Who Created Movie Of The Week?
A Revisionist History

In 1968 (Leonard) Goldberg and his ambitious assistant, Barry Diller, came up with their revolutionary plan for a 90 -minute ABC Movie of the Week.
Dwight Whitney, TV GUIDE,
July 20,1974

"Among the worlds changed by Diller: ABC Television, where he invented nothing less than the Movie of the Week....-"
ATAS brochure,
10th Annual Hall of Fame
October 1994

On Thursday, May 28, 1968, a news story appeared on the front page of Daily Variety. It was headlined: "ABC-TV Earmarks $15 mil for Movie Of The Week." The proposed series was a " . . . new programming concept, a series of 90-minute feature films."

The announcement became "Topic of the Day" in Hollywood, and then "Topic of the Week" when ABC seemed reluctant to reveal who created this new concept that was to be "television's most ambitious vidpic project" and the "most expensive series ever undertaken by ABC" (or any other network). Hollywood waited and speculated, but ABC did not then, or ever, offer a formal corporate answer to the question of who created the series.

Barry Diller was assigned to supervise the series for ABC, and when Movie of the Week began its first season, it was an instant hit. As a rule in Hollywood, a blowout success of this kind produces massive publicity, some of it spontaneous, but there was a perplexing silence about the origins of Movie of the Week.

In 1974 the TV Guide article previously cited appeared. The quoted statement marked the first time, to my knowledge, that public credit was attributed to anyone for the creation of Movie of the Week. But a funny thing happened: Leonard Goldberg's name thereafter vanished from public discussions of the series, and it became customary for the media to credit only Barry Diller with having "created," "conceived," "invented," "conjured up" or "come-up-with" the "revolutionary" concept called Movie of the Week.

There is another name that doesn't come up when credit for creating the MOW is handed out, the name of the person who actually did think it up. That person is me.

I don't think of the creation of Movie of the Week as the deed I most want to be remembered for. I never thought of it as notably original, and it certainly wasn't "revolutionary." It was an adroit programming ploy based on a hunch that a television movie didn't have to be two hours long.

Actually, the "made-for-television movie" had already been invented four years earlier. I was in Jennings Lang's office at Universal in early 1964 when Jennings came up with the notion of producing two-hour original movies for TV and airing them intermixed with theatrical motion pictures. He called his concept Project 120, which was later changed to World Premier. Jennings' idea wasn't "revolutionary" either, but it was incontestably and boldly original.

It has been over a quarter of a century since Movie of the Week was conceived, but hype still gushes about this event unabated. Hype is a harmless swindle that helps the entertainment industry work, but it is not supposed to be taken seriously. Hype is not supposed to survive as cultural history.

On New Year's Day, 1968, I went for an early-morning walk on the beach, hung-over and trying not to think, but a piece of conventional television wisdom had been plaguing me for months and it began to plague me now: why did movies for television have to be two hours long? Why not an hour-and-half? I had persuaded myself that there must be a flaw in the idea; otherwise the networks would have given 90-minute movies a shot. But now it suddenly and soberly occurred to me that the networks had probably never pursued the idea because the executives whose job it was to explore such questions had simply never thought of it.

I spent the rest of the day examining pros and cons, and over dinner that evening I announced to my wife that I had just come up with the best idea I'd had since The Fugitive: a series of 90-minute anthology shows to be called Movie of the Week. She thought it ranked behind Maverick, and maybe even 77 Sunset Strip, but it sounded good.

I took the concept to Sidney Sheinberg, then vice-president in charge of television at Universal, where I was under contract as an independent producer. The idea struck Sid as probably a very hard sell, which did not surprise me: Universal was successfully producing the two-hour World Premiers. "But give it a try," he said.

The following day I outlined Movie of the Week to Grant Tinker, then a Universal vice-president. Grant thought the idea was probably "economically unfeasible."

On March 8, I offered the project to Herb Schlosser at NBC, which was like offering a fox to a chicken farmer: one of the advantages I was emphasizing about Movie of the Week was that going on the air at 8:30 would give the series a half-hour jump on TV's two-hour movies, which aired at 9:00 PM. NBC was the home of the two-hour World Premiers.

