Category Archives: Made for TV Movie

Murder, She Wrote S2 E3: Murder in the Afternoon (1985)

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Jessica’s niece, an actress in a daytime drama, becomes a suspect when the head writer for the show is murdered.

Season 2, Episode 3: Murder In the Afternoon (October 13, 1985)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

Jessica goes to visit her niece, Nita Cochran, an actress in a daytime soap opera. Jessica’s family seems to be the most prone to accidents and tragedy, so it’s no surprise what happens.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury, and were they in any exploitation movies?

Larry Holleran is played by William Atherton, the main bad guy of the 80s. If you needed someone to be a jerk, you called him.

Herbert Upton is played by Paul Burke, who also portrayed Lyon Burke in Valley of the Dolls.

Nicholas Hammond, who plays Todd Worthy, was the first person to play Spider-Man other than Danny Seagren on The Electric Company.

Gordon LaMonica is played by Terry Kiser, who portrayed Bernie in Weekend at Bernie’s. He’s also in Mannequin Two: On the Move and Tammy and the T-Rex.

Nita Cochran is Alice Krige, who you may know as the Borg Queen. She’s also in Sleepwalkers.

Martin Grattop is played by Robert Lipton.

Julian Tenley? That’s Lloyd Nolan from Hannah and Her Sisters.

Bibi Hartman is Tricia O’Neil, who has been in several Star Trek episodes.

Carol Needom? Mackenzie Phillips!

Agnes Cochran is Lurene Tuttle, Buford Pusser’s grandmother, as well as Mrs. Chambers in Psycho. 

The law in this episode is Lt. Antonelli, played by Robert Walden. There’s also Officer Kaplan, played by George Murdock, who played God in Star Trek V.

Have yourself a Star War! That’s Jessica Walter as Joyce Holleran. You probably know her from Arrested Development. Or as Morgan Le Fay in the Dr. Strange TV movie. No, you know her from Arrested Development or Play Misty for Me.

More minor roles include John Miranda as a prop man, Elven Havard as a guard, Dan Cotter as an executive, and Richard Patrick as a film crew member.

What happens?

Jessica uncovers drama on the set of Our Secret Lives as soon as she gets there. Are you surprised? Actors are being fired, and people say things like they wish studio head Joyce Holleran were dead. Well, she is soon shot by The Avenger, the character from the show. Are you also surprised that Jessica’s niece has been accused of this crime? After all, she’s playing The Avenger on the show.

We get to meet Jessica’s sister, Agnes, in this. I wonder how many people die around her?

Also: How many soap operas have a Giallo killer?

Everyone, as usual on Murder, She Wrote, wants to kill the victim. But this one has a straightforward solution.

Who did it?

Seeing as how Larry Holleran, the sleep-around husband of the murder victim, is played by William Atherton, well, there’s your answer.

Who made it?

It’s directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman and written by Paul Savage and Paul W. Cooper.

Does Jessica get some?

She needs to rest up after all the action last week.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

No. Trust me. It will happen. It will happen so much that you may almost hate the show you love.

Was it any good?

A basic mystery. Not all that bad.

Any trivia?

Lloyd Nolan died two weeks after this aired.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Jessica Fletcher: …if I were you, I’d get him to confess as loudly and as quickly as possible.

What’s next?

A mother and daughter become involved in a murder and only Jessica can figure it out.

Sizzlin’ Summer of Side-Splitters 2025: The World’s Oldest Living Bridesmaid (1990)

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July 14-20  Vanity Project Week: “…it might be said that the specific remedy for vanity is laughter, and that the one failing that is essentially laughter is vanity.” Are these products of passionate and industrious independent filmmakers OR outrageous glimpses into the inner workings of self-obsessed maniacs??

Directed by TV vet Joseph L. Scanlan and written by Janet Kovalcik, this was produced by its star, Donna Mills. She stars as rich and powerful lawyer Brenda Morgan, who falls for her much younger assistant, Alex (Brian Wimmer). And is that Art Hindle? Yes.

