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If you never get tired of watching Meredith Baxter burn her “husband’s” clothes as Betty Broderick in A Woman Scorned, or if you had trouble sleeping after watching the nuclear holocaust portrayed in The Day After, then this week’s TVHolic glimpse into classic “made for TV movies” should be right up your alley.
1. The Networks Couldn’t Get Enough of ‘em
NBC pioneered the idea of made-for-TV movies with 1964’s See How They Run, but ABC picked up that ball and ran with it. The network’s “Tuesday Movie of the Week” quickly expanded to include the “Wednesday Movie of the Week.” Eventually movies of the week were being produced at such a rate that the network aired them on any day there was a timeslot available. The made-for-TV genre was filmdom’s version of summer stock; it gave both TV actors on hiatus from their regular series and B -list (and lower) movie stars an opportunity to keep their face in front of the public. It also allowed them to spread their acting “wings” and play characters contrary to their public image (Q.E.D. Archie Bunker’s little goil Sally Struthers as a battered wife in Intimate Strangers, and Elizabeth Montgomery as axe-wielding Lizzie Borden.)
2. It’s where Steven Spielberg Debuted
Long before anyone had heard of “road rage,” Dennis Weaver experienced it on the small screen when he innocently passed a tanker truck that was spewing exhaust in front of him on a remote road. Apparently the trucker took this to be an insult to the size of his Peterbilt, and he proceeded to alternately tailgate, blast his horn at, and nudge Weaver’s Plymouth Valiant in a bizarre cat-and-mouse game. Duel was directed by a 23-year-old guy named Steven Spielberg, his first feature-length film. The made-for-TV version was such a ratings success that several additional scenes were filmed after the fact to lengthen the film for theatrical release in Europe and Australia.
3. Linda Blair Gets Born Again
Linda Blair first gained fame as the pea soup-spewing Regan in The Exorcist, but for dedicated couch potatoes, she’ll always be remembered for her many poignant appearances in made-for-TVers. Her pièce de résistance was 1974’s Born Innocent, in which she portrayed an incorrigible runaway who ends up in the juvenile prison system. Harsh punishment for a non-violent crime, but the idea was to send a “scared straight” sort of message to teen girls on the edge. Unfortunately the message some miscreants got instead was “hey, let’s re-enact the controversial shower scene on some random stranger!”
4. James Brolin Has Something of an acting Career?
Before he became Mr. Barbra Streisand, audiences first got to know Brolin as the motorcycle-riding renegade doctor on Marcus Welby, MD, but Jim eventually became a fixture in the made-for-TV film world. In 1972’s A Short Walk to Daylight, he played a New York City cop who had to lead a subway car full of disparate strangers out of the crumbled underground tunnels after an earthquake. One year later he starred in Trapped, a classic man-against-beast film in which he plays a mugging victim left unconscious in a department store restroom. When he regains consciousness, the store is closed and is being patrolled by a pack of vicious Dobermans. Will he escape? Will he even survive? Of course he will, but the 90 minutes before he triumphed kept us on the edge of our collective seat.
5. Bad Ronald is full of Bad Ideas
Take one nerdy high school kid who is taunted by a little neighborhood girl. He shoves her in anger. Girl hits head on a cinder block and dies. Boy runs home to mother and tearfully describes the accident. Does Mom call the police? No, she has Son break out his carpentry tools and wall himself inside an inner room in their house. This was the premise for Bad Ronald, which starred Scott Jacoby, who TV fans may recognize as Dorothy’s son on The Golden Girls.
6. Alice in Television Land
The 1971 book Go Ask Alice was purported to be the real diary of a shy teenaged girl in a new town who found popularity and an instant coterie of friends once she partook in the taboo world of drugs. The book was banned in many high school libraries, which only helped to increase its popularity and encourage Hollywood to come a-calling. The 1973 TV film starred Jamie Smith-Jackson as Alice and a hilariously bespectacled William Shatner as her clueless father. Despite the film and book’s claim that the story was based on a real-life diary, many years later Mormon youth counselor Beatrice Sparks admitted that she was the book’s author and that it was a work of fiction.
