented under the Festival of Thrillers umbrella. Near the end of its 1968 run, a 1961 Hammer release, Shadow of the Cat, was aired.[4]

Opening title and bumpers

The opening of Festival of Thrillers was shot on 16 mm film, and consisted of a motion-control photo montage of stills from the classic Universal Horror films, with the final shot being a scene from The Invisible Man Returns zooming in to the startled face of a policeman seeing the Invisible One standing in a doorway. The musical background was a simple piece of library music: an oboe played a fifth interval, and then repeated it stepping down five tones on the scale, followed by an excited flute figure as the afore-mentioned policeman's close-up hit. The bumper consisted of a shot of The Mummy from The Mummy's Hand carrying an unconscious lady, only with The Mummy's head replaced with that of Boris Karloff's Frankenstein.[5] There was no host. Other viewers recall the teleop slide used as an image of Tom Tyler carrying Peggy Moran from The Mummy's Hand , without the replaced Karloff head, and with the Festival of Thrillers title displayed on the right.

Schedule and final years

In its first sixteen months on the air, Festival of Thrillers followed Carson repeats on Saturday nights at 1:00 A.M. Starting on September 11, 1966, Carson and Festival of Thrillers were moved to Sunday nights at the same respective starting times,[6] and a new movie series, Saturday Film Festival, premiered on September 17, 1966.[7] After eleven months on Sundays, Festival of Thrillers was moved back to Saturdays starting on August 26, 1967.[8]

According to contemporary TV listings in The New York Times, the last edition of Festival of Thrillers, a repeat of Before I Hang, was shown on July 6, 1968. Starting on July 13, 1968, the Saturday night Carson rerun was followed by another edition of WNBC's late-night movie umbrella, The Great Great Show; however, for its first two months Universal Horror titles continued to be shown in that time slot, until the station's rights to the films expired in or around late August 1968.[9]

Aftermath

The Universal Horror movies did not fade from New York TV after the end of Festival of Thrillers. By 1969, they turned up on WNEW-TV, where they formed the basis for the early years of Creature Features.[10] Then in 1971, the rights to these classics reverted back to WOR-TV, where they were initially shown on the daytime Thriller Theater and the early weekend Chiller Thriller before being run frequently in the early years of Fright Night. After WOR-TV's second run with these films ended, they bounced back and forth between WNEW-TV and public television station WNET by the 1980s.

As for the Hammer films, many remained a part of WNBC's film library through the early 1970s.

References and footnotes

  1. ^ Per WNBC-TV ad in TV Guide, New York-Metropolitan edition, May 1–7, 1965, and in the Daily News, May 1, 1965.
  2. ^ In the months prior to the start-up of Festival of Thrillers, WNBC-TV aired Fire Maidens of Outer Space and the four MGM-distributed titles on The Great Great Show, with The Haunted Strangler also airing on one of the Saturday night editions of Movie 4.
  3. ^ Each of which was played an average of five times on the program over the three years it was on the air.
  4. ^ All airing information per contemporary listings in The New York Times and TV Guide (New York Metropolitan Edition).
  5. ^ Info on opening and bumpers courtesy of Gary Gerani, co-author of Fantastic Television (New York, Crown Publishing Group, 1977).
  6. ^ TV Guide, New York-Metropolitan edition, September 10–16, 1966
  7. ^ TV Guide, New York-Metropolitan edition, September 17–23, 1966.
  8. ^ TV Guide, New York-Metropolitan edition, August 26-September 2, 1967.
  9. ^ TV listings in The New York Times past late August 1968 in the late Saturday night/early Sunday morning at 1 A.M. time slot do not mention any horror movies from Universal or Columbia. The Arts and Leisure section of the August 25, 1968 issue of The Times listed The Invisible Man Returns as scheduled for August 31, but when that date came along, a latter-day Dr. Kildare (Dr. Gillespie) film, Between Two Women (1945) was substituted.
  10. ^ Ironically, Fire Maidens of Outer Space, Fiend Without a Face, The Haunted Strangler and First Man Into Space also wound up on Creature Features at one time or another in its run.