TV Movie of the Week

[Jimmy Todd]

Memorable movies of the week for me are:
Duel- Steven Spielberg's first.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark with Kim Darby. I thought it was terrifying as a wee lad.
Killer Bees- I think that's the title. There were a lot of killer bees movies in the 1970s.

 

[ClassyCo]

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

That's how CHARLIE'S ANGELS started out. It aired as a "movie of the week" in the summer of 1976, and because it received such high ratings, it was pushed forward to series (even though they were going to do the series anyway).

DYNASTY later employed something similar when its three-part series premiere was aired as a TV movie.

 

[Chris2]

Spelling was big on TV movie pilots. In addition to the above, The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, TJ Hooker, Hart to Hart, and Vegas all started as TV movies (or at least had two hour pilots which were de facto TV movies). And Spelling used to put his busted TV movie pilots, like Waikiki, into syndication too. Smart man.

 

[ClassyCo]

Fantasy Island

If I'm correct, FANTASY ISLAND had three TV movies produced and aired before it became a series. It wasn't until the last film -- as I remember it -- that ABC thought the idea was good idea to flesh out into a weekly show.

 

[GillesDenver]

If I'm correct, FANTASY ISLAND had three TV movies produced and aired before it became a series. It wasn't until the last film -- as I remember it -- that ABC thought the idea was good idea to flesh out into a weekly show.

No, that was "The Love Boat" . "Fantasy Island" has only one pilot, which is much darker - and better - than the actual show.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

That's how CHARLIE'S ANGELS started out. It aired as a "movie of the week" in the summer of 1976, and because it received such high ratings, it was pushed forward to series (even though they were going to do the series anyway).

DYNASTY later employed something similar when its three-part series premiere was aired as a TV movie.

ABC's 90 minute TV movies were mostly over by 1980 when they shot the DYNASTY pilot. Esther Shapiro has said that it was supposed to be only two-hours, but she felt the wedding should be included in the pilot yet couldn't really occur before the third hour, so she re-dialed a network executive to get the third hour "okayed" and couldn't get anybody to respond for ages -- the executive apparently hoping she'd just give up, but she didn't.

So it became the first 3-hour pilot for a series in history.

I still remember seeing this ad in the TVGUIDE in 1981 and snickered when I did. The bastards.

 

[Chris2]

Love Boat, Three’s Company and All in the Family all had three pilots and for each of them, the third pilot sold the series. They’re all pretty fascinating in terms of watching the concept and cast evolve.

The original Love Boat pilot does not have any actors from the eventual series, though Isaac and Gopher are there and played by different actors. Love Boat II has a completely different cast from the first pilot, with Fred Grandy, Bernie Kopell, and Ted Lange in their series roles. Love Boat III adds Lauren Tewes as Julie and Gavin McLeod as the ship’s new, fussy captain, and that’s the cast that sold the series. From watching the three pilots, you can really see how important Tewes was as the lone female cast member. Her two predecessors just didn’t have the right chemistry with the others (nor did her successor later in the series).

 

[ClassyCo]

Night Gallery (1969)

Steven Spielberg discusses his experience working with Joan Crawford and filming the NIGHT GALLERY pilot in 1969:

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Steven Spielberg discusses his experience working with Joan Crawford and filming the NIGHT GALLERY pilot in 1969:

Spielberg is fibbing on Crawford's behalf here:

She called up Lew Wasserman and screamed that Steven be fired due to his youth. Wasserman talked her down, saying to Joan that "you don't need TV" and that she "has a great job with Pepsi," and also told her that they were grooming Spielberg for features, and if she didn't want to take that risk with them, then they would understand if she wants to pull out... Crickets... Joan was there first thing Monday morning and was a lamb... Wasserman never told Spielberg this until after Crawford died in 1977.

Memorable movies of the week for me are:
Duel- Steven Spielberg's first.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark with Kim Darby. I thought it was terrifying as a wee lad
Killer Bees- I think that's the title. There were a lot of killer bees movies in the 1970s.

I think I posted this 1973 movie on the Grande Dame Guignol thread a while back:

All sorts of horoscopic details here that few will understand, but you have a Sun in Pisces/Gemini Rising heir to wealth bringing his beautiful slightly-bitchy Aquarius Rising bride/bride-to-be home to his family who do not welcome her in the '70s.'

