TV Movie of the Week

[Monzo]

For decades, beginning in the 1970s, made-for-television movie were a huge hit on US TV, but today Networks no longer have a so-called Movie of the Week on their schedules anymore.

Are there any TV movies that you particularly liked? Or did you remember some because they were so bad?

The most-watched made-for-television movie is 1983's The Day After with a 46.0 rating.

 

[Chris2]

I liked them in the 70s and 80s when they had different genres - suspense, horror, and even comedy. But the mid 80s, they were almost exclusively about social issues (alcoholism, battered spouse, etc) or “give me back my baby!”

I fondly remember “Midnight Offerings” about the battle between two girls in high school - Mary McDonough of “The Waltons” and Melissa Anderson of “Little House on the Prairie” - who happened to be witches.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

Here in Ireland, American TV movies didn't really surface en masse on primetime until TV3 launched in the late 90's. So I think we unfortunately missed the golden era and mostly got the aforementioned "social issues" films of the 80's and 90's. TV3 ran at least one a week at either 8pm or 9pm. My main recollection is that Joanna Kerns seemed to be in a lot of them.

 

[Toni]

In Spain these movies were called "Movie of the Siesta" and you can imagine why. All the Spanish titles were similar: "Fatal Love/Passion/Marriage/Wedding", "Shadow of the Death/Killer/Revenge", "Deadly Romance/Affair/Husband"... So hilarious!

I used to be in front of the TV set when they started, because you never knew who (from "Dallas"...) could show up (..."starring in"). If Victoria or Linda did appear, I proceeded to push the record button in the VTR (remember them?). Of course the titles were never announced on the press and "anything" could be shown at that timeslot, from a "Principal Production" to the umpteenth romantic movie with Jaclyn Smith.

Most of them, though, were others "Based on a true story" that gave me the creeps for the awful acting and dialogues, so I switched off. Good old days... and good riddance to them!!

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

you never knew who (from "Dallas"...) could show up (..."starring in").

Yes, this was always part of the interest in them for me too. Which 80's soap would show up next. Linda's Why My Daughter? sticks in my head for some reason although I see that she and Heather Locklear worked together pre-Melrose on the amazingly titled Highway Heartbreaker.

 

[Daniel Avery]

I recall some of the big three networks would run TV-movies two or three nights a week. For many years the Sunday night schedule from 9-11pm was TV movies on all three networks. I think a lot of the reason TV-movies fell out of favor on the networks was because the stars of their most popular series (who typically took roles in the TVMs) started getting paid so much more to do their shows that they no longer needed (or wanted) the extra work. Without a star attached to "sell" the project, it was a lot harder to get a network to buy it. The networks also decided to up their profits by buying/producing a lot more of their own programming rather than pay outside companies to produce them, with even more potential for profits if the show got sold into syndication and/or home video. A single TV-movie would only make money for them by being rerun a few times, so the TV-movies slowly got replaced by regular TV series that had more profit potential. Such series now live forever in reruns and DVD, whereas most of the TV-movies are long forgotten.

The networks also used to buy/air a lot of feature films; I recall CBS turning its yearly airing of Gone with the Wind into a Sweeps event, and The Ten Commandments used to be an Easter tradition on ABC. Other than the occasional airing of something for a holiday time-killer (It's a Wonderful Life), you don't see big-screen films air on networks any more. They started going directly to cable, and now to streaming and DVD.

The TV-movie is still around, of course---they just shifted to cable channels like Lifetime, and later Hallmark. They have turned them into a cheap-to-produce, formulaic enterprise, but they seem to make a profit because they're being churned out by the dozen.

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

The TV-movie is still around, of course---they just shifted to cable channels like Lifetime, and later Hallmark. They have turned them into a cheap-to-produce, formulaic enterprise, but they seem to make a profit because they're being churned out by the dozen.

For sure. Multiple former One Tree Hill cast members are making pretty steady livings out of Christmas themed films on Hallmark while Eric Roberts' Stalked By My Doctor has become a franchise over on Lifetime.

 

[darkshadows38]

Night Gallery (1969) Pilot was a good one the show however.... was a hit and miss i think

 

[Toni]

Night Gallery (1969) Pilot was a good one the show however.... was a hit and miss i think

Oh yeah, that was something to be seen...​

 

[Carrie Fairchild]

I remember Empire film magazine in the UK doing a feature on TV movies years ago, where a journalist watched back to back TV movies for a whole weekend. This would've been during the early days of Channel 5 when their schedule would've been filled with them. I recall him watching a Donna Mills one (possibly The World's Oldest Bridesmaid) and referring to her as "the Knots Landing homewrecker with eyes so blue, you'd think she had cataracts". The tone of the article was mostly tongue in cheek. If I come across it again, I'll post it.

