In my research on the fantastic I have come across a lot of good materials, and the individuals who bring these materials into being. Last year I came across Michael Karol and his book The ABC Movie of the Week Companion: A Loving Tribute to the Classic Series (IUniverse, 2008). Michael is an award-winning writer with a number of publishing efforts to his credit. He and I recently touched bases to reflect on his book, and the legacy of The ABC Movie of the Week.

TheoFantastique: Michael, your book was a trip down memory lane for me. As a child of the 1970s, many of the television films that made up The ABC Movie of the Week were a way to enter into the world of the fantastic and the fearful. Those were the genres that most appealed to me, although the movies covered more ground than that. How did you come to be a fan of these movies, and what led to your writing this book?

Michael Karol: Well, you put it perfectly in the introduction to your question: the movies in this unique series were “a way to enter into the world of the fantastic and the fearful.” Especially for a shy kid very much into the movies thanks to his mother, who’d been taking him along with her since the late 1950s to see the last Golden Age stars on the big screen. Many of those stars, and lots of up-and-comers, were featured in the unique 90 minute classics that were part of The ABC Movie of the Week series.

In 2004, I had just finished writing Lucy A to Z: The Lucille Ball Encyclopedia, and had done most of my research at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (a fabulous resource for everything entertainment-related). I went back there to look through the files and figure out the topic for my next book. I was hoping to do something a bit less comprehensive than the Lucy encyclopedia, but then I accidentally found a press release from ABC congratulating itself on the broadcast of the 200th Movie of the Week. The two-page trade ad listed every movie in the series up to that time. It was like it fell into my lap — here was a program that I had loved, and here was most of the information I need to begin researching the movies themselves. I hoped there would be others of my generation who’d loved the series like me, and would buy the book…but I never reckoned on the power of baby boomer nostalgia! It just took off, without any publicity.

TheoFantastique: Can you provide a little background on what television was like before cable and satellite? How did ABC come up with the idea of launching a series of mini-movies? When did it debut, and how popular was it with viewers?

Michael Karol: Oh my God, I feel ancient (laughing)! When ABC’s Barry Diller — then vice president of feature films and development — announced the concept for the series, described as “25 original 90-minute movies made especially for ABC-TV,”  it was the most expensive series in network history up to the that time. Movies on television were a special treat for viewers. Many of the Hollywood classics (and not so classic…remember Chiller Theater?) had been run on TV since the 1950s. There were only three networks (after Dumont disappeared in the 1950s), and a few UHF stations, and local stations needed programming to fill the hours. So movies became a TV staple early on.

The first movie made specifically to air on TV was 1964’s See How They Run, with John Forsythe. Then, in 1966, NBC (which debuted its popular NBC Saturday Night at the Movies in September 1961; it was the first weekly prime-time network show that showcased fairly current color Hollywood movies) came up with the concept for the series Fame Is the Name of the Game. It was a 90-minute anthology series, rotating three plot-connected 90-minute shows that each starred a strong male star: Tony Franciosa, Robert Stack, and Gene Barry.

Diller noted the (ratings) success of Fame Is the Name of the Game, and decided the anthology series concept from the 1950s needed an update. He scheduled The ABC Movie of the Week to debut in 1969, and made the films 90-minutes for budgetary reasons (as it is, they each cost $400,000-$450,000 each to produce, a tidy sum in those days). But there was a group of hungry independent producers (including Aaron Spelling, Quinn Martin and David Wolper) who eagerly jumped in and supplied product for the show.

With commercials, the movies ran anywhere from 72-77 minutes, but they were longer than your typical hour show, and gave the producers a bit more time to explore grander themes. The groovy era (late 1960s to mid-1970s) led to a less restrictive attitude on television that made it possible for the Movie of the Week to present original films on subjects such as drug abuse (Go Ask Alice), homosexuality (That Certain Summer), aging, the aftermath of nuclear war, the existence of life on other planets, and other previously untouchable topics for the small screen, that have since become landmarks in TV history. Other films in the series presented traditional genres like comedy and horror with amazing casts that were an amalgam of Golden Age Hollywood stars and newcomers, many of whom would make their mark on the big screen, like Sally Field, Burt Reynolds and Jeff Bridges. Some of the movies were cheesy (Killdozer, about a killer bulldozer inhabited by an alien presence, comes to mind), but almost every one was memorable.

The series was an immediate hit, and by November 1969, ABC announced it was being renewed for a second season, and the budget for the films increased. I mean, can you imagine ANY network making 26 feature films a season these days? It would be totally cost-prohibitive. But by the The ABC Movie of the Week’s third season (1971-’72), the ratings were so consistently good ABC added a second movie of the week, airing on Saturdays and, occasionally, Wednesdays.

TheoFantastique: One of the most memorable films in this series for fans is Duel, directed by a young Steven Spielberg. You describe this as a “milestone of TV-movie history.” I agree, and think it still holds up as great television today. Please talk a little about this 1971 terror classic.