And then the Sun in Scorpio/Moon in Libra takes over for the Scorpio Rising/Moon in Libra diva as queen of the empire.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

All sorts of horoscopic details here that few will understand, but you have a Sun in Pisces/Gemini Rising heir to wealth bringing his beautiful slightly-bitchy Aquarius Rising bride/bride-to-be home to his family who do not welcome her in the '70s.'

 

[Willie Oleson]

This is a good movie for the fans of soapy melodrama @ClassyCo

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

The highest-rated TV movie up until its time (starring two Sun in Aries/Scorpio Risings, of course --are you listening, Bette Crawford??) is BRIAN SONG (1971). I'll just pretend I wasn't old enough to watch it when it first came around:

Dan Curtis' THE NIGHT STALKER (1972) with Darren McGavin was the first TV movie to surpass even BRIAN SONG's record-setting rating a few month earlier:

 

[bmasters9]

Spelling was big on TV movie pilots. In addition to the above, The Rookies, Starsky and Hutch, Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, TJ Hooker, Hart to Hart, and Vegas all started as TV movies (or at least had two hour pilots which were de facto TV movies). And Spelling used to put his busted TV movie pilots, like Waikiki, into syndication too. Smart man.

And many others that were not from him were also in the form of network movie broadcasts to start out with; here are several examples...

Moonlighting (ABC Sunday Night Movie in '85):

The A-Team (NBC Sunday Night at the Movies in '83):

Knight Rider (NBC Sunday Night at the Movies in '82):

 

[TaranofPrydain]

Looking at this ad, its a clear copy of Dallas's playbook. Strange of them not to include Pamela Bellwood on here as she had higher billing than Al Corley and more screentime than Dale Robertson (who was famous from TV westerns though). The descriptions under each character are really purplish cliches though.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Looking at this ad, its a clear copy of Dallas's playbook. Strange of them not to include Pamela Bellwood on here as she had higher billing than Al Corley and more screentime than Dale Robertson (who was famous from TV westerns though). The descriptions under each character are really purplish cliches though.

I'm not sure Bellwood had higher billing just because she came before them in the credits --- and Dale Robertson was a "special guest star" wasn't he?

 

[TaranofPrydain]

I'm not sure Bellwood had higher billing just because she came before them in the credits --- and Dale Robertson was a "special guest star" wasn't he?

Robertson was listed as a Special Guest Star" yes, Bo Hopkins was at the very end of the credits with special billing (he clearly had the third biggest role that first season), Bellwood was billed between Martin and Corley. No surprise though that none of the others made the ad: John James was barely featured in the pilot and hadn't much screentime for the first half of the season; Katy Kurtzman and Wayne Northrop were superfluous.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Robertson was listed as a Special Guest Star" yes, Bo Hopkins was at the very end of the credits with special billing (he clearly had the third biggest role that first season), Bellwood was billed between Martin and Corley. No surprise though that none of the others made the ad: John James was barely featured in the pilot and hadn't much screentime for the first half of the season; Katy Kurtzman and Wayne Northrop were superfluous.

Billing issues probably apply to the first two or three mentioned (Forsythe, Evans, PSM) and the last couple mentioned (Robertson and Hopkins -- and, later, Collins of course).

The ones in between, billing was probably not a strict part of their contracts. Over on FALCON CREST, they just shuffled title cards like a dealer in Vegas, and unless you were Wyman and Foxworth (at the beginning) and Susan Sullivan (at the end) there was no telling where you'd wind up in the credits that season, third or tenth!

 

[Monzo]

These are the 10 most-watched TV movies of all time in the US, based on Nielsen TV ratings. By the way, two-part movies are referred to as TV movies and not as miniseries.

46.0 The Day After
36.9 Little Ladies of the Night
36.3 Helter Skelter (Part 1: 35.2, Part 2: 37.5)
36.2 The Burning Bed
33.2 The Night Stalker
33.0 Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders
32.9 Brian's Song
31.7 My Sweet Charlie
31.6 The Feminist and the Fuzz
31.6 Something About Amelia

 

[Monzo]

Does anyone remember the 1984 TV movie City Killer starring Gerald McRaney and Heather Locklear? In the US, it wasn't a success for NBC, landing last in its timeslot with a 14.9 rating. However, in West Germany, its premiere at the end of June 1987 made it the most-watched program of the week, drawing 15.83 million viewers.

If you're in the mood for City Killer, here's the original version:

If you prefer the German-dubbed version, here it is:

 

[Willie Oleson]

Helter Skelter (Part 1: 35.2, Part 2: 37.5)

A TV movie in two parts, doesn't that count as a mini-series?