TV's Golden Age of Made-for-TV Horror Movies II: The Night Stalker

Another example of classic 1970s TV movie-of-the-week was The Night Stalker. When ABC aired the film originally on January 11, 1972, as their ABC Movie of the Week, it garnered the highest ratings of any TV film at that time. 

The plot concerns a series of murders plaguing the Las Vegas Strip. All of the victims had their bodies drained of blood. Carl Kolchak, a veteran reporter who has been fired from newspapers across the country due to his tenacious and unprofessional approach, thinks the killer believes himself to be a vampire. His managing editor, Tony Vincenzo, refuses to run the story under the vampire angle without proof, arguing it could cause a panic and soil the paper's reputation. But of course, there is a real vampire in Vegas and Kolchak is –seemly- the only one that believes it. 

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey (a veteran of theatrical and television films), who shot the film over 12 days, with an adaption done by Richard Matheson, and produced by Dan Curtis (best known at the time for Dark Shadows), The Night Stalker became the highest-rated original television film on US television, earning a 33.2 rating and 48 share. The television film did so well that it was released overseas as a theatrical film. It inspired a sequel television film titled The Night Strangler, which aired on January 16, 1973. A third film was in the works, when ABC decided to turn the film series into a TV series. And that’s when things got complicated. 

It seems neither ABC nor Universal had obtained Carl Kolchak creator Jeff Rice's permission to use the characters and situations as TV series and so he sued the studio.  The suit was resolved shortly before the series aired in the fall 1974 season.  ABC maintained ownership of the two movies, the rights to the main character –Carl Kolchak (as well as the short lived 2005 reboot), Universal Studios held the rights to all twenty episodes of the weekly series. Meanwhile, Jeff Rice (1944 – 2015) retained the literary and publishing rights to the original written Kolchak works and The Kolchak Papers. Rice also received an on-screen credit as series creator, and after some negotiation, McGavin agreed to return as Kolchak and also serve as the series' executive producer, though he was never credited as such (and something that irked him). Simon Oakland also returned. 

But basically the TV movies and TV series exist in two separate universes. Which meant the series could not reference the previous films in anyway, and side characters played by Carol Lynley in The Night Stalker and Jo Ann Pflug in The Night Strangler were never mentioned. However, the series did get away with doing a sequel episode to The Night Stalker. In The Vampire, an overlooked victim of the vampire Janos Skorzeny (not mentioned by name, but subtlety suggested) from Las Vegas named Catherine Rawlins, who makes her way to Los Angeles and begins killing anew. 

Beyond the legal woes, the series was plagued with problems from the start, including budgetary issues and McGavin constantly struggling with the series' producer Cy Chermak over the direction. The show's ratings were mediocre and McGavin was growing dissatisfied, even as he found himself rewriting scripts and doing much of the work of a producer, but without getting either the full credit or the full compensation of one. McGavin had been unhappy with what he felt was the show's "monster of the week" direction, and an exhausting filming schedule. He asked to be released from his contract with two episodes remaining to be filmed, which the network granted in light of the show's dwindling ratings. The series was soon cancelled.

As an addendum, the series gave the world a multiple Emmy winning writer David Chase (The Sapranos), who started his career in Hollywood as a story editor for the series, as well has launching the careers of Back to the Future writer Bob Gale and writer and Oscar winning director Robert Zemeckis, who sold their first story to the series, the late season entry Chopper.

 

TV's Golden Age of Made-for-TV Horror Movies: Duel

The 1970s was a golden age for made-for-TV horror movies, often broadcast as network "Movies of the Week" (such as the ABC Movie of the Week). Because broadcast television had strict censorship rules regarding graphic gore, these films relied heavily on psychological terror, claustrophobic atmosphere, and ordinary settings turned sinister.

 

While all three broadcast networks dabbled in the genre, it was mostly CBS and ABC that produced the lion’s share of these ninety –minute films. Some of the most well-known films still resonate today, surprisingly after nearly 50 years after they aired.

 

1971’s Duel (based on a legendary writer Richard Matheson short story, which he adapted here) starred Dennis Weaver as David Mann, a mild-mannered electronics salesman, who is driving cross-country on a two-lane highway where he encounters an old oil tanker driven by an unseen driver who seems to enjoy annoying him with dangerous antics on the road. Unable to escape the demonic big rig, David finds himself in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with the monstrous truck. When the pursuit escalates to deadly levels, David must summon his inner warrior and turn the tables on his tormentor.

 

What is unique about this TV movie was that it was 25 year-old Steven Spielberg’s second feature-length film (he made a 1971 episode of NBC series The Name of the Game called L.A. 2017 first). Already on Universal Studios radar after helming an acclaimed segment of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (at the age of 21) that starred the iconic actress Joan Crawford and having seen a rough cut of the premiere episode of Columbo, Murder by the Book, to air in September of 1971, this film showed them that he was worth the extra three days of filming that was needed to complete it. While Unit Production Manager Wallace Worsley felt filming the entire production outside and on location on what was then a normal 10-day shooting schedule for TV movies of the week, was impossible (which turned out he was right), the studio had enough confidence with their young director. (and as a compromise, Worsley allowed Spielberg to start the filming on location for the first three days to see if it really could be done on an efficient level. To help with plotting, he made an overhead map to help plot out the camera shots).