She’s sick of all of her assistants getting married and quitting after a year. She’s a career woman and marriage was never in the offering for her — dudes, it’s Donna Mills, I like how this film plays like “Oh, she has glasses, how gross” — so she can’t get anyone who would do such a thing.

This was released on VHS by Action International! That blows my mind. The same company that released Elves, The Devil’s Honey, They Call Me Macho Woman! and Homeboyz II: Crack City.

It’s one of five films produced by Donna Mills Productions. The others? Intimate Encounters, in which “A bored suburban housewife embarks upon a series of affairs seemingly triggered by escapism and fantasy.” Alcoholic drama My Name Is Kate. An Element of Truth, in which Donna is a thief. Finally, The Eyes Have It. “Donna Mills is one of the few actresses in Hollywood who actually applies her own makeup on the set and off. Now, you too can share in all of her beauty secrets in this easy-to-follow visual learning method.”

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Arthur the King (1985)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Arthur the King was on the CBS Late Movie on August 13, 1987.

If you were British and didn’t get a role in Excalibur in 1981*, a year later, you could have been in Arthur the King, also known as Merlin and the Sword. It was directed by Clive Donner, the man who brought us The Nude Bomb, Charlie Chan and the Dragon Queen, Old Dracula, Spectre, Luv and What’s New, Pussycat? It was written by David Wyles, who also wrote Treasure: In Search of the Gold Horse.

Katharine (Dyan Cannon) is exploring the caves around Stonehenge — Where a man’s a man and the children dance to the Pipes of Pan — and ends up falling and waking up stuck in the cave where Merlin (Edward Woodward, The Equalizer, which had to be mentioned in the CBS ads) and Niniane (Lucy Gutteridge, Top Secret!) have slept and argued for a thousand years. Oh, what a cast — King Arthur (Malcolm McDowell) is a jerk, so you can figure that Guinevere (Rosalyn Landor) ran away more than that she was kidnapped by MorganLe Fay (Candice Bergen, yes, really). She’s rescued by Lancelot (Rupert Everett) and, as you know from the legend of Arthur, they fall in love.

Filmed in Yugoslavia and sitting on the bench for three years before CBS decided to air it as a three-hour TV movie, this is the kind of movie that if you love the legends, you’ll hate, because it feels like, well, a TV movie shot in Yugoslavia. But if you don’t, you’ll wonder why it’s more about Gawain (Patrick Ryecart) and Ragnell (Ann Thornton) than Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

In this, Morgan is the aunt of Mordred (Joseph Blatchley), Arthur’s evil bastard son, instead of Arthur’s half-sister, which makes the story even darker. But you know, incest and 1980s TV maybe didn’t mix. This also rewrites the ending with Merlin astral projecting himself back in time, possessing Excalibur and stabbing the life out of Mordred.

Spoilers, sorry.

Teri Tordia from Julia shows up, as does Mary Stavin from Top Line and Strike Commando 2. Yes, I realize she was in A View to a Kill and Octopussy, as well as the videos for “Strip” and “Ant Rap” by Adam Ant, but I know her from what I know her from. Carole Ashby was also in both of those movies and this, too, so maybe they found something to talk about. Perhaps they made fun of Alison Worth because she wasn’t going to get to be in A View to a Kill. I offer this conjecture knowing Octopussy was made a year later and A View to a Kill three years after. More Bond girls? Maryam d’Abo was in this, too! Yes, she’s in The Living Daylights, but don’t we all know her from Xtro?

Michael Gough, the butler for Batman, is also on hand; yes, he was also the villain of  Horrors of the Black Museum.

Lancelot is the real hero of this story, defeating an entire army of bad guys all by himself and a dragon before exiting as a hero. That dragon, well, look, we don’t need to talk about the effects, do we? I’m trying to be nice.

Malcolm McDowell is the kind of actor who can play King Arthur and Merlin. I am referring to Kids of the Round Table. He’s also very Eric Roberts in that if you say his name out loud three times, he shows up in a $2 million budget straight-to-Walmart movie.

I have never seen Candice Bergen throw a fireball, and now I have.

