Movie 4

Did You Know?

• The opening theme, 'Silhouette of a Dream,' was composed by Stan Zabka, a former associate director of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
• The closing theme was an easy listening version of 'Petite Fleur (Little Flower).'

Peak years

Movie 4 hit its stride in the late 1950s and early 1960s, when it introduced New York television audiences to future classics like The Bells of St. Mary's, High Noon, The Quiet Man, The Men, and East of Eden. The biggest draws were saved for Saturday and Sunday nights, while more ordinary pictures filled weekday and weekend afternoon slots. The program also became a showcase for prestigious foreign films, mostly from England but also elsewhere. In the fall of 1960, for instance, it aired the first TV broadcasts of the 1955 Peter Sellers–Alec Guinness version of The Ladykillers, Fernandel's The Sheep Has Five Legs, the 1954 Rossano Brazzi film Flesh and Desire, the 1957 French release Les Louves (Demoniac), the 1955 Spanish movie The Miracle of Marcelino, and the 1950 Italian film Prima comunione (Father's Dilemma).

Toward the end of its run, Movie 4 relied on frequent repeats of titles like North by Northwest, Home from the Hill, Soldier in the Rain, Captain Newman, M.D., Father Goose, The Time Machine, The Babe Ruth Story, and the pilots for Columbo (Prescription: Murder and Ransom for a Dead Man) and Ironside. Japanese monster movies like Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster and Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster appeared, but far fewer than what rival WABC-TV's The 4:30 Movie offered.

Time slots

In the 1961–62 season, a five-minute program fronted by Kukla and Ollie pushed Movie 4's starting time to 5:05 pm. By 1961, weekend movies began on both nights at 11:15 pm; early afternoon weekend films also ran under the banner of Movie 4 Matinee. Over time, the frequency of Movie 4 airings was gradually reduced. In October 1960, late Saturday afternoon editions were discontinued. Sunday night airings ended on September 23, 1962, replaced the next week by reruns of Desilu Playhouse. Thereafter, Movie 4 generally aired weekdays only.

Later years

Before 1968, Movie 4 was mostly overshadowed by WCBS's The Early Show. But that year, two key events shifted the landscape: WABC-TV launched The 4:30 Movie in January, and WCBS-TV dropped its weekday Early Show in March, swapping it for The Mike Douglas Show. These changes pushed Movie 4 into a secondary role, and its ratings started slipping. WNBC-TV's own ratings fell to last among the city's network-owned stations in the early 1970s, dragging Movie 4 down further. After Movie 4 ended, WABC-TV was the only network-owned station left with an afternoon movie show, The 4:30 Movie, which continued until 1981. The cancellation came nearly two years before home videocassette recorders arrived, and several years before cable television began to grow.

Postscript and aftermath

Over time, the quality of films shown on WNBC-TV became increasingly inferior, with some coming almost exclusively from the public domain. From around 1977, the station used the umbrella title Cinema 4 to replace various individual titles, and Cinema 4 ran with decreasing frequency, confined to occasional weekend and overnight weekend showings until the late 1980s.