Television film
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A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie, telefilm, telemovie or TV film/movie, is a
Origins and history
Precursors of "television movies" include Talk Faster, Mister, which aired on WABD (now WNYW) in New York City on December 18, 1944, and was produced by RKO Pictures,[citation needed] and the 1957 The Pied Piper of Hamelin, based on the poem by Robert Browning, and starring Van Johnson, one of the first filmed "family musicals" made directly for television. That film was made in Technicolor, a first for television, which ordinarily used color processes originated by specific networks. Most "family musicals" of the time, such as Peter Pan, were not filmed but broadcast live and preserved on kinescope, a recording of a television program made by filming the picture from a video monitor – and the only (relatively inexpensive) method of recording a television program until the invention of videotape.
Many television networks were against film programming, fearing that it would loosen the network's arrangements with sponsors and affiliates by encouraging station managers to make independent deals with advertisers and film producers.[1]
Conversely, beginning in the 1950s episodes of American television series would be placed together and released as feature films in overseas cinemas.[citation needed]
The term "made-for-TV movie" was coined in the
The second film to be considered a television movie, Don Siegel's The Hanged Man, was broadcast by NBC on November 18, 1964.[2]
These features originally filled a 90-minute programming time slot (including
In 1996, 264 made-for-TV movies were made by five of the six largest American television networks at the time (CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, and UPN), averaging a 7.5 rating.[clarification needed][4] By 2000, only 146 TV movies were made by those five networks, averaging a 5.4 rating,[4] while the number of made-for-cable movies made annually in the U.S. doubled between 1990 and 2000.[4]
In several respects, television films resemble B movies, the low-budget films issued by major studios from the 1930s through the 1950s for short-term showings in movie theaters, usually as a double bill alongside a major studio release. Like made-for-TV movies, B movies were designed as a disposable product, had low production costs and featured second-tier actors.[5]
Examples
ABC's Battlestar Galactica: Saga of a Star World premiered to an audience of over 60 million people on September 17, 1978.
The most-watched television movie of all time was ABC's The Day After, which premiered on November 20, 1983, to an estimated audience of 100 million people.[6] The film depicted America after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and was the subject of much controversy and discussion at the time of its release due to its graphic nature and subject matter. The BBC's 1984 television film Threads earned a similar reputation in the United Kingdom as it followed two families and workers of Sheffield City Council in the run up and aftermath of a nuclear war. The two are often compared on aspects such as realism.
Another popular and critically acclaimed television movie was 1971's Duel, written by Richard Matheson, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Dennis Weaver. Such was the quality and popularity of Duel that it was released to cinemas in Europe and Australia, and had a limited theatrical release to some venues in the United States and Canada. The 1971 made-for-TV movie Brian's Song was also briefly released to theatres after its success on television, and was even remade in 2001. In some instances, television movies of the period had more explicit content included in the versions prepared to be exhibited theatrically in Europe. Examples of this include The Legend of Lizzie Borden, Helter Skelter, Prince of Bel Air and Spectre.
Many television movies released in the 1970s were a source of controversy, such as
My Sweet Charlie (1970) with Patty Duke and Al Freeman Jr. dealt with racial prejudice, and That Certain Summer (1972), starring Hal Holbrook and Martin Sheen, although controversial, was considered the first television movie to approach the subject of homosexuality in a non-threatening manner. If These Walls Could Talk, a film which deals with abortion in three different decades (the 1950s, the 1970s and the 1990s) became a huge success, and was HBO's highest rated film on record.
If a network orders a two-hour television pilot for a proposed show, it will usually broadcast it as a television movie to recoup some of the costs even if the network chooses to not order the show to series.[7] Often a successful series may spawn a television movie sequel after ending its run. For example, Babylon 5: The Gathering launched the science fiction series Babylon 5 and is considered to be distinct from the show's regular run of one-hour episodes. Babylon 5 also has several made-for-TV movie sequels set within the same fictional continuity. The 2003 remake of Battlestar Galactica began as a two-part miniseries that later continued as a weekly television program. Another example is the Showtime movie Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which launched the sitcom of the same name that originally aired on ABC, and used the same actress (Melissa Joan Hart) for the lead role in both. The term "TV movie" is also frequently used as vehicles for "reunions" of long-departed series, as in Return to Mayberry and A Very Brady Christmas. They can also be a spin-off from a TV series including The Incredible Hulk Returns, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk and The Death of the Incredible Hulk.
