The Fighting Men. Two Canadian soldiers, one Anglophone, one Francophone, hate each other’s guts. But, when their plane crashes in the middle of the wilderness, they have to work together to survive.
The Four Feathers, starring Beau Bridges and Jane Seymour. More faithful to the book than any of the theatrical films.
Another vote for Louis Jordan in Count Dracula. Low-budget, with shoddy special effects, but still good.
Vampire. Jason Miller and E.G. Marshall hunt a vampire played by Richard Lynch.
Blood Ties. A film about the Carpathian-American community. (Don’t call them vampires. That’s an ugly racial slur.)
Doctor Strange is also one of my guilty pleasures. Of all of Marvel’s attempts at live-action movies in the 1970s, this is one of the least bad. Considering what a limited budget they had to work with, they made a valiant attempt to film Steve Ditko’s astral realms. And in this film, Wong is not a stereotype!
The Killers (1964) - A remake produced for TV, but released theatrically owing to violence. Reagan plays the bad guy and it’s his greatest performance as an actor until becoming president. Nightmare in Chicago (1964) - Originally shown in two parts on Kraft Suspense Theater, this is a tense and very effective location shot thriller about a serial killer and the police manhunt for him. Directed by Robert Altman.
I shit you not- I moused over the thread title to find out what TVMs was, and after reading the first sentence, immediately thought “Killdozer”.
Were we separated at birth or something?
^ What are you waiting for, Gato? You’ve got other faves–spill it! Or sucky ones! You’re among friends!
I know this can’t be, but it seemed to me a big chunk of network TVMs from late '60s to mid '70s were horror, SF, mystery; I don’t remember a lot of comedies. E.g.:
Moon of the Wolf
Crowhaven Farm
Something Evil
When Michael Calls
Scream, Pretty Peggy
Dead of Night (1977)
The Norliss Tapes
She Waits
I have no idea whether it still holds up, and I’m guessing it doesn’t, but when I was a kid, I was mesmerized by The Electric Grandmother. I guess it couldn’t have been that bad, as it 7.8 on IMDB, and even won a Peabody award. How ‘bout that? I don’t think I’ve seen it since the mid-80s. Looks like it came out in 82, when I would have been 7, but I’m sure I had seen it shown again a couple of times in the 80s. ETA: Oh, wow, had no idea it was based on a Ray Bradbury story, either. I just remember the ol’ electric grandmother pouring milk out of her finger!
Yeah, but do you classify it as “the best”, or “the worst”? (I missed it, and from what my friends told me about it afterwards, I don’t really regret missing it. People’s opinions on it seemed to depend entirely on their political views before they watched it.)
Peter O’Toole and Jodie Foster in Svengali. It doesn’t hold up well, but the scene where O’Toole says “When I make love to a woman, I UNWRAP her,” is a panty dropper. Him with those blue bedroom eyes.
If I can throw in an ESPN movie, The Junction Boys was a sports movie about Bear Bryant’s first training camp as Texas A&Ms head coach (no, I’m not an Aggie.) It starred Tom Berenger as was about their “camp from hell” that year. A very well-done adaptation of the book.
Edit:
I thought I was the only one who enjoyed The Point!
Special Bulletin - the first time NBC aired it, it went to great lengths to make it clear that it was a movie (“DRAMATIZATION” appeared on the screen whenever there was a “live news report,” and there was a disclaimer at the end of every commercial break).
Five Desperate Women - This was the first thing I saw Robert Conrad in post-“Wild Wild West” and he (James West) was my hero at the time. The movie wasn’t very good, despite the five women of the title being kinda popular actresses at the time. The ending The remaining women fix Conrad (the murderer)'s wagon,brought me close to tears (I was young), which was hardly the point of the movie. Lotsa cryin’ ladies; the tears flowed freely. Skip it.
Of course Special Bulletin and The Day After come to mind, but here’s one appropriate for the season that we just rewatched:
The Homecoming - A Christmas Story. If it doesn’t sound familiar, it’s because it’s often labelled as The Waltons pilot episode, although the series was ordered only after the success of the TV movie.
It stands well as a stand-alone story, bringing in lots of sentimentality in the midst of the depression, but also lots of (minor) crime and goofy characters. I especially like Cleavon Little’s being a reverend at the black church and seeing a different yet still delightful Christmas Eve program. I recall watching it (as a teen) in 1971, wishing I could know more about these characters, which I think is one of the marks of a good movie.
Directed by Frank (“Walking Dead”) Darabont? I gotta find it. Thanks. An aside: if you can find it, Darabont’s The Woman in the Room is superb (based on the Stephen King short story and co-stars my favorite supporting actor–Brian Libby).
This made me think of Sunshine (1973) - A really good TVM that spawned a really good, though short-lived, TV series–one of the first “dramadies,” a comedy-drama with no laugh-track. Also begat the TVM, Sunshine Christmas, which was also first-rate.