*Unless you’re Liam Neeson. He was Grak in this and Gawain in that.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Tales from the Crypt: Two-Fisted Tales (1992)

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Most folks only know EC Comics for Tales from the Crypt — OK, maybe MAD Magazine — but the truth is, there were a ton of other titles that that venerable publisher released. Just in the horror realm, they also had the Vault of Horror (yes, there was an Amicus film with that title) and Crypt of Terror. But there was also Weird Fantasy, Weird Science, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, Frontline Combat, Piracy, Weird Science-Fantasy and even the New Direction post-Comics Code books Impact, Valor, Extra!, Aces High, Psychoanalysis, M.D. and Incredible Science Fiction.

I was surprised that none of these other EC Comics had ever gotten a movie or series until I learned about Two-Fisted Tales.

Strangely enough, as Harvey Kurtzman was the editor of the book, these war stories didn’t always follow their title and often had a very anti-war prejudice. Kurtzman had been drafted in 1942 and knew the horrors of war firsthand. As he saw the other war comics on the news racks, he was upset by how much they glorified war. He saw no heroes in his stories, only people trapped in situations beyond their control. He would later comment in The Complete EC Library: Two-Fisted Tales Volume 1, “Nobody had done anything on the depressing aspects of war, and this, to me, was such a dumb—it was a terrible disservice to the children.”

I guess no one explained that to anyone who worked on this show.

In 1991, a TV pilot was put together by producers Joel Silver, Richard Donner and Robert Zemeckis. Other than using the logo and some of the art in the opening, that’s pretty much all that feels like the comic. Instead, this is very similar to Tales from the Crypt, with William Sadler played Mr. Rush, a violent man who connects all of the stories.

“Showdown,” written by Frank Darabont and directed by Richard Donner, is the story of a gunfighter’s last stand. “King of the Road,” written by Randall Jahnson and directed by Tom Holland, is about a drag racer’s past coming to haunt him. Brad Pitt appears in the one. And “Yellow,” written by Jim Thomas, John Thomas, A. L. Katz, and Gilbert Adler, and directed by Robert Zemeckis, is about a soldier who keeps letting down his military man father. It’s the best episode in here, with great acting by Kirk and Eric Douglas, Lance Henriksen and Dan Aykroyd.

Of the three, “Yellow” is the only one based on an EC Comics story, as it was taken from the first issue of Shock SuspenStories and was written by Al Feldstein and illustrated by Jack Davis.

Sadly, this was a letdown, and after one airing, the three episodes all appeared as part of Tales from the Crypt. I was always upset when the show didn’t use the material it was based on. This is really no different, but the last tale is tense and brutal, a rare Zemeckis-directed story that isn’t overly dependent on special effects.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Children of the Night (1985)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Children of the Night was on the CBS Late Movie on July 8, 1988.

“Don’t hide what you feel inside
Don’t let anybody stand in your way
Just let the music take you higher
Now are you ready to rock
Children of the night?”

Yes, that may be a Whitesnake song, but this TV movie prefers “Hell Is for Children.”

Kathleen Quinlan plays Dr. Lois Lee, the founder of Children of the Night, a non-profit organization that works to support youth who were involved in prostitution. She started as a college student who started to take sex workers into her home for protection and in the film, she runs into pimp Roy Spanish (Mario Van Peebles)  and they battle over one of his girls,  Valerie (Lar Park-Lincoln in her first movie).

Director Robert Markowitz made plenty of TV movies that played the CBS Late Movie, including the Maximilian Schell-starring The Phantom of the Opera. It was written by William Wood, whose career stretched back to the early 60s, Vickie Park and producer Robert Guenette, who directed some of my favorite BS movies, such as The Mysterious Monsters, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow and The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena.

Some of the girls in this include Marta Kober (Rad, Friday the 13th Part 2, Neon Maniacs), Sherri Stoner (who went on to write Animaniacs episodes), Helene Udy (My Bloody Valentine, The Incubus), Zoe Trilling (Night of the Demons 2, Amityville: The Evil Escapes) and Valerie Richards (Hard Rock Nightmare).

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Deathtrap (1982)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Deathtrap was on the CBS Late Movie on May 29, 1987.