Occasionally, television movies are used as sequels to successful theatrical films. For example, only the
Made-for-TV movie musicals have also become popular. One prime example is the
Television movies traditionally were often broadcast by the major networks during
High-calibre limited programming which would have been formerly scheduled solely as a two-hour film or miniseries also has been re-adapted to the newer "limited series" format over a period of weeks (rather than the consecutive days usually defined by a miniseries) where a conclusion is assured; an example of such would be The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story, and these are most often seen on cable networks and streaming services such as Netflix.
Production and quality
In a 1991 New York Times article, television critic John J. O'Connor wrote that "few artifacts of popular culture invite more condescension than the made-for-television movie".[10] Network-made television movies in the United States have tended to be inexpensively-produced and perceived to be of low quality.[citation needed] Stylistically, these films often resemble single episodes of dramatic television series. Often, television films are made to "cash in" on the interest centering on stories currently prominent in the news, as the films based on the "Long Island Lolita" scandal involving Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher were in 1993.
The stories are written to reach periodic semi-
The movies typically employ smaller crews, and rarely feature expensive
Part of the reason for the lower budgets comes from the lack of revenue streams from them; whereas a theatrical film can make money from ticket sales, ancillary markets, and syndication, most television films lacked those revenue streams, and the films are seldom rerun. Raconteur Jean Shepherd produced several television films in the 1970s and 1980s before realizing that the proceeds from his first theatrical film, A Christmas Story (released in 1983), far exceeded anything he had ever done in television.[11]
Nonetheless, notable exceptions exist of high production quality and well-known casts and crews that even earned awards, such as
Movie-length episodes of television shows
Occasionally, a long-running television series is used as the basis for television movies that air during the show's run (as opposed to the above-mentioned "reunion specials"). Typically, such movies employ a filmed
See also
- Direct-to-video
- Film adaptation
- List of television films produced for American Broadcasting Company
- Miniseries
- Soap opera
- Telenovela
- Téléroman
- Television play
- Television pilot
- Television special
- Limited-run series
Notes
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-252-06299-5
- ^ a b Michael McKenna. (August 22, 2013). Page xviii. The ABC Movie of the Week: Big Movies for the Small Screen. Scarecrow Press. Accessed on December 31, 2013.
- ^ Combustible Celluloid.com, "Hemingway-esque", review by Jeffrey M. Anderson, paragraph 3
- ^ a b c "The Death of the Network TV Movie-of-the-Week". Passaic, New Jersey: The Herald-News. June 3, 2001. p. 41. Retrieved July 26, 2023.
- ^ Hall, Lucinda M. (19 May 2023). "Research Guides: Film Genres: B movies". Dartmouth Library. Retrieved 2023-06-07.
- ^ "War of the Worlds Revisited: The Effect of Watching "The Day After" on Mood State". JDC.jefferson.edu.
- ^ Kim, Albert (July 8, 1994). "Pulp Nonfiction". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 6, 2008.
- ^ Kissell, Rick; Schneider, Michael (August 18, 2007). "'High School Musical 2' huge hit". Variety. Retrieved 2007-08-18.
- ^ Why do we like Tom Selleck so much?
- ^ O'Connor, John J. "A TV Movie With a Familiar Ring". The New York Times. 1 January 1991.
- ^ Sharbutt, Jay (August 6, 1988). "Jean Shepherd's Midwest in 'Haven of Bliss'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2010-08-21.
- ^ Human Cargo, CBC.ca. Accessed April 29, 2008.
Bibliography
- Marill, Alvin H. Movies Made for Television, 1964–2004. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8108-5174-1. (Vol. 1: 1964–1979; Vol. 2: 1980–1989; Vol. 3: 1990–1999; Vol. 4: 2000–2004; Vol. 5: Indexes.)
- Marill, Alvin H. Movies Made for Television, 2005–2009. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2010. ISBN 0-8108-7658-2.
- Marill, Alvin H. Main Title: Big Pictures on the Small Screen: Made-for-TV Movies and Anthology Dramas. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2007. ISBN 0-275-99283-7