This weekend is TVOntario’s telethon, which means that it was exactly forty years ago this weekend that their long-running program, Saturday Night at the Movies celebrated its tenth anniversary on the air with a special ten-hour program of vintage B-movies.
Ten hours! Forty years ago! Golly! Yours truly saw a bit of this, and sadly didn’t stay up till 6 AM to catch everything, though now I wish I had! It was here where I first heard the term B-movie (and with its correct usage). In between the films, the ebullient Elwy Yost would have some guest interviews, and also ask TVO viewers to pledge money. (Clips of these interstitials are seen in the 2021 documentary, Magic Shadows: Elwy Yost, A Life in Movies.)
Thanks to the wonderful world of online newspaper archives, here is what was presented in this occasion of occasions:
8:10 PM – Thank You Mr. Moto (1937), starring Peter Lorre in one of several films as the popular detective.
9:30 PM – Powdersmoke Range (1935) B-western with Harry Carey and Hoot Gibson!
10:50 PM – The Saint in London (1939) featuring George Sanders in one of the several RKO films of the Leslie Charteris character
12:15 AM – The Painted Desert (1931) another B-western, this time featuring a young Clark Gable!
2:00 AM – The Falcon Takes Over (1942) George Sanders also played this popular character of another long-running RKO series
3:15 AM – Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936) Warner Oland and Boris Karloff mix it up in this classic entry of the long-running franchise.
4:30 AM – Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1941) Lloyd Nolan stars as Brett Halliday’s famed private eye.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.