Let’s see a show of hands – how many of you would tune in to TVLand if they started showing some classic Movies of the Week instead of reality programming? And please feel free to mention your favorite made-for-TVer; you’ll probably jog many other reader’s memories in the process.
Comments (55)
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I have a few favorite Made for TV pics.
“Sybil” with Sally Field X16
“The People” with Kim Darby and William Shatner – decendents of aliens that have been hiding here for hundreds of years.
“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” also with Kim Darby. Demons coming through a pit in her basement and want her to become one of them.
Probably a lot more. Not including all the “Afterschool Specials”. :-)
posted by Sheldon Siegel on 6-19-2008 at 12:51 pm
I should ad the 2 that made me cringe at a lot of scenes but were great movies.
“Holocaust”(The rape scene gave me nightmares for months) and “Roots” (John Amos having half of his foot chopped off made me sick)
posted by Sheldon Siegel on 6-19-2008 at 1:00 pm
TV movies rule! Another one of my favorites is the original TV movie-pilot for the “Night Gallery” series, which also featured a segment directed by Steven Spielberg. I think it even predates “Duel.”
posted by Kstanton on 6-19-2008 at 1:07 pm
Duel is such an incredible film. I mean, a script by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend), a young Spielberg before he got all sentimental on us – it was a cinematic perfect storm. Awesome, awesome flick.
posted by SpaceMonkeyX on 6-19-2008 at 1:15 pm
Yeah, many of them were extremely bad, but I kind of miss them. I guess they’re pretty irrelevant in the world of on-demand.
I rented Duel not long ago. It’s easy to overlook the datedness of it. Now, does anyone know where I can get “The Thing With Two Heads” with Ray Milan and Rosie Greer?
posted by ;im on 6-19-2008 at 1:30 pm
Sunday nights in the mid-90s had ABC, CBS, and NBC airing their made-for-TV movies at the same time. It was usually pretty tough to choose. My fovorites from around that time period were:
Dying to Belong – A sorority-hazing-leads-to-murder movie with Hillary Swank, Mark-Paul Goselaar, and Jenna von Oy (Six from Blossom).
For the Love of Nancy – A movie about anorexia with Tracy Gold.
Friends ‘Til the End – Like Single White Female only starring Shannen Dougherty and Jennifer Blanc and set in college and involving a rock band.
posted by Leah on 6-19-2008 at 1:45 pm
I second Sheldon’s suggestions of Sybil and Roots. Who can forget those two movies?
I seem to remember something about a movie I saw about a carousel horse that came to life and was, of course, evil. Something happened at the end that involved a mirrored box (the evil horse missed its evil horse twin?) and neatly resolved the situation.
ReCAPTCHA: flatiron on
posted by adrienne on 6-19-2008 at 1:51 pm
“Quarterback Princess” starring Helen Hunt as a girl who plays high school football!
posted by Dominic on 6-19-2008 at 1:52 pm
Here are a few that I remember:
“Gargoyles”
“Dark Night of the Scarecrow”
“Crime of Innocence”
“Neon Ceiling”
Not saying that they are necessarily any good, or that they are my favorites, but they left an impression on me since I still remember them after all these years.
posted by Scott on 6-19-2008 at 2:02 pm
Edging into the realm of mini-series, like The Day After, Roots, etc. is my all time favorite:
V starring the Beastmaster himself, Marc Singer! Aliens land and try to convince us they are here to help, but resistance ensues.
posted by Johnny Cat on 6-19-2008 at 2:04 pm
Does anyone remember the one that was on in the early 90’s that was a pseudo-news broadcast that had reporters around the globe reporting on UFO sightings? I remember it was told in a very matter-of-fact sort of way and it ended with Earth shooting at one of the crafts, causing the aliens to retaliate by bombarding earth with asteroids.
The end was what spooked me though. It ends with the news anchor talking about humanity may have just made the biggest mistake in its history, as a radar image behind him shows the asteroids getting closer… and closer… until the screen dissolves into static…
CREEPY!
