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Back at the start of last year (2011), I wrote a series of diaries about movies that I am willing to watch over and over again. Here is a link to the last diary (which has links to all the previous diaries.) I thought today, I would do a diary about the genre known as the “TV movie.”
Now I realize, that for many of us, the idea of TV movies as art is more than a bit of an oxymoron. Yet over the years, there have been some quite excellent and thought provoking TV movies. I’m old enough to remember when the movies from Hallmark Hall of Fame came on as specials each year. Heartwarming, sometimes almost saccharine, they were often feel good to the extreme. With the existence of the Hallmark Channel these days, many of these movies are still around. An example of a Hallmark movie I have enjoyed multiple times is What the Deaf Man Heard with a cast including Matthew Modine, James Earl Jones, Tom Skerrit, and Judith Ivey.
In the early ’60s, NBC started NBC Saturday Night at the Movies. While these were most often movies that had been through a run in the theater, it also started the formal idea of the TV Movie. ABC then came in with the ABC Movie of the Week.
There really have been some outstanding movies that appeared first on TV. For example, ABC broadcast the movie The Day After in 1983. A thought provoking look at the possible affects after a nuclear war. Jason Robards, JoBeth Williams, Amy Madigan, and John Lithgow were all part of the cast. Another outstanding ABC TV movie was Duel, directed by Stephen Spielberg and starring Dennis Weaver. One fun movie I remember is The Girl Most Likely To with Stockard Channing and Ed Asner. Another was The Night Strangler with Darren McGavin.
Nowadays, the made for TV movies have a much broader universe. The TNT Network has had many TV Movies, especially westerns. The Shadow Riders with Tom Selleck, Sam Elliott, Ben Johnson, and Katherine Ross is just one of these. Another is the movie Purgatory with Sam Shepard, Eric Roberts, and Randy Quaid.
This is just a brief sampling and overview of the TV movie genre. Join me in the comments if you like and tell me about your favorite made for TV movies.
And because I can:
34 Comments
Often tv movies were a time for the family to go to the movies. IIRC, Marty was first on tv. There may have been others.
Brian’s Song (where’s my hanky?)
And actually I wish I hadn’t watched Helter Skelter
Good memory about Marty. I do remember the feature film with Borgnine though.
Yeah, I just scratched the surface and that just barely on listing the movies. I watched Brian’s Song in the TV room of the dorm at college.
And while I am remembering
I like true crime, and one of the best TV movies of that genre was Echoes in the Darkness about the weird twisted murder of Upper Merion teacher Susan Reinert and her two kids.
The Day After was certainly influential, turned the tide, imo.
Speaking of movies, RIP Harry Carey, Jr
it would be no fun if we didn’t get to add to the list!
When I was a boy I used to love staying up so I could watch the ‘movie of the week.’
You mentioned ‘The Night Stalker.’ I think that was directed by Dan Curtis. It was so popular they made a sequel called ‘The Night Strangler.’ ‘The Stepford Wives’ was a t.v. movie also, I think. There was also a movie I remember called ‘Crawlspace,’ about a guy who was living in someone’s crawlspace for a while.
Helen Hayes was in a couple popular movies where she’s buried alive and somehow finds her way out, but I don’t remember what they were called. And another one about a guy who was in Vietnam, comes home and can’t remember his name. Eventually, they figure out who he is and how he made up a fantasy world that helped him deal with the trauma of being in the war. Quite a few good movies, and some that were just fun to watch.
Nope. It looks like Stepford Wives was a regular theater style movie (based on a book)
Yeah, The Night Stalker one and then The Night Strangler were just fun watches. McGavin was over the top in those movies (and the series)
Then there was the hybrid movie format / series — The NBC Mystery Movie of the Week that rotated between Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife
Columbo is still the best tv detective ever, with Jim Rockford in second
PS Nightstalker Rawked
Yep. I did concentrate on mostly stand alone movies (The Night Stalker/Strangler notwithstanding) but besides the shows you mentioned, the “Movie of the Week” also was used for the premiere of a lot of shows that became weekly series.
