Morning movie

The morning movie was once a daily staple of many local television stations from the 1950s to the late 1960s, before the rise of the many morning talk shows that are now seen nationally. A local affiliate would be given a certain amount of time (often ninety minutes) to fill television screens with their own shows, and a simple solution was the showing of an old film in that time slot. Since the slot was relatively brief in comparison to prime time, shorter movies running anywhere from 71 to 85 minutes would usually be shown, and longer films would be split in half over two days. A morning movie would often be scheduled anywhere from 9:00 A.M. to 10:30 A.M., just after a network program such as Captain Kangaroo had ended, and before the local noon newscasts.

Local affiliates which showed network game shows such as Concentration or Hollywood Squares usually did not show a morning movie.