Anyone know the name of that movie?
posted by Vitajex on 6-19-2008 at 2:04 pm
It’s not a movie but I sure wish the old Ellery Queen series with Jim Hutton would be released on DVD or at least replayed on TV so I could record them. Genius!
Also, the BBC remake “A Little Princess” with Deborah Makepeace back in the ’70s. Best version EVER. Wish this was on DVD too. Sigh.
posted by Carol on 6-19-2008 at 2:06 pm
Yeah, Vitajex, I totally remember the ending of that movie. It was very affecting. I hope someone else remembers the name of it because I don’t.
posted by Scott on 6-19-2008 at 2:11 pm
Yes Johnny Cat! V was awesome. I loved how Michael Ironsides’ character was always calling Marc Singer’s character, “Gooder,” short for “Do-Gooder.”
posted by Scott on 6-19-2008 at 2:14 pm
Were films like “ANTS” and “TARANTULAS” and “KILLER TOMATOES” part of this movie of the week thing?
posted by Kevin on 6-19-2008 at 2:16 pm
Does anyone remember a horror movie with Ventriloquist dummies (not the movie Magic) from the 70’s, one of them was a clown dummy?
posted by Bob on 6-19-2008 at 2:19 pm
Thank you, Kara!!! I thought I was the only person who remembered ABC’s Movie of the Week.
Two stand out (other than “Duel”):
“That Certain Summer” with Hal Holbrook and a young Martin Sheen were lovers in this historic movie. Won a TON of awards that year.
“The Morning After” with Dick Van Dyke playing an alcoholic PR man. I don’t know if this was made after Van Dyke’s admission of his own alcoholism but it was a devestating portrait on a man on the bottle.
And what about ABC’s little sister to the Movie of the Week…the ABC After-school Special?
posted by Zane on 6-19-2008 at 2:23 pm
I’m surprised no one mentioned the three Amy Fisher movies that aired at the same time back in 1993.
Yes they were pretty trashy, but they inspired a great series of SNL parodies including one depciting a BET version of the Amy Fisher story featuring a pompadoured Tim Meadows saying “You make my Italian blood boil.”
posted by BKReporter1 on 6-19-2008 at 2:34 pm
There are two that I remember really well. They were on CBS, cuz my family was without cable. Anyone remember the one with Kathleen Turner and I think Angelina Jolie? They were on the frontier and there were soldiers, “Frontier Women” it might have been, now I have to figure it out.
The other one was about a woman who had been killed by her husband. Her sister figured it out after a while. The guy cleaned away the evindence after killing her in a fit of rage that I think had to do with an earring (He beat her to death with a freeweight) and in the scene I remember they had used the stuff that glows when it reacts to blood. The womans parents were staying in the couple’s old bedroom for some reason and when they turned off the lights, the whole room glowed. Holy psycho-killer that’s a lot of blood. An interesting technique too, now that I think about it, because it showed carnage in an entirely different way, letting viewers imaginations fill in the blanks.
posted by Erin on 6-19-2008 at 2:42 pm
Oops, yeah, it wasn’t Kathleen Turner, I meant Janine Turner, but it wasn’t her anyway, it was Dana Delaney “True Women.” I wonder how many folds of my brain are dedicated to useless knowledge?
posted by Erin on 6-19-2008 at 2:47 pm
Erin: I totally remember that murder movie with the black light. It freaked me out at the time but I guess I have adjusted because I am a big CSI fan now…
I also really liked the Karen Carpenter Story, which has been replayed late at night on Star lately… W Network in Canada replays ‘classic’ tv movies (including Go Ask Alice with William Shatner!) every week too. They live on…
posted by ac on 6-19-2008 at 3:18 pm
Fave made for tv movie, Rape of Richard Beck, Richard Crenna won an Emmy for this one.