 

Duel was initially shown on television as an installment of the ABC Movie of the Week. It was the 18th highest-rated television movie of the year, with a Nielsen rating of 20.9, and an audience share of 33%. After the successful broadcast, Universal decided to release the film theatrically over seas (with a limited release here in the US). At 74 minutes, however, it was not long enough for this purpose, so Universal had Spielberg spend two days filming several new scenes to expand it to 90 minutes. A longer opening sequence was added with the car backing out of a garage and driving through Los Angeles traffic, and out into the desert. Additional scenes shot to lengthen the movie included Mann's telephone conversation with his wife in the laundromat, the encounter with the broken-down school bus, and the confrontation at the railroad crossing. Some voice over dialogue from the television version was re-written and re-recorded, changing the "tone" of some scenes, and some alternate takes were used as well. Mild expletives were also added to the script, to make the film sound less like a television production.

 

Books: Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect (Ernest Cunningham #2) By Benjamin Stevenson (2023)

“After the overnight success of his first book –the recounting of that tale, which in book is seen as non-fiction than a true whodunit, Ernest Cunningham has been asked, along with five much-better-known authors, to be a panelist aboard the Ghan, a luxury train whose route bisects the Australian desert for the 50th Australian Mystery Writers’ Festival. Soon after the journey starts, one of the writers turns up dead, and each of the train’s other panelists—including Cunningham himself—becomes both suspect and sleuth.”

Much like the first book, Ernest breaks the fourth wall to a talk about what is transpiring here - he reveals that a comma will be a crucial clue, and that there will be more than one victim. There is pretty good dashes of humor, all while poking fun at the publishing industry. There are plenty of red herring’s; including a Misery loving girl who has discovered her favorite mystery author is killing of his main character. While this also no Murder on the Orient Express, it will remind readers –especially those who love the Golden Age of Detective Fiction (roughly, the 1920s to early 1930s) of age when creative and clever writers took the time to create viable locked-room and closed-circle murder mysteries.

Books: Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone (Enrest Cunningham #1) by Benjamin Stevenson (2023)

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but it is the truth. Some of us are good, others are bad, and some just unfortunate.

I’m Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I’d killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it’s a little more complicated than that. 

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it? 

Let’s get started. 

With the success of the Knives Out series and probably The Thursday Murder Club, publishers are looking for more unique and quirky whodunits that follow the traditional cozy murder tales from the last 150 years and give them an update for the modern reader. 

Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone by Australian writer Benjamin Stevenson, our narrator is Ernest Cunningham, who writes books about how to write books – or more specifically on how write murder fiction. As the informal, reliable narrator, he assures us that the title is not a lie— everyone really has killed someone, including himself. 

The early part of the book sets up the different family members who come to snowy resort area in Australian mountains (I’m today years old finding out it snows in Australia) for a family reunion. It takes a bit as Ern has to explain some of the back story on his family members. 

I did enjoy the book, as it has a dark sense of humor (and I liked the bingo card game between Ernst and Sofia) and while it took a bit to like the narrator, in the end I found his voice a bit irreverent. There were some parts I found hard to follow, if only because Ernst was sort of asking you to read between the lines, but for fans of modern whodunits that also tries to pay homage to the Golden Age of Murder Mysteries, should enjoy this take on the classic genre.

 

 

Books: Black House (Book Two) by Peter Straub and Stephen King (2001)

 

“Twenty years ago, a boy named Jack Sawyer traveled to a parallel universe called The Territories to save his mother and her Territories "twinner" from a premature and agonizing death that would have brought cataclysm to the other world. Now Jack is a retired Los Angeles homicide detective living in the nearly nonexistent hamlet of Tamarack, WI. A few years earlier, Jack cooperated with the local cops in French Landing (a fictionalized version of Trempealeau, Wisconsin) involving a farm insurance salesman who was also a killer. While in Wisconsin, Jack is irresistibly enraptured by the natural beauty of the Coulee Country, echoing his reaction to The Territories as a child. 

When a series of gruesome murders begin occurring that are reminiscent of those committed several decades earlier by a real-life madman named Albert Fish, the killer is dubbed "The Fisherman" Jack's buddy, the local chief of police, begs Jack to help his inexperienced force find him. But is this merely the work of a disturbed individual, or has a mysterious and malignant force been unleashed in this quiet town? What causes Jack's inexplicable waking dreams –if that is what they are- of robins' eggs and red feathers? Is there a connection, as well, to the events that forced him leave Los Angeles? Quickly it becomes clear there is more to these cases than murder, and Jack must retrieve his childhood memories to rescue the latest victim, someone who is coveted by the killer's evil overlord, a powerful entity from End-World, in the Dark Tower continuity. And someone King’s Constant Reader has encountered before.” 