Michael Karol: Start with a short story by fantasy, horror, and sci-fi master Richard Matheson, and you’ve already got a lot going for you. Duel, which first aired November 13, 1971, starred Dennis Weaver as a businessman simply trying to get to an important appointment. Unfortunately, he runs afoul of a malevolent truck driver (or perhaps the truck itself?) after passing the truck twice on a desert highway. The movie becomes a cat-and-mouse game as an increasingly frightened Weaver tries to avoid the truck, which, for unknown reasons, has targeted him for destruction. The location filming, the handheld camera (used soon after by director Spielberg in a little film called Jaws) and the tight editing make for an agonizingly suspenseful ride. The truck even pursues Weaver outside the car, slamming into a phone booth, for example, when Weaver tries to make a call outside a diner. What makes it work is everyone’s innate fear of the unknown. We only see pieces of the driver, never his face, and we never really know the motive behind his chasing Weaver. These days, with road rage increasing by the hour, Duel might be even more relevant than ever! It was such a hit that in 1983 it was released theatrically, with added footage. Duel’s success made Spielberg’s subsequent career happen.

TheoFantastique: I recognize that in terms of genres the ABC Movie of the Week covered a lot of ground, but as you write in your book, “horror was a major theme of the MOTW,” and the films most relevant to the focus of this blog are sci-fi, horror, and thrillers. I’d like to mention some of these films that readers might remember, or perhaps introduce them to younger viewers altogether, and have you touch on them as to their content and why they were memorable. I’ve commented on a couple of these previously in other posts. One was The Love War from 1970. What was this sci-fi movie about?

Michael Karol: The Love War (aired March 10, 1970) was an ahead-of-its-time sci-fi film with, unfortunately, a rather insipid title. Two alien races bent on destroying each other have picked our planet on which to wage war. The catch: They can only be seen through special sunglasses. It presaged Alien vs. Predator by 34 years. Alien (in human form) Lloyd Bridges gets to know Angie Dickinson on a bus ride to a small California town that is to be ground zero for Armageddon. Can they stop it? Well, they say love conquers all, and Angie falls in love a might too quickly (but don’t forget, they only had 77 minutes!). It’s a perfect example of the MOTW series’ ability to take a grand theme and run with it on a mere fraction of the budget that it takes to make an Alien/Predator film…. Yes, there are some questions left unanswered — but the acting is so divine it doesn’t matter that we only get a short glimpse of the actual aliens at the end.

TheoFantastique: Can you comment on Crowhaven Farm, from November 1970?

Michael Karol: Crowhaven (aired Nov. 24, 1970) was possibly an attempt to cash in on the successful Rosemary’s Baby, released the previous year. Innocent Hope Lange and hubby Paul Burke inherit a farmhouse in Salem, Mass. Now, if that’s not a tip-off to a witchcraft-centric plot, I don’t know what is. They’re trying to save their marriage by having a child, but are forced to deal with strange things happening to Hope, as a result of some bad juju perpetrated by her, um, witchy relative and the coven she belonged to hundreds of years before. Crowhaven Farm took its cues from the classic ghost movie The Haunting (1963) in that it only showed fleeting glimpses or sounds of the evil spirits haunting Lange (a young girl’s cries in the forest that turn into maniacal laughter once Lange investigates) — the audience is mostly left to fill in the gore with its imagination, and it works.

TheoFantastique: You had positive comments about A Taste of Evil from October 1971. What was that about?

Michael Karol: After a violent attack when she was younger, Barbara Parkins goes all catatonic and is put away in an institution. The movie follows the adult (gorgeous) Parkins as she returns home to mama Barbara Stanwyck, playing a controlling mom from hell. There’s a handyman (Arthur O’Connell) who knows too much; and strange things begin happening that terrorize Parkins from the minute she arrives home. Was there really someone standing on the lawn, watching her during a storm? Is she going crazy again, or is someone gaslighting her? Perhaps Roddy McDowell or William Windom? Or mommy dearest? I’ll never tell, though you’ll probably have to search long and hard to find the film anywhere, as with most of these classic TV films. (See the last question.) A Taste of Evil was directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, who also helmed one of the best-remembered MOTWs, The Night Stalker.

TheoFantastique: Horror fans may be familiar with The Night Stalker television series with Darren McGavin, but may not recall that it finds its origins in the television movies The Night Stalker from 1972 and The Night Strangler from 1973. How did this concept arise in two movies and then make the jump to a series? And how inspirational has it been on subsequent television?

Michael Karol: Many of the movies in The ABC Movie of the Week were pilots for projected television series. If the ratings were high enough, they’d go into production the following season, often using the cast from the movie. The Night Stalker (with a teleplay also written by Richard Matheson) was one of the highest-rated MOTWs, and remained one of the Top 25 highest-rated movies shown on television for many years. So it was only a matter of time before it became a series. First came a sequel, The Night Strangler, as you noted. The Dan Curtis (Dark Shadows) productions starred the wonderfully cynical Darren McGavin as a tough reporter out to find the truth about a vampire stalking Los Angeles (Stalker), and then going after a madman killing women in Seattle (Strangler). Curtis and Matheson were both asked to so the TV series (called Kolchak: The Night Stalker), but declined, which meant the series lacked Curtis’s trademark atmospheric touches, and Matheson’s deft writing. The series lasted only a year and became steadily more silly than scary. Still, McGavin’s convincing performance made it memorable. Night Stalker was revived starring Stuart Townsend in 2005, but only lasted for 12 episodes. For fans of the original, the best moment came in the pilot, when Townsend enters his newsroom and acknowledges a digitally inserted McGavin. The Night Stalker movies and series have impacted supernatural-themed movies and TV in the sense that any film or series featuring investigators or reporters, or even teens, facing a horror scenario, owes The Night Stalker a debt. The most current example I can think of is the hit TV show Supernatural.

