Fans of the vintage television sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie (1965-70), would have been thrilled a year later when its stars, Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman, reunited in the TV movie, A Howling in the Woods (1971.) Hagman brings his comedic charms with him, but there’s really not much chemistry between him and Eden. That…

Murder Once Removed (1971) demonstrates why you should never be friends with your doctor. Frank Manning (Richard Kiley) and Dr. Ron Wellesley (John Forsythe) frequent the same parties and are golf buddies, although Manning is blackmailing Wellesley, and Wellesley is plotting to kill Manning. These aren’t spoilers; the movie is not a whodunit, or even…

If A Taste of Evil (1971) feels familiar, and the fact that it was written by Jimmy Sangster excites you, then you may or may not quickly put two and two together. For all intents and purposes, it’s a remake of Hammer’s 1961 thriller, Scream of Fear (aka Taste of Fear.) Sangster has admitted as…

Sweet, Sweet Rachel (1971) earns points for its atmosphere and style; but, it unfortunately loses a larger number of points for its convoluted and nonsensical plot. I wanted so much to love it and had been looking forward to its arrival in the chronological order in which this series has been traveling. After watching it,…

Out of five desperate women, I’d rate this one… three desperate women. Technically, they don’t become desperate until one of them is dead, leaving only four desperate women. Then, the volume of desperation in their situation is so low that I’d subtract one desperate woman. But, hey, it’s a great title for the next movie…

Had I known the pedigree of Terror in the Sky (1971), I probably wouldn’t have watched it at this point in time. Its genesis was a 1956 Canadian TV movie called, Flight Into Danger, written by Arthur Hailey (Airport.) A year later, Hollywood remade it as Zero Hour! A year later, Hailey turned it into…

Although I cannot verify it in my research, I’d bet good money that Escape (1971) was the pilot for a television series. The concept is both a good and a bad one. The good is that a weekly series about the James Bond of escape artists could be fun. The bad is that for Cameron…

Bing Crosby as a serial killer? Sold! In his last television acting appearance, he (and his toupee) plays the titular Dr. Leonard Cook, a small town doctor that has spent his career weeding the town of its ne’er do wells and riff raff. It’s practically the happiest place on Earth. If only he weren’t so…

Crowhaven Farm (1970) cleverly combines several occult elements into its story: reincarnation, witchcraft, and a big spooky house in the country. Its themes of marriage, jealousy, and desire to have children tie events from present to those of the past. The combination makes for an effective chiller, probably my favorite of the TV horror movies…

Finally, here’s the first truly supernatural movie in this series about 1970s TV horror movies. It’s probably the first one that, if you saw it when it was originally aired, you remember. While last week’s Night Slaves established a template, The House That Would Not Die alters it slightly to accommodate characteristics that would become…