EDITOR’S NOTE: You’ll Never See Me Again was on the CBS Late Movie on January 21, 1976, August 22, 1978 and July 4, 1978.

Many films have been made based on the stories of Cornell Woolrich: The Leopard Man, The Mark of the Whistler, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Phantom Lady, Rear Window, The Bride Wore Black, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, Cloak and Dagger and I’m Dangerous Tonight are just a few. This is another, directed by Jeannot Szwarc (The Devil’s Daughter, Jaws 2, Bug, Somewhere In Time) and written by William Wood (Haunts of the Very Rich) and Gerald Di Pego (Sharky’s Machine).

Ned (David Hartman) and Vickie Bliss (Jess Walton) are newlyweds who get into an argument. He shoves her, she leaves, yelling, “You’ll never see me again.” He expects her back that night. She never comes home.

The next day, he goes to see her parents, Will (Ralph Meeker) and Mary Alden (Jane Wyatt). Strangely, he’s never met them before. Yet they can’t answer any of his questions, whether it’s about where their daughter is or about her childhood. Are they even her folks?

The cops start to get the idea that maybe Ned killed his wife. After all, he’s constantly going into a rage. However, the truth is that he blames himself for Vickie leaving. He’s their top suspect, so he has to escape custody and try to find the truth, kind of like he’s trapped in a giallo. The ending? Amazing.

Hartman would go on to host ABC’s morning news show Good Morning America, so for me, he was the man who told me my news before school. It’s disconcerting to see him screaming at people and getting into fights with the police.

In 1986, Juan Luis Buñuel, Luis’ son, directed a UK TV movie based on the same story.

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Missing Are Deadly was on the CBS Late Movie on May 21, 1976.

Directed by Don McDougall (the TV movies that made up Farewell to the Planet of the Apes, Forgotten City of the Planet of the Apes, Spider-Man: The Dragon’s Challenge and two Kolchak episodes, “The Youth Killer” and “Legacy of Terror”) and written by TV veterans Michael Michaelian and Katharyn Powers, The Missing Are Deadly starts with Dr. Margolin (Ed Nelson) inviting his mentally disturbed son Jeff (Gary Morgan) to his lab, where he takes one of Dr. Durov’s (Leonard Nimoy) infected mice. Yes, the man who once was and would be Spock has been experimenting on infecting vermin with Mombasa Fever despite being told to stop doing exactly that. Now, Jeff has taken the disease into the wild, where the CDC has been hampered by a horrible President — oh wait, that’s real life — where the CDC and the scientists must stop the spread or multitudes will die.

David (George O’Hanlon Jr.) is Jeff’s brother and primary caregiver. He’s upset that dad is sending his brother to live at a new school instead of caring for him at home. Then again, Jeff thinks that he’s a robot named Gordot. Also: Jeff infects everyone around him, including Jeff’s girlfriend Michelle (Kathleen Quinlan) and troops from The Crazies have to be sent out to stop this plague.

Spock figures it out, Dr. Margolin lets Jeff stay home despite him almost killing most of the United States and this is ninety minutes of TV movie. José Ferrer shows up and Marla Gibbs is a nurse! As Jackée would say, “MAAAAARY!”

You can watch this on YouTube.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Devil’s Daughter was on the CBS Late Movie on September 9, 1975 and January 3, 1978.

The ABC Movie of the Week for January 9, 1973, The Devil’s Daughter, is very much Rosemary’s Baby, the home edition, and that’s perfectly fine. It captures many of the 1970s occult rules accurately.

It stars Belinda Montgomery (Stone Cold Dead, Silent Madness, Doogie Howser’s mother) as Diane Shaw, a young woman who has just lost her mother, Alice (Diane Ladd). At the funeral, she meets the rich Lilith Malone (Shelley Winters, fulfilling the most essential law of Satanic film, that Old Hollywood wants to eat the young), who was a member of a cult with her mother, one that has been following Diane her entire life, ready for her to marry a demonic prince.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it so many more times, but never come home to settle your parents’ estate after their mysterious death. Bad things always happen. As Diane works to settle down in a new town and work on the estate with Judge Weatherby (Joseph Cotten, yes, more Old Hollywood, a year fresh from Baron Blood). She gets a place to stay with Lilith, who gives her a ring that belonged to her mother. The symbol on this ring is the same one as a painting of Satan above the fireplace in Lilith’s home, as well as her baby book and even her favorite brand of cigarettes. Yes, even in 1973, Satan had a great marketing team. Or perhaps this is all predestined.

Diane even gets to go to elite parties. That’s not a good thing. There, she learns that she’s the Princess of Darkness who will marry the Demon of Endor. Yes, the place where Ewoks come from. You knew they were nefarious. At that party — shot very much like Rosemary’s Baby — you’ll even see Jonathan Frid from Dark Shadows as the butler, Lucille Benson (who ran the Susan B. Anthony Hotel for Women on Bosom Buddies) and Abe Vigoda as Alikhine, probably named for noted chess player Alexander Alekhine, as these devil worshippers have checkmated poor Diane.

Also, Abe Vigoda is the same age as I am now, and he always looked ancient. Now, I feel quite old.

Diane runs and gets a roommate, Spretty(Barbara Sammeth), who is the sacrifice in this, dying at a horse’s hooves! As much as she tries to avoid Lilith, she can’t escape. Not even when she meets a lovely man named Steve Stone (Robert Foxworth), a stunning architect who soon marries her. But if you know your demonic films, you won’t be shocked to learn that he’s the demon that Wicket W. Warrick prays to every night, the Demon of Endor.

Director Jeannot Szwarc made numerous TV movies and episodes of Night Gallery, as well as directing Jaws 2, Bug, and Santa Claus: The Movie. I love that this was written by Colin Higgins. Yes, the same man who wrote Harold and Maude would go on to direct 9 to 5 and Foul Play.

