Remember WOR Channel 9's "Million Dollar Movie"? Remember the theme music, from Gone With the Wind?

Before Turner Classic Movies and Blockbuster, there was "Million Dollar Movie." The title was straight from the 1930s and 1940s, when a movie with a budget of "a million dollars" was a big thing.

WOR started the "Million Dollar Movie" in 1954 to fill the time slots when the baseball season ended. The movie King Kong, for example, could be seen regularly. For movie buffs, it was heaven.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWOR-TV
WWOR-TV, channel nine, is currently the New York City affiliate station of the UPN television network. Licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, the station serves the New York City metropolitan area. WWOR is owned by Fox Television Stations, a division of the News Corporation, but goes by its legal name WWOR-TV, Incorporated. In areas of the United States where UPN programs are not available over-the-air, WWOR is seen via satellite to subscribers of Echostar's Dish Network. Prior to 1995, it was one of the leading independent stations in the country, as well as a cable superstation.

http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/movies/documents/04381663.asp
Million Dollar Baby
Directed by Clint Eastwood. Screenplay by Paul Haggis, based on stories by F. X. Toole. With Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman. A Warner Bros. release (132 minutes). At the Boston Common, the Fenway, the Fresh Pond, and the Circle/Chestnut Hill and in the suburbs.

First, the title. A million dollars is not a lot for a baby when actors get 10 times that for being in films that no one sees. It's a Depression-era kind of title, and it resounds with phrases like "Million Dollar Movie," the name of a program of yore on WOR-TV in New York that gave an afterlife to classics of American cinema

http://www.retrojunk.com/details_commercial/1347/
By musicradio77 On 01/10/2006
When I wa a kid, I used to love the movies that WOR-TV ran 1940's and 1950's movies under the "Movie 9" name. It was usually on in the afternoon from the late 70's until 1980's. It had the opening shot of movie actors in paint where it was done in illustration. I missed the "Movie 9" shows since it was on in the afternoon. WOR-TV was the place for movies like the "Million Dollar Movie", "The 4 O'Clock Movie", "The Big Preview", "The Late Movie" and "9 All Night".

19 September 1954, New York Times, pg. X15:
Starting this week, WOR-TV will have the first showing of its "Million Dollar Movie" series, a package of thirty never-before-seen-on-television films. The first will be "Magic Town," starring Jane Wyman and James Stewart. Each picture will be shown for one week, starting on Tuesday, and will be seen nightly from 7:30 to 9 P. M. and from 10 to 11:30 P. M. There also will be a matinee on Saturday and Sunday at 4:30 P. M., a total of sixteen showings per week.

15 October 1981, Los Angeles Times, pg. I10:
In fact, it was to fill the evening hours after the baseball season ended that Channel 9 developed its "Million Dollar Movie."

19 December 1994, New York Times, pg. D10:
The older, more obscure movies that used to be shown on your local broadcast television station as the "Million Dollar Movie" are increasingly in the hands of those two classic movie channels, and are thus available only to movie buffs who have invested in cable (and whose cable systems offer the channels, which has been a problem for the Turner enterprise).

16 April 1995, New York Times, pg. BR11:
MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE
By Michael Powell.
Introduction by Martin Scorsese.
Illustrated. 626 pp. New York:
Random House. $30.

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