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Movie Debuts on Television -
In 1938, the British film The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) became the first
feature length film to be broadcast on television. It starred Leslie Howard
as Sir Percy Blakeney, a British aristocrat who fought the tyranny of the
French revolution by donning many disguises and rescuing the innocent from
its bloody reign of terror.
The sci-fi spectacular King Kong (1933) produced
and directed by Merian C. Cooper about a giant ape who fell for Fay Wray
(right off the Empire State Building) premiered on television throughout the
United States on March 5, 1956. The airing of King Kong got such good
ratings (90%), it inspired the concept of "Shock!," a syndicated series of
pre-1948 Universal horror movies released to local TV networks nationwide in
1957 with such classic flicks as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), and
The Wolf Man (1941).
On November 3, 1956, Mervyn Le Roy's production of the
classic fantasy film The Wizard of Oz (1939), appeared for the first time as
a special on the FORD STAR JUBILEE on the CBS network. At the time MGM was
paid $250,000 a showing.
David O. Selznick's classic film Gone With The Wind
(1939) based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell scored one of the highest
rating in television history when it aired for the first time on November 7
& 8, 1976. NBC reportedly paid $5 million for the rights to a single
national airing. CBS later bought the TV rights for 2 years.
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