On March 7, 1979, at around 12:30 AM a NYC area TV station aired a black-and-white, slapstick movie. How can I find out its name?
How are you so sure about the exact date? Serious question.
I’d call the public library and see if they can point me to someplace that may have archived issues of TV Guide.
If it was a black and white movie, then I assume it was being shown on a local NYC station, not on Network tv. Right? That makes it harder.
What was the subject matter of the movie? Any hint? Genre? Actor/Actress?
You could ask the New York Public Library Reference Desk if they have archived copies or possibly The Museum of Television & Radio might be able to answer the question.
Or you could contact all the television stations in NYC and ask them. I don’t think there were that many back then. Mostly there was Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13, along with a few UHF channels.
Something really terrible had happened earlier, and my father and I couldn’t sleep. So, we turned on the TV and there was this movie on that had us busting a gut. Of course, movie may only have been funny to us because we could really use a laugh. I’m certain of the date and would be very surprised if the movie hadn’t at least started airing by 12:30 AM.
It dawned on me that perhaps the movie’s available on VHS or even DVD, and since enough time has (probably) passed, it might be interesting to watch it again when I visit my family for the holidays.
While my guess is that the movie was shown on one of New York’s independent VHF stations, I wouldn’t rule out a UHF station (but back then I don’t think I ever really turned to anything past channel 13). Still, even in a major metropolitan area, there were only so many broadcast stations, and I imagine it’d be easy to narrow the field once one eliminates stations that had signed off for the night, weren’t showing movies, etc.
I have only the vaguest recollection of the film, and to be honest, I’m not sure that what I do recall aren’t false memories.
I don’t remember any of the actors, or even how many main characters were men or women. The two scenes I do recall were typical slapstick fair: the plumbing, in what I remember as an old stone building with exposed pipes, was improperly installed so when someone flushed the toilet in one room, the sink would squirt someone in another. Even vaguer is a scene with (I believe an overturned) row boat on the beach. Perhaps, there were two people doing something on the beach with a third hiding under the row boat causing hilarity to ensue.
I know that’s not a lot to go on, but I’ll take a hike down to the library. If they don’t have any only TV Guides, they might have a copy of the day’s paper with the TV listings.
Well I’m sure if you’d turned to the news at 11 there would have been a story about the worlds greatest human set to be born in October of that year right there in Brooklyn 
Was there one skinny guy and one fat guy? Channel 11 used to have a lot of Laurel & Hardy and Abbott and Costello shows in those days.
I’m looking at a PDF image of the television listings for March 6, 1979, which I accessed from the New York Times website. The only one that seems close is “War Italian Style,” which aired on channel 7 at 1:35am on March 7. According to the IMDB, it was Buster Keaton’s last movie.
1979? No real cable yet, so it was probably Channel 9 (WOR Secaucus), Channel 11 (WPIX), or Channel 5 (then WNEW)
If you can look up a Newsday or a Daily News from that date, the TV listings page will give you your answer (you may actually want to look at the day before since back then the TV listings ran from 5:00am (with Jack Lalane or Hatha Yoga) to 2 or 3am (The Late Late Late Movie)
I found the link you’re referring to, and I’ve got a really good feeling about “War Italian Style”. Thanks!
Obviously we needed a laugh, because we chose a movie that received a 4.1 rating by IMDB users over “Night of the Hunter” and “Notorious” which were airing at the same time.
You’re welcome, although according to the IMDB, it’s not available on DVD.
Google says that there was a DVD produced. I just need to find it.\
Again, thanks.
Why would black & white mean a local station? I’ve watched plenty of black & white films on network stations.
The IMDb plot description appears to be a paraphrase from the American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures:
Poster from the American release.
I have a feeling that this isn’t the movie you were describing. War Italian Style is in Technicolor, and what plot description I find doesn’t mesh with what you saw. Hal Erickson writes in the All Movie Guide of the Italian duo who star:
Back in the '70s, local stations still used two-reel comedies to fill out a time block after a feature film. Typically, the Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy. With commercials, the American version of War Italian Style would have been just over 90 minutes, with commercials. Enough time for a two-reel comedy to make a clean two hours.
The film you describe sounds much more like Laurel and Hardy’s Saps at Sea It has the scene in Ollie’s apartment where all the plumbing and appliances are mixed up, and when they call downstairs to talk to the janitor, it’s a cameo by cross-eyed Ben Turpin! Most of the rest of the movie is set on a boat that L&H rent, where they’re hijacked by a gangster on the run.
I noticed, too, that War Italian Style is in color, but there’s a part of me that suspects that the TV we were watching the movie on could’ve been black and white.
You could be right, but I think I’d’ve recognized Laurel and Hardy. Of course, I’m going to pursue your lead as well. Thanks.