Astronaut Neil Stryker (Glenn Corbett) awakens in a hospital bed following a tumble through space when a failure in his ship’s “transponder” prevents him and his two crew members from identifying their trajectory. He learns he’s been isolated there for two weeks and that his companions died during the accident. With a title like, The…

Dan Curtis has always used and re-used plot elements and stories among his various productions; however, few have been as evident as those recycled in The Norliss Tapes, which aired on NBC just over a month after The Night Strangler aired on ABC. David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) is a copy of Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin)…

Sometimes the more outlandish the concept, the more entertaining a movie can be. It’s The Exorcist (nearly a year before it was released) meets Airport (three years after it was released) in a TV movie directed by the man who would later make The Concorde: Airport ’79, David Lowell Rich. Some may find that it…

What are the chances that either screenwriter Bill Lancaster or director John Carpenter were inspired by a 1973 TV movie called, A Cold Night’s Death, when they made The Thing nine years later? Similarities between the two films are numerous, yet the small screen version lacks something very important that the big screen version has:…

Pursuit (1972) starts with a superimposed digital clock counting down from “zero minus 15 hours.” It doesn’t remain visible for the movie’s entire running time, but appears at key moments, especially before and after the black spaces originally filled by commercials. It’s like the gimmick of the TV series, 24 (2001-2010), minus the loud and…

Until I watched The Devil’s Daughter (1973) and did my subsequent research for it, I didn’t remember that Shelley Winters had appeared in so many 1970s TV movies. I count at least ten. Her B-movie appearances at the time in theatrical films like What’s the Matter with Helen? (1971) and Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1972)…

Home for the Holidays (1972) was released on VHS with one of those giant rectangular boxes. I’ll never forget its awful cover art. A mysterious figure in a yellow raincoat held a pitchfork. That was fine (and the killer’s “costume” in the actual movie is fine, as well); however, Sally Field’s head was placed right…

Beloved as it may be, part of me wishes I had left Gargoyles (1972) to live in my memory. Yes, the leader of the beasts, with Emmy award-winning makeup by Stan Winston, still looks amazing. However, I had forgotten (or didn’t notice when I last watched this as a “kid”) that he’s outnumbered three-to-one by…

Poor Artie Sawyer. Played by Andy Griffith, you know he’s a decent man. However, after losing his job and being forced to make ends meet by working as an apartment building superintendent, then having his spirit constantly crushed by his henpecking wife, Iris (Ida Lupino), he makes a big mistake when she goes out of…