I had gone to Herb first because he was an old friend and I felt I owed him the courtesy of letting him know what I was up to. He didn't like the idea either, and reminded me that NBC already had a 90-minute show on the air called "Name of the Game."

Daily Variety's best reporter, Dave Kaufman, had quickly got onto the trail of Movie of the Week and had not missed a step, from Sheinberg to Tinker to Schlosser. Dave called me and I confirmed what he had heard about the project, and on March 21, 1968, Movie of the Week became public.

Kaufman's story was headlined, "ROY HUGGINS PREPPING 90-MIN. TV SERIES TO COST 500G AN EPISODE." It went as follows:

"Public Arts Inc., Roy Huggins' production company, is undergoing a shift in emphasis from theatrical and two-hour vidfilms for TV to a new concept, a weekly series of 90-minute pictures to be aired first-run on TV under the tag "Movie of the-Week."

"Huggins is in preliminary talks with NBC on the project and has a meeting set for today with CBS-TV toppers.

"Estimated over-all cost of the series would be $18,000,000 to $20,000,000 -- by far a record for any weekly show on TV. Huggins, prexy of Public Arts, is planning on a minimum budget of $500,000 for his shows."

On Monday, March 25, Leonard Goldberg called Grant Tinker and asked why I hadn't discussed the program with ABC. Grant passed the inquiry on to me, but because of the scheduled meeting at CBS I put off returning Leonard's call.

On March 27 I sat facing seven CBS executives at a long conference table. Mike Dann sat in the center of the group, with three men on his right and left flanks. I outlined Movie of the Week to this silent assembly and finished to more silence, which had gained weight during my performance, a silence broken at last by Mike Dann, who said, "Roy, that's probably the worst idea I ever heard."

On April 26, Barry Lowen of ABC called my office and a meeting was set for Monday, April 29 at the Century Plaza Hotel, room 1905.

Waiting for me was Leonard Goldberg, then vice-president in charge of ABC programming on the west coast. Also present was Barry Lowen, Barry Diller, and two other ABC executives whose names I could not recall when I returned to my office to dictate a record of the meeting. Here are some notes from that record:

The meeting lasted 55 minutes.

Three of those present were profoundly skeptical about the viability or legitimacy of calling a show whose actual length would be only 76 minutes a "movie." I told them I had written and directed a theatrical movie for Columbia Pictures in 1953 that ran only 75 minutes, one of a series of films starring Randolph Scott. It was the studio's policy to release them at 75 to 80 minutes.

Barry Lowen wondered if there wasn't a better title than Movie of the Week. I said it was the only possible title, that every aspect of the series must evoke the image of a movie, and anything that might suggest a TV series, a host for example, would be fatal.

Barry Diller sat for almost the entire meeting leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clenched under his chin, his eyes never leaving my face. When he finally spoke he wanted to know why ABC should buy an idea that had been rejected by the other two networks.

I said, "Why not?" and asked Diller if he had any doubt that movies made for television, the World Premiers, were here to stay. The audience, I said, barring failures of execution, would make no distinction between a 90-minute movie and a two-hour one, and the current practice of mixing movies made for TV with old theatrical films was unnecessary and probably a weakness, a failure of nerve.

By putting Movie of the Week on the air at 8:30, the program would reach the peak audience, get a half-hour jump on two-hour movies and leave the 10 to 11 PM slot open for a variety show. (They were doing well in 1968.)

Diller wanted to know what kind of shows I thought would work in that format. Emphasize action, suspense and mystery in the first season, I said. Stay away from comedy and soap-opera, and restrict westerns to three or four, after mid-season. "After the series is safely established, anything can be done on Movie of the Week."

Leonard Goldberg asked if I had to produce the shows with Universal. I said the idea belonged to me and I had the contractual right to sell it, but if I wanted to produce it, I was obliged by contract to produce it with Universal, which I planned to do.

What kind of money would I need to make these shows? I said anything less than $500,000 per episode was unrealistic. On that point no one agreed with me. I was off, they said, by at least $100,000.

Star-casting? "Sure, we can't re-write film history, although I'd like to."

Pilots? One of the show's advantages was as a showcase for pilots, but the series would be at risk if more than four or five episodes per season were produced as pilots.