One that scared me. The Day After. Okay I’m going to blame it on being 12 at the time.
posted by Skunkie on 6-19-2008 at 3:46 pm
I remember a lot of made for TV movies that involved the casts of Saved by the Bell, 90210, and Full House. Tiffany-Amber was in a ton.
posted by Danyel on 6-19-2008 at 3:48 pm
IT SEEMS THAT SOME OF THE CABLE NETWORKS ARE DOING SOMETHING ALONG THE LINES OF TELEFILMS(THAT’S WHAT THEY’RE CALLED NOW),AND MOST OF YOUR DIRECT-TO-DVD FILMS WOULD PROBABLY BE IN THIS GROUP,AS WELL. IT’LL BE A BEAUTIFUL DAY WHEN “REALITY” SHOWS DISAPPEAR,AND THE “MADE-FOR-TV” MOVIE COMES BACK. CAN I GET AN “AMEN” ?
posted by BILL on 6-19-2008 at 3:52 pm
A couple of you were trying to remember the name of the movie with the asteroids. It was called…”Asteroid.” The first part of the movie was supposed to feel like real news footage, a la “War of the Worlds.” Then the sci-fi starts, which led my mom to say, “Wait, I don’t think this is real.” Freaked me out that maybe she thought the beginning WAS real. The last minute of that movie is the best freak-out ever. I still get chills thinking about it. I miss TV movies. Thank god for Lifetime!
posted by Nat X on 6-19-2008 at 4:46 pm
I liked “Dying to Fit in” (I think!) with Kellie Martin and Tori Spelling… And “Fifteen and Pregnant” starring Kirsten Dunst and Park Overall. They are both so awful they are funny!
posted by Erin B. on 6-19-2008 at 4:51 pm
oh MAN we have a whole channel over here in the UK that just shows made for tv and true movies over and over and over, there’s some cracking/mental ones, so funny
but we also get the made for TV horrors, there was one me and my sister are obsessed with about three kids all born on the same day during an apocalypse. it was two boys and a girl (i think she was the Carol Bad Ronald killed…which, a lil bit of an overreaction if you ask me)and approaching their tenth birthday they got even more evil and just started killing people all over the shop, there’s actually one really unsettling bit where they accost this other ten year old and start choking him with a skipping rope but get interupted and he escaped. i think he’s like the sort of hero kid?
they also totally mind fuck this babysitter of theres by making her think they’ve poisoned a birthday cake only to eat pieces of it right in front of her and everyone after she’s very publically freaked out.
it was awesome.
One i remember was called Son Rise or Rising Son and was the ‘true’ story of a couple who’s young son was diagnosed with autism. they searched out lots homes for him but all of them, of course, where awful, so decided to deal with him themselves and proceeded to…i think ‘cure’ him of his autism? i mean…is that even possible?? They’d talk to him and play games with him and within months he was a totally normal kid, and then at the end it said even years later he showed no sign ever of being autstic despite having been pretty severly fucking autistic at the beginning of the damn film! he even, at one point, had a mysterious ‘relapse’ for a few days which he just snapped right back out of….made no goddamn sense
me adn my sister also love Untamed Love, the story of a special ed teacher who gets lumped with this psychotic little girl who set another boy on fire. it was actually a great film with a really disturbing scene where the little girl sits on the teachers lap and the teacher realises the girl is bleeding from her privates cos her dads douche friend has raped her.
man made for TV movies are not only dark as fuck, but they’re nonsensical and awesome too.
posted by nadine on 6-19-2008 at 5:38 pm
What about the classic ‘Mother, May I Sleep with Danger?’ starring Tori Spelling and that guy I always think is Matt Dillon at first glance but subsequent glances reveals, “no, not Matt Dillon”! Also, anything starring Melissa Gilbert, my two favorites with her were one where she’s sickly and her husband tries to kill her, but she gets him in the end and the other, which I think was an adaptation of a Danielle Steel novel, where’s she some sort of Russian princess or something…Zoya? Something like that. Good stuff and all available on Lifetime: Perilous Television for Women.
posted by Gem-chan on 6-19-2008 at 6:09 pm
I loved these movies when I was growing up in the 70’s.Some really good movies and some really cheesey ones.My favorite would have to be another Linda Blair movie-’Sarah T. Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic’-a pre Star Wars Mark Hamill was also in it.