 

[Chris2]

Agreed on the Night Gallery pilot - very good. As you said, the series was hit or miss (as many anthologies are, in my experience). I remember a fun mystery one called Vanishing Act with Mike Farrell and Margot Kidder, a remake of an earlier TV movie whose name I can’t remember. And “Stranger in Our House”, from director Wes Craven, about an orphaned girl who moves in with her extended family and is a witch (based on the Lois Duncan book).

 

[Daniel Avery]

Back in better times, money would be available to film complete pilots as pitches for possible TV shows. Sometimes they would produce a two-hour pilot in the style of a TV-movie, which allowed a network to air the pilot even if the series did not get picked up. I recall watching many failed pilots air as "specials" during the summer when network TV was otherwise a bunch of reruns. Airing the unsold pilot also allowed the producers to recoup some of the investment made in the filming of it,

 

[darkshadows38]

The Twilight zone (1959-1964) one of the best tv shows of all time well Serling had complete creative control and was the show runner as well, on Night Gallery he had nothing to do with it but the host segments which is why it's not as good. i dunno if he didn't want to do it or was still burnt out by The Twilight zone but he was just sadly just the host and i think that hurt the show

 

[Chris2]

Rod Serling didn’t have creative control over Night Gallery but he did more than host. He wrote a number of episodes, including “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar,” which Serling felt was one of the best things he had done.

 

[darkshadows38]

he may have written some episodes but there is a difference between having creative control over just being a writer which is why it's not as good as The Twilight Zone at least i think so anyways

 

[ClassyCo]

I wish there was a TV channel (which wouldn't benefit me necessarily because we don't have TV at my house) that aired these old TV movies. Imagine the thrill of revisiting movies that most likely haven't been screened in years.

Night Gallery (1969)

I really need to see this pilot film. I've heard so many times that it contains one of Joan Crawford's finest on-screen performances. I've wanted the TV series for years, and maybe I'll finally get it this Christmas.

 

[DallasFanForever]

I really need to see this pilot film. I've heard so many times that it contains one of Joan Crawford's finest on-screen performances. I've wanted the TV series for years, and maybe I'll finally get it this Christmas.

I remember seeing the pilot film/episode with Joan some time in the late 80s and it’s quite good! She was terrific here.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

In the '70s, TV movies were one of the more interesting things the medium did -- and, according to Dan Curtis, you could approach ABC executives (like the evil-yet-competent Michael Eisner) and just describe something "fun" you wanted to do, and if you sold them on it, you were greenlighted and off you went... As the decades rolled on, however, the networks got into this "over-development" process and many smaller, unpretentious projects were ruined before they even got on the air.

In 1964, the first intended-to-be made-for-TV movie was THE KILLERS with Lee Marvin and Ronald Reagan (his last film before turning to politics) but was instead run in theatres because it was deemed "too violent" for television; it did decent business.

Aaron Spelling pioneered the 90-minute TV movie (about 75 minutes in actual running time) and they did pretty well for a while.

By the late-'80s, the TV movie genre was increasingly overtaken by the Abuser-of-the-Week pictures which soon became ubiquitous, where almost every made-for-TV entry had this two-part title and were all about abusive, rape-y, violent men who mistreated the wives and children... It became such a wall-to-wall thing for at least 20 years, that it turned into a joke (remember, women spend 80% of the consumer dollars, which is why TV, then and now, has the tone it does) and when Judith Light, a very good actress, tried to do just one small-screen flick, MEN DON'T TELL in 1993 about an abusive mother who mistreated her husband and kids, the women's groups went crazy, calling it "anti-woman" and accusing Light of internalized misogyny, insisting women "don't behave like men do" and placed pressure on the network to never air it again (and they didn't) despite high ratings for its first and only broadcast. So despite literally hundreds of abusive-men TV movies, you couldn't do a single one which showed a woman in a similar light (despite the fact that women kill their offspring at a much higher rate than men do, regardless of whether the father is in the household or not).

The feminists are just so interesting...

 

[GillesDenver]

Yes, this was always part of the interest in them for me too. Which 80's soap would show up next. Linda's Why My Daughter? sticks in my head for some reason although I see that she and Heather Locklear worked together pre-Melrose on the amazingly titled Highway Heartbreaker.

Oh thanks and it is on youtube !

Alison Parker's creepy sister is there too ! And Jeannette Robins !

 

[darkshadows38]

Classy just look at You tube if you don't want to buy the show on bluray. it's most likely on there and look up who directed it you might be surprised