I definitely watched this on HBO and ten-year-old me was scandalized by the plot twist.

Playwright Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine) has another failed play and tells his wife, Myra (Dyan Cannon), that he plans on inviting over a student, Clifford Anderson (Christopher Reeve), who has a good script. Then, he plans on killing the man and making the story all his own. A few moments after Sidney gets Clifford into Houdini’s Handcuffs, the young man is dead and Sidney is trying to get Myra to help him hide the body. But is it all as it seems? And why is psychic Helga Ten Dorp (Irene Worth) warning about the man in boots?

I’m going spoiler-free for this movie, directed by Sidney Lumet and written by Jay Presson Allen. It was based on Ira Levin’s play, and there’s a twist not in the original: the reveal of a kiss between two of the characters. Some say that scene may have cost the movie money in the homophobic 70s. In fact, the TV version doesn’t have the kiss, and instead, one man rubs another’s face.

Also, Michael Caine already did Sleuth, and here he is, doing it again.

You can watch this on Tubi.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Falcon’s Gold (1982)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Falcon’s Gold was on the CBS Late Movie on May 1 and August 26, 1987.

This played on the CBS Late Movie as Robbers of the Sacred Mountain, which is very much a “we have Raiders of the Lost Ark at home” title. Made for Showtime, this film was the very first TV movie produced for cable TV.

They say it’s based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Challenger’s Gold, but if Indiana Jones hadn’t been a hit, I doubt it would have been made.

Reporter Hank Richards (Simon MacCorkindale, Manimal) and Professor Christopher Falcon (John Marley) learn that a meteorite with cavite in it has crashed to Earth. If the wrong people find it, they could make a laser weapon. Joined by the professor’s granddaughter Tracey (Louise Vallance) and jungle guide B.G. Alvarez (Blanca Guerra, Santa Sangre), they head to South America to find a fertility idol, which ties into this, trust me, and leads to them battling the forces of Ivar Murdoch (George Touliatos).

This is the only movie that Bob Schultz directed, but he was a technical director on several TV shows like Three’s Company, The Ropes and the TV special Telly…Who Loves Ya, Baby? It was written by Olaf Pooley (Crucible of Horror, The Godsend) and Walter Bell.

If you want more Raiders ripoffs, let me know.

Murder, She Wrote S2 E2: Joshua Peabody Died Here… Possibly (1985)

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Season 2 of Murder, She Wrote is here, and this time, a cheap tycoon with many enemies is found dead on the construction site of his high-rise hotel.

Season 2, Episode 2: Joshua Peabody Died Here… Possibly (October 6, 1985)

Tonight on Murder, She Wrote…

They’re building a new hotel in Cabot Cove and just found a skeleton as they dig the foundation. That won’t be the last death.

Who’s in it, outside of Angela Lansbury, and were they in any exploitation movies?

John Astin, Gomez Addams, plays Harry Pierce.

Tom Bosely is Sheriff Amos Tupper, continuing his will they or won’t they with Jessica. He’s up against Dr. Seth (William Windom) for her affection.

FBI Agt. Fred Keller is played by Chuck Connors, who was The Rifleman, but also was in Tourist Trap.

Henderson Wheatley is played by John Ericson, who was in The House of the Dead, Crash! and 7 Faces of Dr. Lao.

Wow! Meg Foster is in this! Those blue eyes! She plays Del Scott.

David Marsh? That’s Michael Sarrazin from The Reincarnation of Peter Proud, Eye of the Cat and They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Arthur Griswold is played by David Sheiner, who was also in The Gong Show Movie, The Stone Killer and They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!

Ken Swofford plays Leo Kowalski. He was Mayor Farnsworth in Black Roses and Weasel in Annie.

In the smaller roles, Deborah White plays Matty Marsh, Robin Bach is Ellsworth Buffum, Bobby Jacoby is Eric Marsh, Ed Morgan is Austin Bailey, Roger Price is Eli Harris, Barbara Ann Grimes is Sarah Harris, Jody Carter is Olive Newton, Sandra Hawthorne is Mavis Gillam and Bruce Lawrence is an earthmover driver.

