Classic Movies and Television on Peacock TV

This month, NBCUniversal launched a new streaming service called Peacock TV. It offers two tiers: a limited version that's free and a more robust one that costs $4.99 monthly (though it may be free with your cable service). Both tiers include commercials; it costs $9.99 to go commercial-free. We spent the last two months watching Peacock TV on Comcast Xfinity cable--which equates to the $4.99 monthly tier with commercials. Here's our review!

Let's start with the big question: With all the streaming services available, is Peacock TV a worthwhile investment for the classic film and TV fan? The answer is "maybe." 

Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo.

If you're hoping for a plethora of classic TV shows, you'll be disappointed. Most of the television series are either new ones developed for Peacock or recent shows that aired on NBC or the USA network. The most notable exceptions are Columbo, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Rockford Files, The Munsters, and Murder, She Wrote. Granted, you can currently watch some of these for free (e.g., The Alfred Hitchcock Hour on MeTV), but Peacock lets you binge the shows at your own speed. My wife and I recently finished season one of AHP (which I reviewed here earlier).

Peacock TV offers "hundreds of movies," which is substantially fewer than the big streaming services like Amazon Prime and Netflix. Yet, while its quantity is limited, its quality is pretty impressive in terms of classic movies. There are a lot of Hitchcock films, including Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Rear Window, and every film he made from The Trouble With Harry (1955) to Family Plot (1976). 

If you're a fan of Universal's classic horror movies, then you'll love exploring Peacock's collection of Frankenstein, Dracula, Mummy, and Invisible Man movies. Even the Abbott and Costello comedies featuring the Universal monsters are included (though I was disappointed that Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer was missing). 

Sophia Loren in Arabesque.

There are a few notable pre-1950s films, such as Beau Geste (Gary Cooper), Shanghai Express, Death Takes a Holiday (Fredric March), Horse Feathers, The Lady Eve, and Double Indemnity. However, Peacock fares better with an impressive sample of movies from the 1950s through the 1970s. There are Hitchcock imitations (Charade, Arabesque, Midnight Lace), Doris Day comedies (The Thrill of It All, Pillow Talk, Lover Come Back), Westerns (Bend of the River, The Far Country), science fiction (It Came From Outer Space, The Incredible Shrinking Man), Douglas Sirk soaps (All That Heaven Allows, Imitation of Life), and thrillers (The Day of the Jackal).

The movies I watched included about three minutes of commercials upfront and then were shown without any interruptions. The TV shows, though, seem to have one to three commercials, though the breaks are usually pretty brief. 

It remains to be seen how often Peacock plans to freshen its classic film and TV content. If the movies and shows change on a regular basis, then the Peacock TV $4.99 tier might be a worthwhile investment. Of course, that assumes you don't already own a lot of these classics on DVD and don't want to wait for them to pop up on TCM.

Here's a current sample of classic films (note that these titles are subject to change at any time):

All that Heavens Allows

Arabesque

Beau Geste (1939 and 1966 versions)

A Foreign Affair

The Birds

Bend of the River

Black Horse Canyon

Blonde Venus

Border River

Bride of Frankenstein 

The Brides of Dracula

Cape Fear

The Chalk Garden

Charade

Creature from the Black Lagoon

The Curse of the Werewolf

The Day of the Jackal

Death Takes a Holiday

Death of a Gunfighter

Desire

Destry Rides Again

Double Indemnity

Dracula (1931)

Dracula’s Daughter

Duck Soup

The Eiger Sanction

Family Plot

The Far Country

For Whom the Bell Tolls

Frankenstein (1931)

Frenzy

Going My Way

The Great Impostor

Horse Feathers

Houdini

Imitation of Life (both versions)

The Invisible Man

The Incredible Shrinking Man

It Came From Outer Space

King King (1933)

Lady Godiva

Lady On a Train

Lover Come Back

The Major and the Minor

Man of a Thousand Faces

The Man Who Knew Too Much

Marnie

McHale’s Navy

Midnight Lace

My Favorite Blonde

No Man of Her Own

Pillow Talk

Play Misty for Me

Psycho

Rear Window

Remember the Night

Road to Morocco (and Utopia and Zanzibar)

Rope

Saboteur

Scarface

Shadow of a Doubt

Shanghai Express

Tammy Tell Me True

Tammy and the Doctor

Texas Across the River

Topaz

Torn Curtain

Spartacus

The Sting

Three Smart Girls

The Trouble with Harry

Vertigo