A few days later I began to hear rumors that ABC was talking to Lew Wasserman about something called Movie of the Week. I called Sid Sheinberg. He wasn't in. I called Grant Tinker. He was with Mr. Sheinberg. I called Lew Wasserman. He was meeting with Mr. Sheinberg and Mr. Tinker.

Grant Tinker returned my call. Jo Swerling my executive assistant, and Dorothy Bailey, my production assistant, were with me when Tinker joined us. I asked about the rumors. They were true, ABC and Wasserman had discussed Movie of the Week. Grant didn't look discomfited, he was too loyal to corporate good faith for that, and he was always a paradigm of casual grace. He reminded me that he had questioned the economic viability of the concept, and now there was a problem: money. Wasserman wanted more than ABC was willing to pay, and I was part of that problem.

"How?"

"We can't afford you. We can do this with Jerry Adler." (Adler was a staff producer.)

I never quarrel with someone I like, especially when he is delivering someone else's message. I didn't quarrel with Grant, I called Sheinberg, and when I got no response, I called my lawyer.

On May 27, ABC put out its news release about their new Movie of the Week project, to which Dave Kaufman responded by calling Leonard Goldberg and saying, "I see you bought Roy Huggins' Movie of the Week show." Leonard's response was (Dave Kaufman told me) that it was not Roy Huggins' show, it was a show they had been planning for a long time.

The ABC announcement had stated that the 26-episode series would cost between, 14 and 15 million dollars. If you divide $14,000,000 by 26, you get a cost per show of just over $500,000.

ABC's announcement started me poring over the log I kept on Movie of the Week, and I was re-reading my notes on the ABC meeting when Grant Tinker stopped by. I told him I was thinking seriously of suing.

Grant was standing in the doorway between my secretary's office and mine. He blinked and said, "Us?"

The suit I filed against ABC brought forth a swift response to the effect that the idea for Movie of the Week was born within the walls of the American Broadcasting Co. Inc. This suggests that one or more of the corporation's executives were entitled to credit for it, but ABC could never quite settle on who they were.

My lawyer, Louis C. Blau, brought in a specialist in copyright law, Harold Fendler, but Mr. Blau had been gathering data and I have a copy of his notes, hastily scribbled as phone calls were exchanged and legal positions were staked out.

A note by Mr. Blau dated May 28, 1968, reads: "Barry Diller of ABC returned my call to Leonard Goldberg. Diller told me he was in a meeting with Goldberg, became very noncommittal, said he had another call and terminated conversation."

Another note dated May 29: "Was Huggins discussed with Universal? Universal discussed with ABC -- but no mention of R.H."

A page of notes headed "Grant Tinker", reads:

"On 90-minute
'Movie of the Week'
A.B.C. wants the deal"

"To R. H.
You're (R.H.) too expensive -
we can't afford you - we could do this with a 'Jerry Adler'"

A note under "Barry Diller" reads:

"Univ terms too tough.
ABC said F-- Univ--"
(The dashes are Mr. Blau's)

I was in Spain through July and most of August so there is a gap in my written record, but on August 14 Dorothy Bailey sent a note to Louis Blau telling him that Gerald Isenberg had called me, in his new capacity as "director of feature film production in charge of ABC's Movie of the Week." I was still in Spain.

On September 5, 1968, the General Attorney for the American Broadcasting Co., Mr. Harry Olsson, Jr., responded to the suit with a lengthy letter. Here are some of his assertions:

"There was nothing unique, novel, or original in what Mr. Huggins and our people discussed. Feature motion pictures made for television, and weekly broadcasts of those movies on TV are certainly 'old hat.'

As you know, we presently plan to put such a series on the air in 1969. It may or may not bear the title 'Movie of the Week'...

If Mr. Huggins wishes to and were free to supply films for that series, our people would be entirely willing to discuss the possibility of making a deal with him."

This was not the first time ABC had invited me to produce some of the Movie of the Week shows. The call from Gerald Isenberg had been followed by an invitation to meet with Leonard Goldberg. I accepted and Jo Swerling Jr. went with me. Leonard was cordial, as always, and quickly got to the point: He wanted me to be one of the producers supplying shows for Movie of the Week. "How many would you like to do?"