What happens?

Sheriff Tupper and Dr. Seth argue over the body found in the grave — is it the Revolutionary War soldier Joshua Peabody. But then Henderson Wheatley, the developer of the new property, is killed. Who could it be? Probably the whole town, like antiques dealer David Marsh, who has been protesting this place. Or reporter Del Scott, who has the eyes of Meg Foster. And different folks who keep making injunctions to keep the new hotel from being built.

Who did it?

Del Scott. Just look at the eyes.

Who made it?

It’s directed by Peter Crane and written by Tom Sawyer, who wrote 24 episodes of this and produced 79.

Does Jessica get some?

No, but she’s back in Cabot Cove and can relax in her bath.

Does Jessica dress up and act stupid?

No. There’s too much that happens.

Was it any good?

Two dead bodies in the same grave! So yes.

Any trivia?

John Astin would play Harry Pierce three times.

Give me a reasonable quote:

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Well, at least one good thing’s come out of all this… Now that we’ve proved those bones belong to Daniel Martin, we can forget all about this Joshua Peabody nonsense.

Jessica Fletcher: Oh, no, Seth Hazlitt, that’s going a bit too far.

What’s next?

Jessica’s niece, an actress in a daytime drama, becomes a suspect when the head writer for the show is murdered.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Hound of the Baskervilles (1972)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Hound of the Baskervilles was on the CBS Late Movie on Septeber 25, 1974 and December 14, 1976.

Director Barry Crain wasn’t just a TV director. He was also a bridge champion, an ACBL Grand Life Master that won so many points that whoever gets the most points in a year wins a title named for him.

Writer Robert E. Thompson was writing for TV as early as 1956. He also wrote the script for They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

Using old horror movie sets, this film had Stewart Granger as Sherlock Holmes and Bernard Fox as Dr. Watson. As for the Sir Hugo Baskerville, William Shatner is ready to be Shatner.

This was intended to be part of a revolving door series of literary detectives, as they also made The Adventures of Nick Carter starring Robert Conrad and A Very Missing Person with Eve Arden as Hildegarde Withers. Ratings and reviews were not kind.

The real mystery? On July 5, 1985, Crane was “found bludgeoned shortly before 3 P.M. in the garage of his luxury town home in Studio City.” He had been attacked with a large ceramic statue and strangled with a telephone cord before being found naked and covered in bedsheets. It took 34 years for the killer to be found, as a fingerprint led to Edwin Jerry Hiatt pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in 2019, saying “Anything’s possible back then. I was big into drugs.”

You can watch this on YouTube.

CBS LATE MOVIE: Night of Terror (1972)

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Night of Terror was on the CBS Late Movie on September 15, 1975 and August 3, 1977.

Linda Daniel (a super young Donna Mills, years before she was a star on Knots Landing and had her own eye makeup video, The Eyes Have It) is in the crosshairs of Brian (Chuck Connors), a killer who wants something that Manning (John Karlen) has but has no idea what it is. So instead, he’s coming after Linda and her roommate Celeste (Catherine Burns). He causes a car accident that kills Celeste — spoiler — and puts Linda in a wheelcahir and that’s still not enough.

Capt. Caleb Sark (Martin Balsam) puts her up in a beach safehouse, but if we know anything about killers after Wait Until Dark, we understand that there’s no stopping Brian from getting what he wants.

Director Jeannot Szwarc started his career on episodes of Ironside, It Takes a Thief and Alias Smith and Jones. His career would expand into TV movies and finally theatrical features like Bug, Jaws 2, Supergirl and Santa Claus: The Movie. He kept directing all the way to 2019, at the age of 82, working on episodes of Gray’s Anatomy, Castle and Bones. This was written by TV vet Cliff Gould and shot by Howard Schwartz, who won an Emmy for his work. He was the director of photography on shows like Cliffhangers!, The Incredible Hulk TV movie and theatrical releases including Futureworld and Batman: The Movie.

Shout out to Night Killer star Peter Hooten and Agnes Moorehead for showing up as Bronsky!

You can watch this on YouTube.