I Just Watched...

[Intrepid37]

Many movies made for TV seemed like dreck to me (disease of the week ones didn't go over well with me) but I blame much of that on the standards and practices of the broadcast networks. Once the cable networks had come along with their far more liberal standards, the broadcast networks pretty much had to get out of the business.

But I think that the large volume of "movies of the week" are a kind of treasure trove for fans of the many actors who had significant career extensions because of their existence. Some made for TV movies were quite good - and many were no worse than what were seen in theaters.

[Sepiatone]

Many movies made for TV seemed like dreck to me (disease of the week ones didn't go over well with me) but I blame much of that on the standards and practices of the broadcast networks. Once the cable networks had come along with their far more liberal standards, the broadcast networks pretty much had to get out of the business.

But I think that the large volume of "movies of the week" are a kind of treasure trove for fans of the many actors who had significant career extensions because of their existence. Some made for TV movies were quite good - and many were no worse than what were seen in theaters.

Ah, See, Intrepid.... There ARE some things we can get eye-to-eye on. I too, have seen my share of TV movies that I thought were good and too many more that were God awful. And of course, the brightest standout of them to this very day remains DUEL starring Dennis Weaver. And that's 52 years old now!

Now, I don't "stream" so I know there's a lot of "Straight -to-streaming" movies I miss out on. Whether or not any of them are any good or pure crap I can only surmise from the people I know who do bother with streaming. And some of them have pretty piss poor tastes in movies as it is.

Sepiatone

[Masha]

One of my favorite movies is a made-for-television movie: Guilty Conscience(1985). The script and leads are excellent. It is sad to say that the production values are not of the highest standard. Or even middle-of-the-road standard. The lack of a good print available for streaming does not help matters.

[dianedebuda]

One TV movie still ranks high in my memory: The Dephi Bureau (1972). Apparently it was the pilot for a short lived series. Actually I only remember 2 things about it:

1) a scene with Lucille Benson where she pulls a pie straight out of the oven and hands a piece to the star (Laurence Luckinbill) who treats it like a hot potato. She takes a bite and mutters something like "Damn. It's already cold." Actually don't remember him - just her. Years later it dawned on me that she was the same actress I enjoyed in the flying part of a favorite movie, Silver Streak (1976).

2) Segments of the movie were separated by pieces of a growing limerick. I saw this as a movie, so guess those originally proceeded the commercial breaks.

[Intrepid37]

One I remember enjoying more than usual was called In Love with an Older Woman (1982) in which a not quite 30 John Ritter falls in love with a middle aged woman. Very touching, quite romantic.

[Allhallowsday]

An exploration of TV in general led me into a subsection of television that isn't always brought up with affection : the TV Movie. It seems as though YouTube has quite a few of those movies of the week from decades back...

There are many wonderful Made-for-TV movies often with challenging subject matter. BORN INNOCENT ... THAT CERTAIN SUMMER ... DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK ... BAD RONALD ...

My favorite vampire movie was made for TV by the great DAN CURTIS : THE NIGHT STALKER (1972)

[Intrepid37]

An exploration of TV in general led me into a subsection of television that isn't always brought up with affection : the TV Movie. It seems as though YouTube has quite a few of those movies of the week from decades back...

There are many wonderful Made-for-TV movies often with challenging subject matter. BORN INNOCENT ... THAT CERTAIN SUMMER ... DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK ... BAD RONALD ...

My favorite vampire movie was made for TV by the great DAN CURTIS : THE NIGHT STALKER (1972)

I saw The Night Stalker when it was shown initially in '72. It was awesome! And everyone was talking about it the next day.

[Allhallowsday]

THE NIGHT STALKER premiered in January of 1972 and had a follow-up THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973) which was fun, but not nearly as powerful. The success of both lead to the crappy 1 season series.

[Intrepid37]

THE NIGHT STALKER premiered in January of 1972 and had a follow-up THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973) which was fun, but not nearly as powerful. The success of both lead to the crappy 1 season series.

Best role McGavin ever had. Stalker (the movie) is his greatest performance.

[Allhallowsday]

I really enjoy DARREN McGAVIN in A CHRISTMAS STORY ...

[jamesjazzguitar]

THE NIGHT STALKER premiered in January of 1972 and had a follow-up THE NIGHT STRANGLER (1973) which was fun, but not nearly as powerful. The success of both lead to the crappy 1 season series.

Agree with you on all points. I want to like the season series, but it falls flat.

[j.lunatic]

This past weekend I attended the inaugural Library of Congress Festival of Film and Sound, at AFI Silver. Highlights of the program:

Dark Manhattan (Fraser, 1937): An all-Black crime drama, made by a short-lived Black-owned company and written by the leading man. Deeply indebted to the James Cagney/Pat O'Brian films being made around this time, but an interesting glimpse of what might have been. Every so often I wonder if there has been a good study of the race film phenomenon (who made these films, where did they screen, what did their intended audiences think of the results).

Memory Lane (Stahl, 1926): It's nice to see the early Stahl movies that have been excavated from the archives since the big Pordenone retrospective, but are we ever going to get these films on DVD/Blu-ray or legit streaming? The film turned out to be a mature and satisfying romantic drama of trust and recognizing the worth of a fundamentally good partner (Conrad Nagel) versus someone more flashy (William Haines). In other words, better Borzage than the actual Borzage film screened here.