Yes I would watch them again.
posted by Jim on 6-19-2008 at 6:13 pm
The ’70s were definitely the heyday of the “popcorn” TV movies – when TV movies could still be “genre” films. “Duel” is certainly a standout, as was “Trilogy of Terror,” “Gargoyles,” “Salem’s Lot” and one of the greatest of all time, the original “Night Stalker” with Darren McGavin. 75 minutes of extremely well-written, well-acted entertainment.
I regularly blog about the late nite fare a local station runs, and they often fill that slot with TV movies from Lifetime and CTV, mixed in with a lot of direct-to-DVD fare. The blog is called THE LATE NITE LANDFILL.
The Phantom of the Landfill
posted by Phanto Mofland on 6-19-2008 at 6:53 pm
(apologies if this appears twice – I had trouble posting this comment the first time):
The ’70s were definitely the heyday for TV movies. Back then, “genre” movies were allowed to flourish and there were some terrific TV movies that were grand “popcorn” entertainment. “Duel” was a standout of course, as were “Trilogy of Terror,” “Gargoyles,” and “Salem’s Lot.” A personal favorite is the original “Night Stalker” with Darren McGavin. 75 minutes of extremely well-scripted, well-acted entertainment.
I regularly blog about the movies a local station runs late at night. Their late night slot includes several TV movies that were originally made for Lifetime and CTV over the past couple years, sprinkled amidst many direct-to-DVD titles and the ocassional TV movie classic like “Blood Vows: Confessions of a Mafia Wife” with Melissa Gilbert and Joe Penny. You can read about that movie and many others on my blog called THE LATE NITE LANDFILL.
posted by Phanto Mofland on 6-19-2008 at 7:02 pm
Oh my, Bad Ronald
This movie has been stuck in my memory for all this time, but I never knew the title until this article.
More trivia, the movie of the week theme song is ‘Nikki’ written and performed by Burt Bacharach.
posted by Larry on 6-19-2008 at 7:35 pm
Don’t forget “Boy in the Plastic Bubble” with John Travolta. (sniff)
posted by Paula on 6-19-2008 at 7:47 pm
Ok, I posted earlier….
I remember mostly abc stuff. I saw duel first run. Someomne mentioned gargoyles–the scariest first 45′ of a movie I’ve ever seen (and then you start to sympathize with them). I fell asleep listening to the soundtracks while my folks watched Clint Eastwood movies (yeah, not made for TV, but shown on ABC nonetheless). And then there’s the “Thing with Two Heads”. C’mon guys, even MST3K made a reference to it. As bad as they are, we need to rally around these to protect them from being lost forever. Apparantly this has already happened to “visit to a small planet” and “who’s minding the store” starring Jerry Lewis…
posted by ;im on 6-19-2008 at 9:19 pm
Everyone’s forgotten the classic: “Brian’s Song”!
posted by Louise on 6-19-2008 at 10:03 pm
Devil Dog: Hound From Hell.
Glad to see “Trilogy Of Terror” already addressed :)
posted by xtopherp on 6-19-2008 at 10:05 pm
Omigosh…The Day After scared the CRAP out of me when I was 11 and it first aired. I went through a long phase (okay, the rest of the 80s) writing really bad nuclear war poetry and waiting for the bomb to hit.
I watched parts of it again on Sci Fi a few years ago…it was so cheesy-bad that I actually wanted to laugh. I mean, the scene at the end with Steve Guttenberg’s face falling off…that doesn’t sound funny, but it kinda is.
(I also saw another nuclear war movie called Threads (made in the UK) and it made TDA look like a picnic with grandma in the park. I haven’t ever had the courage to try to rewatch that one!)
PS: I saw Asteroid, too! I had completely forgotten about it!
reCaptcha: beer vigorous
posted by TeacherPatti on 6-19-2008 at 10:32 pm
speaking of the Kellie Martin ‘Dying To Fit In”, what about some other bad and or misjudged teen girls? -
A Killer Among Friends (w/ Patty Duke, who was Kellie Martin’s mother in abve movie… this time victim’s mother)
The Stalking of Laurie Show
What Kind of Mother Are You?