Rockford was always fun
Kojak was another one that started from a TV movie
I just watched The Day After. I didn’t see it when it originally aired.
Aside from some dated Cold War stuff, it’s still a potent, terrifying movie that never lets up and doesn’t sugarcoat anything.
Aloha y’all…! I thought Alex Haley’s ‘Roots’ and Mitchener’s ‘Centennial’ were two of the best TV adaptions of Novels…! ;-)
I’m a Rockford guy. I liked Columbo because I liked Peter Falk, but I just think Garner did a great job. He was also a good movie actor; I don’t think he acts much anymore. Another guy who was on tv that I thought was great, but never got the credit was Robert Culp. I thought that he certainly should have had at least one Emmy for I Spy. Culp and Cosby made a movie together after the tv series came to an end.
I have fond memories of Night Stalker, Garner, I Spy…Night Gallery too.
Which TV programs, like 24, are propaganda? I.E. 24 was ginned up to get U.S.ians used to torture as normal.
Some of the women that were on tv and made movies were great. I love Mary Tyler Moore. She was the “legs” seen in the tv program Richard Diamond, Private Detective. The Mary Tyler Moore Show came on tv when we lived in Gainesville and Ms. BearCountry was in a career in radio and tv, so it was doubly gun for us. Besides her famous tv roles, Mary was a good movie actress. I think her best role was in Ordinary People. Of course, I have to add in Emma Peel (Diana Rigg). She was James Bonds very short-lived wife in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Also saw recent Rochester, NY event presaged on TV program. Shooter calls 911 to report attack/death of first responders, then kills second responders. Can’t remember which program. Maybe Criminal Minds?
Copycat or rehearsal?
Well, how was it in your an Herb’s case?
By which I mean, Copycat or Rehearsal?
I had the fun of seeing Diana Rigg play the part of Medea evem though she is not the dark and brooding type.
I’m a big fan of Korean serial dramas. Often over 60 hours long, with a cliff-hanger at the end of every one.
TV also produced some great mini-series. Lonesome Dove and Winds of War come to mind.
Theatrical run movies could not be shown on TV if they were produced with union actors and workers. There was no agreement on royalties or payments to the union members for revenue produced by movies shown on TV. So the only movies on TV were grade C stuff, non union.
Here is where Reagan stepped in as Actors Guild president. He made a deal, a not very good one for the unions which I think involved a one time payment in return for the unions allowing the movies to be shown on TV. It is a mistake to make too much of this. Everyone back in the day in the industry was worried that TV would kill the movies. Just like video tape was supposed to, etc. etc. Sure he should have made a better deal but the industry and its workers continued to grow their incomes for 50 years.
“Testament” with Jane Alexander had far more impact on me than “The Day After”. It absolutely terrified me (and I was in my 20′s at the time). Watching Jane Alexander care for her family after a nuclear attack and watching them die slowly was gut wrenching.
Also loved the NBC “Name of the Game” series- kind of a mini-movie format.
Another excellent made-for-TV movie was “The Executioner’s Song,” a 1982 adaptation of Norman Mailer’s book starring Tommy Lee Jones as Gary Gilmore, and Rosanna Arquette as his girlfriend, Nicole Baker.
There’s also the superb 1982 PBS American Playhouse production, “Pilgrim, Farewell,” starring Christopher Lloyd.
Hallmark Hall of Fame : Give Us Barabas, about the crucifixion, and the crowds clamoring for the thief.
I do not recall that particular movie but there have been so many good Hallmark movies over the years, it is difficult to keep track of them all.
And Mary Tyler Moore was an outstanding Mary Todd Lincoln is the 1988 TV multi-part movie Lincoln….
I believe the first made for TV multi-part movie was Rich Man Poor Man (1976?)based on the Irving Wallace novel. It made the young Nick Nolte a star….