In contrast to movies that are made for viewing in theatres, television movies, sometime known as made-for-television films, are feature films that television networks produce and distribute.
One of the first movies made for television was “The Pied Piper of Hamlin” starring Van Johnson in 1957. Rather than using color processes designed by specific networks, it was made inTechnicolor, a series of color film processes established by the Technicolor Motion Picture Corporation. This was a divergence from similar productions of the time as most such productions which were musicals, such as “Peter Pan”, were broadcast live and then recorded on kinescope.
The early 1960’s saw the beginning of the “made-for-television” movie that was advertised as watching a theatrical motion picture of first-run quality to encourage people to stay home and watch movies. The NBC network was the first to debut with “NBC Saturday Night at the Movies” in 1961 with the showing of a major studio film on television in prime time. Other networks followed with having their night of the week at the movies resulting in a shortage of studio films. One movie filmed for television was “The Killers” but it was decided by NBC to be too violent for television and it was released through regular movie theatres instead.
Originally these films were produced to be ninety minutes long including the commercials but later were expanded to two hours in length. They were broadcast as a weekly series with major stars and actors and some even had budgets that were higher than those of the television programs that were standard series of the same length. Over time, these weekly movies were phased out and replaced by those standard series and other types of television programs.