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.