Love, Mary (w/ Kristy MacNichol as troubled teen who discovers she has dyslexia but triumphs to become a doctor
I also seem to recall some movie about a little girl who ended up in an institution – I think she may’ve been blind or something (I seem to remember the character wearing an eye patch), but they thought she was mentally challenged. The only other thing I remember was the staff throwing her in w/ a violent resident.Anyone know what movie I am thinking of?
posted by Amy on 6-20-2008 at 12:21 am
The Burning Bed anyone? LOL I remember having to watch that in high school as part of “domestic violence awareness week.”
posted by Rose on 6-20-2008 at 12:45 am
Wow,most of these movies are 90s, but I remember the 70s and 80s. For some wierd reason, I guess she liked the company, my mom let me watch all kinds of awful stuff. Let’s see
Crowhaven Farm. The Other. Ssssssss. Dawn, Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, & Alexander the Other Side of Dawn, Little Ladies of the Night (David Soul, pimpin’) I remember being terrified by the doll in Trilogy of Terror, and being completely unable to watch Killdozer, yes kiddies, a movie about a bulldozer that kills. I also loved the stars of those movies – Barbara Eden, Elizabeth Montgomery, Peter Graves (Where have all the People Gone?) Roy Thinnes, Doug McClure. Where do you think they got Troy McClure from, eh?
But the all time FREAKIEST movie my mom let me watch was Bette Davis’ The Dark Secret of Harvest Home (Thomas Tryon) Terrifying! Every few years I borrow the book from the library. Just for fun.
posted by Mare on 6-20-2008 at 2:33 am
I remember a CBS movie from the early 90’s called “Alone In The Neon Jungle” where Suzanne Pleshette gets sent to clean up a corrupt police force. I remember it because when she is talking to a guy in a parking lot, I walk past them.
“Darrow” on PBS starring an unknown Kevin Spacey as Clarence Darrow. Where I’m waving a hat, and holding a sign that says, “Vote Socialist”
On NBC, I walk by Richard Crenna and Tyne Daly in “Stuck With Each Other.”
I should be ashamed of myself for submitting this post.
posted by Tdave on 6-20-2008 at 4:57 am
All this talk about “the day After”….there was an NBC movie around the same time: “Special Bulletin” starring Ed Flanders of “St Elsewhere” fame.
Terrorists high jack a boat and the media cover it. All looks really real. Flanders is the anchor back at the studio. Turns out there’s a nuke on the boat.
Ultimately the terrorists are killed by the SWAT team. The cameras go in with the disarming crew….everything’s going fine; tension is wearing off at the anchor desk when suddenly….one of the demolition guys says something like “Oh, crap!” and the screen goes white as you hear all the guys screaming. Cut to Flanders who’s desparately trying to contact someone.
They bring up a reporter who was out side…desolation everywhere; the reporter just hanging on to life, hysterical.
Flanders tells them to turn it off and the movie ends.
THAT one scrared me more than “The Day After” because everything was in cinema verite and the ending was completely unexpected and gruesome.
posted by Zane on 6-20-2008 at 8:26 am
Yeah, Killdozer fan’s unite. Long before The Terminator there was the innnocent construction workers slowly being picked off by a rampaging Cat D-9.
Also there was the made for TV movie about the undercover high school cop featuring David Cassidy, I think is was a pilot for Police Story.
Amy I remember the story you were describing about the little girl, and I dont think it starred anyone memorable.I’m and IMDB’ing it now. But there was a show that featured Tyne Daly as a Social Worker who discovers a man in a mental institiution who is not supposed to be there. It was called “Larry” it had a similar plot.
posted by Don on 6-20-2008 at 9:30 am
i need some confirmation from all you smart people out there.
i absolutely love this movie: FUTURESPORT {it stars Dean Cain, Vanessa Williams, Wesley Snipes as Obike Fixx}
was this a made for tv movie or just a movie that didn’t make it to the theaters. it’s easily a ‘classic’ and i suggest watching it whenever you get a chance
any help would be appreciated
posted by bdizlay on 6-20-2008 at 9:34 am
Just reading the brief on “Trapped” brought back memories of Mr. Brolin fighting exhaustion while trying to defend himself from a snarling doberman with a bow and arrow.
