Saturday night at the movies
 

I almost forgot about this program, until I found a preview guide from NBC back in the early sixties, All I remember was the beautiful color on those movies, many seen on tv for the first time

Saturday Night at the Movies
 

I remember those also; NBC purchased a large package of 20th Century Fox films and must have at that time used 35mm to run those--I don't know if they transfered to tape yet at tnat time or not like now. They may have run directly off of film. i was still in high school when that started in 1961 I think.

I'd bet what little I have that they ran those movies from film chains - a modded color TV camera picking up the image from 35mm film through all kinds of optics and mirrors. Kris Trexler has a pretty good explanation and some pics on this page.

The problem with all of those Fox color films that NBC broadcast is that they were all filmed in CineamaScope and NBC used "flat" prints that cut off at least 1/3 of the scope ratio. I remember the "sqeeze" during the credits so they could fit them in.

I do remember watching the NBC broadcast of "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and there was Michael Rennie after the film was over in a taped "greeting". Anyone else remember that?

I remember, very well, the 1961 opening for NBC Saturday Night at the Movies. It was verticle multicolored-film strips rotating around each other. I think it was also the first use of pan and scan to accomodate the Cinemascope movies.

Here's some futher info from a UK site of all places.

"NBC Saturday Night At The Movies" (1961-1978): For many years, movies were seen as programming limited only to local television stations-mostly black and white features made before 1948. But on September 22 1961, the comedy "How To Marry A Millionaire" with Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable made its debut on NBC's new showcase for feature films. "Saturday Night At The Movies" quickly gained a following for two major reasons. First, the films were recent box office hits. Second, most of them were in color-a potent weapon at a time when NBC was pushing color programming.

-Steve D.

Another way of feeding film programs into video was the use of "flying spot scanners". A frame of film is in darkness except for an image of a bright spot of white light projected onto the film. The spot is raster scanned over the film. Behind the film are 3 photomultiplier tubes, one with a green filter, another red filter and the third a blue filter. The amplified outputs of these tubes look like RGB video, which is then converted to composite NTSC video.