Ceiling Zero (Hawks, 1936): AFI is able to show films that are tied up in rights hell (probably literary rights stemming from the play this is based on). The story is blatantly about 1) the WWI aviator generation, in the process of dying in action or going into the living death of management; 2) the advancement of companies for whom aviation is a business rather than an extreme sport, in tandem with advancing Federal regulation of the sector*; and 3) the rise of a new, college-educated generation better suited to the developing corporations. Cagney's character is a flyboy of the disappearing generation, a dinosaur at age 34, exhilarating in small doses but exhausting in larger ones. But in his way he does redeem himself for his offenses, literally dying as part of testing the new deicing equipment being rolled out in the fleet.

(*My current job is as a technical editor/writer on a Federal contract supporting the Federal Aviation Administration. I haven't dug deeply into the history of Federal aviation regulation. But among the things I like about the Pre-code period is the glimpses of the aviation sector transitioning from a regulatory wild west into a more formal industry.)

Spring Parade (Koster, 1940): A Deanna Durbin film, unavailable due to rights issues. I shouldn't have been surprised that Universal (re)made a romantic tale of pre-war Vienna when the German occupation of Austria was fresh in the world's memory. But it is a sound and satisfying vehicle, custom-made to suit the studio's prime ingenue.

Call Her Savage (Dillon, 1932): The infamous Clara Bow production that seems to set out to violate as many provisions of the Hays Code as possible. Briefly I imagined if this had been a misidentified 1962 Kenneth Anger/Ross Hunter coproduction. But such a film wouldn't begin to touch the gleeful, compulsive flouting of middle American taboos. In my opinion this displaces Kongo as the ultimate Pre-code.

The Lady (Borzage, 1925): Not good Borzage. Not good treatment of the Madame X plot. And I don't know for sure, but probably not a good Norma Talmadge movie.

Carne de Cabaret (Cabanne and Arozamena, 1931): A Spanish-language version of 1931's Ten Cents a Dance. Columbia spared every expense, and it showed. But this film has the virtues of speed and simplicity. And I'd like to watch this again, in a double feature with the English-language version--Lupita Tovar throughout retains a fundamental integrity and faith in true love in spite of her experiences; I don't remember if Barbara Stanwyck's performance met this standard.

The AFI and LOC people I talked to were pleased at the results (although recognizing room for improvement), and hope to bring something like this back next year. I'm really lucky to have AFI Silver in my metropolitan area. Next in August: Capitolfest, anyone?

[Cinemaspeak59]

Barcelona (1994) Whit Stillman’s follow-up to Metropolitan is more ambitious in scope, more dramatic and political. But it’s romantic and funny - as well as a great expat movie. It’s The Last Decade of the Cold War, and Metropolitan alums Taylor Nichols and Chris Eigeman are confronted with a bevy of free-spirited Spanish beauties who push back on American exceptionalism. Among the things discussed: why is NATO so disliked; whether there really is a sinister labor union called the AFL-CIA;; and how come the subtext receives all the scrutiny while the poor neglected text — right there on the top of the page — never gets mentioned.

[laffite]

This is a bit off topic but certainly related to the watching of movies. Below is Frank Bruni from his column about being on a plane and gazing haphazardly at at other people's screen without hearing word or soundtrack. I thought it might me of interest. Thanks. The paragraph in Bold below is my emphasis.

Frank Bruni writes:

"I am, however, a fervent guesser of movies on planes: I half-watch the movies chosen by passengers in seats near me, trying to figure out what’s going on, filling in the blanks with assumptions and imagination, doing a bit of amateur lip-reading, doing a lot of detective work.

What might Drew Barrymore be telling Adam Sandler? Across several flights, I’ve seen disconnected, out-of-order scenes from their rom-com “50 First Dates,” so I have some ideas about the movie and of course an opinion of it without knowing whether either is remotely on the mark. I sort of like the nebulousness and irresolution of that. They match the dull images and fuzzy sound. I’m not doing a disservice to the experience of the movie in a proper setting. I’m turning it into something entirely different, part Rorschach, part game.

Ben Affleck is preternaturally grave in “The Accountant,” which seems like great, tense fun. While I’ve assembled probably 60 percent of “50 First Dates” from the jigsaw-puzzle pieces of my oblique angle, soundless perusals of it, I’ve put together at least 80 percent of Affleck’s thriller. I mean, I’m confident it’s a thriller. There are firearms, chases, ominous shots of important rooms and august buildings in Washington, D.C.

When you half-watch a movie this way, without the soundtrack nudging you or the plot points lucidly laid out, you develop a new appreciation for the different editing rhythms, visual compositions and palettes of different genres. You know the emotional key in which the movie is being played even if you deduce little else about it. For a true movie lover, that’s a peculiar delight.

Hey, we all have our viewing quirks. It turns out that a big fraction of Americans watch everything with the subtitles turned on, and by everything I’m including and principally mean movies and shows in English. It’s not translation they’re looking for. It’s — I don’t know — reassurance, extra clarity. Devin Gordon explored and explained that phenomenon in a terrifically engaging recent article in The Atlantic, and I’m happy to report that he was as baffled and unsettled as I am.

What I do on planes is the opposite of that. Instead of beating back confusion, I embrace it. Or, really, take advantage of it. That line that Drew just delivered must have been hilarious. That encounter Ben just had was surely terrifying. Half-watched, quarter-understood movies are like trailers: They’re all promise and no letdown, which is a welcome inversion of much of life."

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