NY TV debut 8/17/50 at 9:30 pm on WCBS' "Film Theatre of the AIr.'' 1942 Poverty Row crime drama. Unrelated to the "Big Town'' radio series (1937-52) that inspired four Pine-Thomas features (1947-48) for Paramount, a TV series (CBS/NBC, 1950-56) and a DC comic book (1951-8). NY TV debut 8/17/50 at 11 pm on WOR's "Starlit Playhouse.'' Starrett follows up his triumphs in MGM's MASK OF FU MANCHU and RKO's OUR BETTERS with Poverty Row sequel to 1927 railroad adventure produced by Trem Carr, by 1933 in charge of production at Monogram.

In honor of tonight's @TCM broadcast of OZ, I'm doing a thread covering its convoluted history on American TV, beginning with 11/3/56 at 9 pm EST debut on CBS as final offering on a monthly series of specials that were all broadcast live. #TCMParty Was it the first major film broadcast on network TV? No, NBC debuted MEET JOHN DOE back in 1950. MGM's first in-house film to hit the networks? Only if you ignore the three-part serializations of CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS and THE PIRATE on ABC's "MGM Parade'' earlier in 1956. #TCMParty

2/27/44 at 8:45 on W2XVW. With a few exceptions, major studios would hold fast to their features for another 12 years, but were willing to let stations like NYC's DuMont flagship show their wartime propaganda shorts like Robert D. Webb's 1943 effort. NY TV debut 2/27/49 from 7:15 to 8:30 pm on WCBS' "Film Theatre of the Air.'' Unity TV was distributing British documentaries like Jack Lee's CHILDREN ON TRIAL (1946) which dealt with juvenile delinquency.

NY TV debut 2/26/54 at 11:30 pm on WATV. Auer fascinatingly depicts 1939 TV in bizarre hoax story with Barbier as heroic kiddie show host. Recycles Manhattan effects footage from DELUGE (KBS-Admiral/RKO, 1933), which itself escaped early TV showings because Republic bought it. NY TV debut 2/26/59 at 11:15 pm on WOR's "Shock Theater.'' Grinde directs first (1939) of Karloff's four resurrection melodramas for Columbia, included in Screen Gems' "Shock of Shock'' package. Hosted by the inimitable Zacherley.

NY TV debut 2/25/49 at 8:30 pm on WATV. Obscure Poverty Row musical may have been at least partly shot well before its 1946 release after Wilde achieved stardom. NY TV debut 2/25/54 at 7:30 pm on WPIX's "First Show.'' dubbed 1951 Australian biopic of Johann Strauss played for a week on this predecessor of "Million Dollar Movie.''

2/23/49 at 5 pm on WJZ. No title was identified, but most likely New York's Channel 7 was showing one of the 16 westerns that Wayne made for Lone Star Productions, released by Monogram between 1933 and 1935. They turned up the following year on WOR. NY TV debut 2/23/54 at 11:15 pm on WCBS' "The Early Show.'' Norman Foster (posthumously Oscar snubbed recently for THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND) directs nifty 1939 mystery set at the Golden Gate International Exposition, aka the San Francisco World's Fair.

NY TV debut 2/21/44 from 8:30 to 9:45 pm on WNBT. With few civilians sets operable because neither parts nor repairmen were available in wartime, telecast of Nigh's 1940 comedy-drama was supposedly viewed mostly in military hospitals. 2/21/49 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm on WCBS' "The Chuck Wagon.'' 1943 western introduced Connecticut-born "Sheriff'' Bob Dixon. He sometimes had guests like pal Edward R. Murrow on 1949-51 film showcase , eventually picked up by CBS as "Chuck Wagon Playhouse.'' NY TV debut 6/6/48.

2/17/49 at 5:30 pm on WATV. Race car drive Mulhall and young ward (Darro) help out bus liner owner (Lane) in one of 12 action-packed episodes from 1934 serial from Mascot, absorbed the next year into Republic. NY TV debut 2/17/54 from 11:30 pm to 12:45 am on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' 1940 remake of the long-lost CHARLIE CHAN CARRIES ON (1931), the first film in the series starring Toler's predecessor, the late Warner Oland. Distributed by Unity TV.

NY TV debut 2/16/49 at 8:30 pm on WATV. Bennet's 1935 indie distributed theatrically via States Rights system casts La Rue and Norton, usually seen as heavies and drunks, as heroic reporter and gangster. 2/16/54 from 7 to 8 pm on WOR. De Forest Kelley makes screen debut as writer who fears murderous dreams are real in 1947 Pine-Thomas thriller released by Paramount. Same director, Maxwell Shane, remade Cornell Woolrich story as NIGHTMARE (1955).

NY TV debut 2/15/49 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm on WCBS' "The Chuck Wagon.'' Channel 2's new weekday afternoon western series took aim at WPIX's 6 p.m. "Six-Gun Playhouse,'' whose oaters weren't identified in newspaper listings. NY TV debut 2/15/54 from 6:15 to 7:25 pm on WCBS' "The Early Show.'' 1933 entry from Paramount's Zane Grey western series was shown under its reissue title due to 1938 remake starring Douglas Dumbrille, which itself turned up on TV as MARK OF THE AVENGER. Got that?