Another classic was “Stoaway to the Moon” about a 10 year-old who sneaks onboard an Apollo rocket and actually helps the astronauts when disaster strikes in orbit. Definite wish-fulfuillment when I was 10!
posted by Mathias on 6-20-2008 at 9:40 am
My Fav is called ‘15 and Pregnant’ it stars Kirsten Dunst as a… dramatic pause … pregnant fifteen year old. Lets just say that all the bad acting was enough to scare me into abstinance.
posted by Kelly on 6-24-2008 at 4:24 pm
Oh hell… “Dark Night of the Scarecrow” scared the bejesus out of me when I was little.
So did the scene in “Salem’s Lot” when the little boy’s dead brother came floating by and scratched his fingernails on the window. Creepy then, but a bit goofy now.
posted by hifidigitalboy on 6-30-2008 at 2:01 pm
Kingdom of the Spiders – I don’t know why I watched it. I already had a major aversion to spiders and after seeing that, spiders totally creep the bejeebuz out of me. I blame that movie for my hatred of spiders to this day. They are the only insect that creep me out (well, them and centipedes)
posted by Frankly, Mr. Shankly on 7-4-2008 at 5:19 pm
I don’t remember the name of the movie but there were 3 kids on their way to the grandparents house. While in the backseat, one sister tied the other sister’s shoelaces together. The car started smoking & everybody got out except the one with the shoelaces. The car blew up with her in it. She can back as a ghost & killed everybody but the sister, who crazy. I only saw it once but I loved it!
And I LOVED the After School Specials!!!
posted by judybug on 7-11-2008 at 2:58 pm
Karen Black in “Trilogy of Terror” (thanks again, Richard Matheson!)! That voodoo doll scared the fertilizer out of me… I wouldn’t put my feet near a closed door for ages! If anyone knows where to get this on DVD, tell me – my son, niece and nephew have heard me describe it so many times, they’re begging to see it!
posted by Comixchick on 7-11-2008 at 8:29 pm
My absolute favorite? “Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway”, which starred Eve Plumb (Jan Brady). She runs away and ends up as a young hooker on the streets! Hilariously bad.
posted by KG on 7-12-2008 at 5:46 pm
Anyone remember “I Know my Name is Steven”?
posted by Emeraldjay on 7-12-2008 at 8:06 pm
In regards to ‘Trilogy of Terror’, I used to have it on VHS, but gave it to a friend a couple of years ago. I just checked, and you can get it ordered through ‘Blockbuster Video’ for $9.99. Not available on DVD, as yet, though. Hope this helps.
posted by Pauline on 7-12-2008 at 10:31 pm
O the memories of sitting with mom and sister watching these films!!! Remember the one about Manson and the Sharon Tate killings, or when the term mini-series actually meant a story that lasted 6 or 8 weeks? Now any 2-parter they call a mini-series. How about Rich Man /Poor Man with Peter Strauss and a very young Nick Nolte?
posted by vicki on 7-13-2008 at 10:06 am
Wow! Reading through this has brought back some memories! I can relate to almost every movie already mentioned.
Here’s a few more:
In the Glitter Palace – Chad Everett (of Medical Center fame) and Barbara Hershey. BH’s character left CE’s character for a woman. The woman was later accused of murder and BH asks CE to be the defense counsel. VERY risque for the 70s.
A Circle of Children – Matthew Labradeaux (sp. I think and before he joined Little House on the Prairie) is a kid in a home for mentally and emotionally disturbed kids. He spews out a constant stream of gibberish until one teacher records him and plays it back at a slower speed. She realizes he’s quoting game show hosts at supersonic speed.
80 Steps to Jonah – Wayne Newton, being chased by the law, comes across a school for blind kids set way out in the sticks.
Hand in Hand – Early film about religious tolerance. A catholic boy and a jewish girl become friends and visit each other’s places of worship. Both terrified that they’d be struck dead for doing so.
posted by WolfHawk on 7-24-2008 at 5:11 pm