"All of them," I said.

Leonard looked hurt, disappointed, even a little sad, and told me he couldn't let me do that, but he would be happy to have me produce a minimum of five shows per season, possibly as many as eight. I could see Jo glancing at me, wondering why I didn't know it was time to quit. But I declined Leonard's offer. I wasn't looking for work, I was trying to establish ownership of the most commercial idea I had ever conceived.

Harold Fendler was not concerned about Olsson's letter, and pointed out that everything ABC had done, or failed to do, from January to June, 1968, disproved the assertions in Olsson's letter. ABC had had ample opportunity to declare publicly or to me that Movie of the Week was theirs. They had not done so. Nor was it true that there had been "weekly broadcasts" of films made for TV prior to Movie of the Week.

Fendler, however, had serious reservations about the legal viability of the suit. The publication of the Movie of the Week idea, appearing uncopy-righted and in its entirety in Variety, may have put the concept into the public domain. I said there had been similar publicity about The Fugitive before I met with ABC, and the ownership of The Fugitive had never been challenged. Fendler pointed out that Movie of the Week was a programming concept, not a series concept with original characters.

I had a strong case, he assured me, based on industry custom relating to the exchange of professional confidences and on my precedent relationship with ABC, but he didn't feel confident enough about the outcome to recommend that I take the enormous financial risk involved in pursuing the suit. "ABC can't afford to lose this one."

I thought it over for several days, discussed it with Louis Blau, and finally decided that when an expert gives you advise that costs him money you should probably take it. I dropped the suit but did not apply to become one of the "suppliers" of the show.

In the 1970-71 season, Movie of the Week made it into the top ten. Diller created two additional Movie of the Week nights, Wednesday and Saturday, and when he left the network to run Paramount Pictures Corporation, ABC had become number one. In 1968 ABC had been in third place.

In 1989 the American Film Institute and the L.A. Film-Fest got together to honor Leonard Goldenson, founder and former Chairman of ABC, at a luncheon in Hollywood celebrating the "25th anniversary of the motion picture for television." Honoring Goldenson was altogether proper, though a bit late and for the wrong reason.

The luncheon brought forth two articles on the origins of the movie for television. One is the LOS ANGELES TIMES piece quoted at the beginning of this article. Jon Krampner wrote the other, an article that appeared in a booklet distributed at the luncheon. Krampner had talked with Frank Price, successor to Sidney Sheinberg as president of Universal television, and he had suggested that Krampner ought to call me before writing anything about Movie of the Week.

Krampner called, and began by telling me he had been informed that Movie of the Week was created by Leonard Goldberg and Barry Diller. I told him he had been misinformed, and in response to a string of questions, I briefly outlined the history of the series, which surprised and disturbed him: he was "writing against a deadline," Krampner said, and would have no time to check out what I had told him.

"While the success of the series is indisputable (Jon Krampner wrote), its paternity is a bit clouded. ABC executives maintain the series was hatched in-house, and generally point to the triumvirate of Leonard Goldberg, Barry Diller and Martin Starger.

"Negotiations on Movie of the Week " (Krampner continued) "ensued between Universal and ABC, but broke down. Leonard Goldenson, who provided staunch support for Movie of the Week at the corporate level of ABC, says Lew Wasserman wanted $400,000 a picture, while ABC wanted to pay only $350,000. . . Neither Lew Wasserman nor Sidney Sheinberg were available to be interviewed for this article."

Mr. Krampner sent me a copy of the booklet containing his article, along with a letter explaining that he had written eleven paragraphs based on our interview. Only the two paragraphs quoted above survived. He speculated that the abridgment might have had something to do with the fact that several of the people whose names had come up in our discussion were sitting at the head table.

Then there came a sweet bit of vindication from the most unimpeachable source there is. In 1991, Leonard Goldenson published his biography, Beating the Odds, written with Marvin J. Wolf, in which Goldenson said, "Movie of the Week, a seminal notion, became vitally important to ABC, and a number of major careers were launched or accelerated because of it. So one should not be surprised that credit for the idea has been claimed widely. A check of Daily Variety, however, confirms Roy Huggins's primacy."