Let us now sing the praises of the 3:30 Movie.

In the primordial time before cable TV and even VCRs, my love of old movies was born and nurtured by local TV stations showing classic movies. VCRs wouldn’t burst onto the scene until the early 1980’s and even then they were enormously expensive. Cable TV was slow to come to Chicago because the regular broadcast stations were so varied and so strong. I didn’t get cable TV until the very late 80’s because it was never available where I lived.

Once I did, I consumed American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies like popcorn. By the time the City of Chicago was finally wired for cable the cable channels were outbidding local stations for old movies. Also the local stations found better use for the early afternoon lead-in to the local news such as syndicated programs like Wheel of Fortune. ("Pat, I’d like to buy the porcelain dog.")

But back to the 3:30 Movie. My love affair with classic movies began with the 3:30 Movie on Channel 7. I was never home early enough to catch the beginning of the movie, except if school was out or if I was home sick. In elementary school, I walked to and from school and in junior high and high school I rode the bus.

Certainly other Chicago TV stations broadcast old movies. Channel 2 also had a movie at 3:30. I don’t remember much about the afternoon movies on Channel 2 and I think it must have been short-lived. Of course, there was Family Classics on Channel 9. Sunday afternoon was the time for such greats as The Time Machine and Boys Town. The host, Frazier Thomas, also hosted the children’s show Garfield Goose. Sometime in the early 90’s Family Classics morphed into the Sunday Afternoon Movie before it disappeared. Channel 32 had great late night horror and sci-fi movies hosted by Svengoolie. (BERWYN?) There, I watched Night of the Living Dead. They also occasionally had non-horror offerings such as A Night To Remember. Even Channel 11 had a regular classic movie on Saturday evenings. Called Movie 11, they showcased such movies as The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and more contemporary offerings such as A Room With A View.

Channel 7 also had a movie at 8:30 in the morning. It was the Prize Movie with Ione. I can still picture her with her makeup pancaked on and her hair in a huge pile on her head like a woodchuck. She’d demonstrate an exercise and then take callers to identify the mystery song. If the caller missed the title, more money would be added to the jackpot. I would also watch Ione and giggle at her exercises the same way I would laugh at Ray Raynor’s alleged craft projects. Ione disappeared not long after our family moved to Frankfort, replaced by AM Chicago.

Channel 7 also broadcast movies at other times; late nights come to mind. For example, they always showed The Gay Divorcee with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers on New Year’s Eve after the obligatory five-minute shot of the revelers on State Street.

Of course, the networks had their share of old movies. CBS always broadcast The Wizard of Oz, NBC had The Sound of Music at Christmastime and ABC always showed The Ten Commandments around Easter/Passover. Now, of course, the networks never show old movies, not even Gone With the Wind. Which is sad because that link with our past is gone.

But always there was the 3:30 Movie.

It was a simpler time. There was no digital TV or plasma screens or hundreds of cable channels. It was the early 1970’s and great old movies were available over the air - the old-fashioned way, with commercials every 15 minutes.

I have this image of myself watching in my bedroom on the little portable black-and-white TV while snuggled under piles of blankets, home sick from school. An aside: I was rarely home sick from school. My mom is a nurse. She’d either say, "You’re not sick, get your ass out of bed," or "Maybe we’d better go to the doctor." In order to stay home from school you’d better be really, really sick.

Anyway, there I’d be like the princess in Once Upon A Mattress, and an empty mug of hot chocolate or tea my Grandma had made me on my nightstand, her only concession to my illness.

WLS must have purchased tons of RKO, Warner Brothers and 20^{th Century Fox movies. How they wedged them into an hour and a half time slot with commercials is beyond me. I’m sure they must have snipped some scenes. They did, I recall, occasionally show movies over two consecutive days. I Remember Mama is one that I recall racing home from school to watch the second part.}

During the summer, they seemed to show lighter fare. I learned to hate Bob Hope because of his constant mugging for the camera. Elvis was another summertime favorite. I recall an oddity with Elvis and a very young Mary Tyler Moore called Changing Habits in which she played a nun. On the other hand, I watched It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World which was shown in two parts over two consecutive days.

It makes me sad that broadcast TV ignores these wonderful old movies. CBS no longer shows The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music is missing from NBC and even that hoary, old chestnut The Ten Commandment has been cleared from ABC’s "holiday" schedule. And local stations have plenty of syndicated shows from Montel Williams to Rachel Ray with which to fill their schedules.

I recently got digital cable again and I’m overjoyed to have access to TCM once again. It’s changed since the last time I had digital cable. I like the savvy new promotional spots. The Christmas/December spot featuring a remix of Julie London’s "I’d Like You For Christmas" was especially catchy. My Salvation Army VCR has been running overtime trying to capture all the old movies I’ve missed.

Now that I’m substitute teaching again, I’m home by late afternoon. On these cloudy, gloomy winter afternoons when twilight approaches by 4 PM, I make myself a hot beverage, slip in one of the movies that I’ve recorded and unwind. And I pretend I’m back in junior high.

I pretend that my Grandma is still alive. I pretend my mom is in the napping in the other room after her shift as an ICU nurse. I imagine I have no other worries besides my algebra and biology homework for that evening.

Nostalgia is just our longing for a time, real or imagined, that was simpler and easier. As the daylight fades and I kick my shoes off, I sigh with the contentment of the moment. And I sing thanks for the 3:30 Movie in my heart.