A Night at the Movies is a VHS and Beta series from Warner Home Video. Each tape in the series presents a feature film and the newsreels, preview trailers, and cartoon that were released with them theatrically.
Battle Cry, Auntie Mame, and PT-109 were packaged as two-tape sets due to the length of each film as well as the supplementary materials. The series was produced while Warner Home Video was transitioning from book boxes to clamshells, so the first three titles (Dial M for Murder, The Wrong Man, and The Prince and the Showgirl) were packaged in book boxes, and the remainder were packaged in the clamshells the studio would use through 1986. These tapes were presumably in print until 1990-1991 when they were replaced with slipcover reprints without bonus material. The volumes from 1954 to 1957 (except for 1955) were released in 1982, while the volumes from 1959 to 1963 were released the following year. The 1955 and 1958 volumes were released in 1984.
A special intro was created for each tape. It consisted of a version of the Warner Home Video logo zooming in, followed by the words "A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES". Then, a rendition of the 1937 Warner Bros. fanfare plays, with the year 2000 zooming out, followed by 1999, 1998, 1997, and so on, progressively becoming faster, until it reaches the year depicted on the tape, which then zooms into and fills in the screen.
Noteworthy inclusions in this series of videos include the Oscar-winning short "Speedy Gonzales" as well as the rarely-seen "Martian Through Georgia", which would never appear on another Looney Tunes video release until 25 years later, when it appeared on Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6. The 1963 volume featured "Banty Raids", which would not appear on a home video release until the Looney Tunes Super Stars' Foghorn Leghorn & Friends: Barnyard Bigmouth DVD 27 years later. In addition, prior to the release of the Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection Blu-ray, "People Are Bunny" (the only other short directed by Robert McKimson featured in this series) was only available to view in its original fullscreen version in North America on the 1959 volume. Friz Freleng directed half of the cartoons included, and Chuck Jones directed the remaining three.
Looney Tapes[]
"My Little Duckaroo"
"Speedy Gonzales"
"A Star Is Bored"
"Hook, Line and Stinker"
"People Are Bunny"
"Person to Bunny"
"The Last Hungry Cat"
"Martian Through Georgia"
"Banty Raids"