2/14/56 at 10 and 11:30 am, 1 and 2:30 pm on WABD's "Tune In Anytime Theatre.'' Capra's 122-minute still-timely warning about American fascism made NY TV debut 12/3/50 from 7 to 8:30 pm on WABD, now WNYW/5. 2/14/57 from 3 to 4:30 pm on ABC's "Afternoon Film Festival.'' Winston Churchill's daughter plays a reporter in 1949 British rom-com that made US TV debut 9/20/56 on this, the only regularly scheduled daytime movie showcase on one of the three legacy networks in the US.

NY TV debut 2/14/44 at 8:30 pm on WNBT. Corrigan's forgotten Rogers and Hart musical, second and final Technicolor production from independent Pioneer Pictures Corp., absorbed into Selznick International. Distributed by RKO in 1936, re-released by Film Classics in Cinecolor. NY TV debut 2/14/49 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. on WCBS. Monogram's ad department struggles with complex racial politics of 1940 western that made its NY TV debut 6/6/48 on Channel 2.

NY TV debut 2/12/49 from 7 to 7:30 pm. Newfield's 1946 entry in PRC's "Billy Carson'' horse opera series ran 55 minutes in theaters, but was slashed to around 27. NY TV debut 2/19/54 from 11:30 to 12:45 am on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Even played in yellowface, you can't totally dismiss any sleuth who arrives for a 1940 police convention on a dirigible.

NY TV debut 2/11/49 at 8:30 pm on WATV/13. Earliest documented NYC showing for Waggner's 1939 adventure, though the two earlier films in Monogram aviation series from a comic strip both debuted on WNBT in 1942 and the fourth bowed 6/23/48 on WATV. 2/11/54 from 7 to 8 pm on WATV. 66 minutes in theaters, future blacklistee Bernard Vourhaus' 1938 crime drama was one of many Republics offered to local stations by Hollywood Television Service in 53-minute cuts designed to fill one-hour time slots. NY TV debut 11/24/53 on WATV.

2/9/49 at 7 pm on WATV. Paramount, which never knew what to do with Sheridan, loaned her out for 1935 Poverty Row Northern before an unbilled bit in DeMille's THE CRUSADES. NY TV debut 6/9/48 on WATV. 2/9/54 at 11:30 pm on WATV. Phil Rosen directs 1936 oddity based on an idea by President Roosevelt developed by six writers plus co-screenwriter Nathaniel West. Channel 13 repeated it the following afternoon. Copyright expired 1964.

NY TV debut Sunday 2/8/59 from 10:30 pm to 12:20 am on WNBC's "Movie 4.'' Irving Cummings' 1940 Fox musical biopic with Edward Arnold reprising 1934 role as Diamond Jim Brady. Interrupted for 10 minutes of news at 11 and followed by repeat of DILLINGER (1945). NY TV debut 2/8/59 at 11:15 pm on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Even as it worked its way through huge contracts of pre-'48 Hollywood fare, Channel 2 continued premiering later British films like this droll 1956 black comedy with the incomparable Mr. Sim.

NY TV premiere 2/7/44 from 8:30 to 9:40 pm on WNBT. Rosen's three-year-old Monogram stars Ford as a reporter whose honeymoon is interrupted when he sees a man fall to his death with a tell-tale piece of paper in his hand. 2/7/54 at 11:15 pm on WCBS' "The Late Show.'' Lippert's 1951 French import CASABIANCA was retitled for the US market and somehow ended up listed as PRIVATE SUBMARINE.

NY TV debut 2/6/49 from 7:15 to 8:30 pm on WCBS' "Film Theatre of the Air.'' SCHOOL FOR DANGER (1944) was a British government docudrama with actual agents in French Resistance playing themselves. Also known as NOW IT CAN BE TOLD. NY TV debut 2/6/54 at 11:30 pm on WABC. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT with campus Communist twist, Lanfield's 1935 romcom was shown under 1941 reissue title HER ENLISTED MAN. Shown on TV under both titles, as well as 1951 alias RUNAWAY DAUGHTER. NY TV debut 2/28/51 on WPIX, later on WOR.

NY TV debut 2/5/49 from 8 to 9:15 pm on WCBS' "Film Theatre of the Air.'' Sam Newfield directed so many films for PRC that he also used the aliases Sherman Scott (as for this 1946 horror) and Peter Stewart. Whatever became of Hope Kramer? NY TV debut 2/5/54 from 6:15 to 7:25 pm on WCBS' "The Early Show.'' Charles Barton's ROCKY MOUNTAIN MYSTERY (Paramount, 1935) was shown under title used for its 1950 Favorite Films reissue, which promoted Ann Sheridan from fifth to second billing.

NY TV debut 2/4/49 from 9:50 to 10:50 pm on WCBS' "Film Theatre of the Air.'' Tiffany network flagship was heavily dependent on Poverty Row's PRC for film programming while indie WPIX was showing movies from Korda and Roach. Newfield's 1946 potboiler listed as "Danger Chaser.'' NY TV debut 2/4/54 from 6:15 to 7:25 on WCBS' "The Early Show.'' 1941 Fox mystery distributed minus logo by Unity TV. By the '60s it was showing on TV with logos via Seven Arts, later merged into Warner Bros.

NY TV debut 2/3/49 at 9 pm on WCBS' "Film Theatre of the Air.'' PRC's first color release (1945) co-starred Tim Holt's sister. NY TV debut 2/3/54 at 11:30 pm on WCBS' "The Early Show.'' Hitler has a cameo via newsreel footage in H. Bruce Humberstone's solid 1937 mystery. The series moved to WABD/5, which showed them on Saturday afternoons, when Channel 2 was through with them.