As I mentioned in The Talisman re-read review, that 1984 book was never intended to include the Dark Tower, mostly because King really had not started to connect the dots (and he would recton some stuff, like Pennywise the Clown in IT). The Black House does work as a standalone sequel, though, but in the seventeen years between them, the Dark Tower universe began thread its way through King’s book regular titles, most notably 1994’s Insomnia (here is the unseen overreaching antagonist in 1982s The Gunslinger, Wizard and Glass, The Song Susannah, as well as the novella Low Men in Yellow Coats in The Hearts in Atlantis collection). What makes this work as standalone sequel is that the Territories has very minor role in this book, serving as both a Red Herring to Jack before the larger the full plot is revealed, with the Fisherman's significance is explained to him. The authors’ drop enough information so reading The Talisman is not a huge necessity (though is highly recommended).

While I remembered some of this books actions – especially the motorcycle club and the connections to the Dark Tower- I forgot the ending. It’ll be interesting to see how this now plays out in the upcoming third and final book, Other Worlds Than These. 

Beyond the Crimson King –spoken about, but not seen and the Territories -the books other DT references include Little Sisters (Little Sisters of Eluria) The Beams, Ka, Gilead, Ted Brautigan, Roland Deschain, and Roland's ka-tet are all explicitly mentioned. How Black House is connected to the Dark Tower universe is that The Furnace Lands are located in End-World, possibly implying that the Territories (also called the Borderlands) may exist on the same level of the Tower as Mid-World. The Territories are said to be in the Inner Baronies, suggesting it is part of In-World. The Big Combination is the Forge of the King that Susannah sees glowing red in the sky from the ramparts of Castle Discordia. When Susannah and Roland and Oy near the Tower, they see that the glow from the Forge has gone out now Finally In The Dark Tower, Walter/Flagg dons the same metal cap as he one the Fisherman puts on Tyler Marshall. Flagg describes the cap as having been "borrowed from a certain deserted house in the town of French Landing, Wisconsin."

Books: The Talisman by Peter Straub and Stephen King (Book One) 1984

“On a brisk autumn day, a thirteen-year-old boy stands on the shores of the gray Atlantic, near a silent amusement park and a fading ocean resort called the Alhambra. The past has driven Jack Sawyer here: his father is gone, his mother is dying, and the world no longer makes sense. But for Jack everything is about to change. For he has been chosen to make a journey back across America–and into another realm.” 

The Territories, for the few who’ve not read this book in the last forty-two years, is a parallel world physically smaller than the world from which Jack comes. Throughout the novel, Jack uses the size differential to travel quickly across the country. The eastern region, corresponding to the Eastern Seaboard, is the most densely populated and is governed under a feudal system headed by the Queen. The central regions, roughly corresponding to the American plains, are a grain growing area known as "the Outposts." Beyond them, the western region of the Territories is a destroyed area known as "the Blasted Lands" (analogous to the American Southwest – primarily New Mexico, where the atomic bomb was tested). It was apparently wrecked by radioactivity and has dangerous mutants and occasional fireballs. 

Jack begins his quest at the New Hampshire hotel called the Alhambra (a notable location in King's novel The Tommyknockers), where he meets Speedy Parker who tells him he must go on this quest to save both his mother and Queen Laura. So Jack sets off to seek the mystical Talisman in this parallel world, with help and encouragement from Speedy Parker. Parker warns young Jack that Morgan of Orris, the enemy of the free people of the Territories, will be after him, as will his uncle in the real world, Morgan Sloat, the business partner who probably caused Jack's father's death, who wants Jack dead. So both versions of Morgan are hunting for Jack, and both are aware of his nature, as well as their own.  

Back when King and Straub wrote The Talisman, I do not think King intentionally connected this book to the wider DTU. The Gunslinger had been released in 1982 (which was a combination of five short stories he wrote between 1978 and 1981 and The Drawing of the Three was still five years away). However, there are many things within this book that would be revisited in many of King’s other books, just not the Dark Tower (the idea of the train and the blasted lands would be reused in King’s fourth Dark Tower Universe book Wizard and Glass). 

Consciously or not, there are many references throughout the book that make rereading this novel feel like The Territories is just a small part of some bigger multiple universes. 

Even Jack’s Dad notes to his brother-in-law Morgan Sloat: 

“And should I tell you another crazy thing?”

“Why not?” Sloat answered.

“That’s (the Territories) are not the only world out there.” 

Another example comes from Wizard and Glass book again; where Roland’s ka-tet visits a version of the world has been depopulated by the influenza from the novel The Stand. As Jake points out in that book, in his version of 1980’s New York from which he comes from, they never encountered Captain Trips (this is also a clever way to explain the differences between King’s original version of the book, which is set in the late 1970s and the updated, extended version, which moved the dates up to 1986). Roland ponders that Jake’s universe is "another when. Then adds, “There are other worlds than these.”