TheoFantastique: You gave A Cold Night’s Death (a.k.a. The Chill Factor) from January 1973 high praise as “one of the best MOTW thrillers.” Unfortunately, I don’t remember seeing it. What was this frightening feature about?

Michael Karol: I am a sucker for thrillers/horror movies with a wintry setting — the more ice and snow, the better. So this one was right up my alley. Two arctic researchers (Eli Wallach and Robert Culp) have their research interrupted by mysterious things like windows opening by themselves and their food disappearing. Wallach, the older, more pragmatic soul, tends to believe these are just manifestations of their isolation and loneliness, but Culp isn’t so sure. And, by the way, the previous researcher vanished without a trace. It’s a great two-character study — the tension, and the effects of the isolation and severely cold weather, are palpable. This one is right up there with John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) and two more recent films I love, 2006’s The Last Winter and Wind Chill (2007).

TheoFantastique: Another Movie of the Week I’ve commented on here previously is Satan’s Triangle from January 1975. What is this memorable supernatural at sea movie about?

Michael Karol: Satan’s Triangle is a neat thriller, one of the best movies ever made about The Bermuda Triangle. Kim Novak is (apparently) the lone survivor of a shipwreck. Doug McClure is one of two Coast Guard rescuers who pick her up (in McClure’s case, it’s literally a pickup!). Things get dicey when they try to figure out what happened to Novak and her husband on their yacht in the Devil’s Triangle. Novak is very helpful, if frightened out of her mind. Revealing much more would be a disservice, since there’s a juicy twist ending that everyone who’s seen this film never forgets. Let’s just say…some people may not be who you think they are, and the devil gets his due.

TheoFantastique: Perhaps the most memorable of all the Movies of the Week is Trilogy of Terror (a.k.a. Tales of Terror) from March of 1975. The Zuni fetish doll in the film’s third segment occupies the cover of your book nicely. What was this film about, why was it effective, and how has it influenced subsequent horror films?

Michael Karol: By the way, the cover photo is an actual still of the doll from the movie; Jim Pierson and Dan Curtis Productions generously gave me permission to use it. … TOT was directed by Dan Curtis and written by Richard Matheson (seeing a pattern here?!); there are three segments, and the most popular one, featuring the Zuni fetish doll, was based on Matheson’s story Prey. Karen Black — you either love her or hate her; I’m a lover — stars in all three segments, each of which has a horror twist. The first has her as a timid teacher being pursued by a handsome student…who’s in for a surprise; in the second she’s twins, one goody-goody, one evil, who want to get rid of each other; but it’s the third that made this one a classic of the horror genre. In “Prey,” Black’s character Amelia buys a strange doll that, unfortunately for her, is inhabited by an evil spirit — one that wants to inhabit a person, not the doll. Once the scroll around the doll’s neck accidentally (or is it?) falls off, the evil spirit is released, resulting in a knock-down, drag-out fight between the doll and Amelia. The movie moves us due to the excellent editing and camerawork, stop-motion animation, and especially Black’s all-out performance. Keep in mind all was done before the days of CGI, so basically you’ve got Karen Black and a small doll (scary looking, but not real), plus director Curtis, the cameraman and and the sound man, scaring the hell of the viewer. Anyone who’s seen “Prey” will never forget that evil doll, its primal, guttural growling, and the ending. It’s been a major influence on any “possessed” doll, person, or item in any horror film that came after. There’s Chuckie, of course, and The Puppet Master film franchise, but also films as varied as 1995’s Tales From the Hood (the segment “KKK Comeuppance”), 1998’s Small Soldiers, and the two Night at the Museum films (2006 and 2009).

TheoFantastique: Are these Movies of the Week available on DVD? If not, how else might interested fans track them down?

Michael Karol: Some of the better-known ones are (Brian’s Song, Duel, and Trilogy of Terror), but the majority are not. As I wrote in the book’s Afterword, rights issues (especially music rights and performing rights) are probably what’s been preventing most of these movies from being released on DVD. The only advice I have is keep looking: start with collectors you know and collector sites online; check out the user comments section on the IMDb page for the movie — some of the users note they have copies on VHS, and you might be able to trade or purchase copies; troll eBay searching for titles; flea markets might prove fruitful; and try writing to the production companies or producers who made them.

TheoFantastique: Michael, thank you again for this great book.

Michael Karol: And thank you, John for the opportunity to talk about one of my favorite subjects…movies.