Do you think your father is terrible? Diane’s dad is Satan. And her husband? He has blank eyes because he has no soul! The best part is the reveal that Satan, who we have seen in shadow and who has crutches, ends up being Joseph Cotten and he has cloven hooves for feet! I’m not sure if I can love a movie as much as Devil’s Daughter.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A Tattered Web was on the CBS Late Movie on August 7 and November 16, 1972.

This made-for-TV movie originally aired on September 24, 1971 and was soon on the CBS Late Movie. It stars Lloyd Bridges as Sgt. Ed Stagg, an older cop devoted to the daughter he raised alone, Tina (Sally Shockley). Tina’s mother cheated on him and disappeared, so he’s super worried about her new husband, Steve (Frank Converse), whom he keeps catching in the apartment of fallen woman Louise Campbell (Anne Helm). He warns him, he warns her, he shoves her into a wall, she dies. What’s a cop to do?

When he and his partner, Sgt. Joe Marcus (Murray Hamilton), are assigned the case, you can imagine what it does to his mental health. Even since the betrayal of his wife, he’s kept his daughter in the dark, trying to remove anything harmful from her life, keeping her almost as a child. Now that she’s living with her oil worker husband under his roof, he’s trying to do the same thing. Except that the neighbors of the dead Ms. Campbell saw Steve go in and out of her place; Ed’s also left his fingerprints behind on a glass.

So he does what any cop would. He finds a man on death row named Willard Edson (Broderick Crawford) and convinces him that he also killed Campbell. Everyone gets away with it, right? Maybe.

In 74 minutes, director Paul Wendkos and writer Art Wallace provide everyone with great material. Bridges isn’t doing comedy or being a nice old man in this. He’s a lunatic from the start. Converse and Hamilton shine, while Crawford makes a meal of the few moments he’s in the movie.

Like many TV movies, this played in theaters overseas. In Norway and Sweden, it was Alibi. In Spain, The Portals of Eden.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Are You In the House Alone? was on the CBS Late Movie on September 25, 1981, December 9, 1983 and August 10, 1984.

Any time people wonder why women keep pushing harder and harder for their inalienable rights, you should force them to watch this movie, which shows how far our society has come since 1978. There’s a scene in here that literally made us start yelling at the TV set because of how insane it is. Yet forty years ago, this type of thinking was commonplace.

Originally airing on CBS on September 20, 1978, Are You In the House Alone? It is based on the 1976 novel of the same name by Richard Peck.

Gail Osborne (Kathleen Beller, Dynasty) is a high school student dealing with all the pressures of being sixteen, such as discovering her skills as a photographer and dealing with boys who only want sex. Her family has moved away from San Francisco to a new town to escape the dangers of the big city.

She starts dating a guy named Steve (Scott Colomby, Tony from Caddyshack), despite her overprotective parents (Blythe Danner and Tony Bill). Despite this young love blossoming, Gail continues to receive threatening letters and calls from a man who laughs at her. She asks her principal for help and is basically told that it’s probably all her fault for the way she’s treated one of her male classmates.

Gail’s life is pretty much falling apart. Her parents constantly fight, her dad gets back on the wagon, and he gets fired from his job without telling anyone. The letters and calls start to increase, and we have a red herring dangled in our snooping noses in the person of way too involved photography teacher Chris Elden (played by the incredibly named Alan Fudge, who was in Galaxis, My Demon Lover, and Brainstorm).

Surprise — it ends up being her best friend Allison’s (Robin Mattson, who was in Candy Stripe Nurses and a film remarkably similar to this, Secret Night Caller) boyfriend, Phil (Dennis Quaid, who is so young it’ll blow your mind). He attacks her while she’s babysitting the children of Jessica Hirsch (Tricia O’Neil, Piranha II: The Spawning), a lawyer who just happens to be dating the aforementioned Mr. Elden.

The shocking part we mentioned above is that when Jessica becomes Gail’s lawyer, she tells her that there’s a chance no one will put Phil in jail because she’s not a virgin anymore. The world may be a mess these days, but man, in 1978, it was a real mess.

While not technically a slasher — there’s no body count to speak of — the hallmarks of the genre, such as a babysitter being stalked and constantly threatened by a maniac, are all here.

Also, what was it with 1970s made-for-TV movie houses and plants? Every single home in this movie is abundantly lush with vegetation. Every plant is green and thriving, despite the absence of sunlight in any of these homes. How did they do it?

EDITOR’S NOTE: Someone’s Watching Me! was on the CBS Late Movie on January 21 and June 12, 1981.

John Carpenter was hired by Warner Bros in 1976 to write a script based on the true story of a woman who had been spied on inside her Chicago apartment. The script, High Rise, ultimately became a TV movie that Carpenter was also given the opportunity to direct.

“I thought it was a really, really good idea,” said Carpenter. “So I had my first experience with television. And my first union experience. I got into the Director’s Guild through that. I had a really good time on it, I have to tell you. I met my wife.”

This eighteen-day shoot allowed Carpenter to test many of the techniques that he’d use weeks later when he started work on Halloween.

Originally airing on November 29, 1978 on NBC, this movie concerns Leigh Michaels (Lauren Hutton), who has moved to Los Angeles to escape New York City. As she begins her new career at television station KJHC with new friend Sophie (Barbeau) and a relationship with college professor Paul Winkless (David Birney, who went on to be quite the reader of audiobooks).

However, she’s soon dealing with phone calls and starts receiving unlimited calls. She calls the police, but there’s nothing she can do except wait for the voyeur to come to her.

Fans of Halloween take note: Charlie Cyphers shows up as a cop.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Linda was on the CBS Late Movie on September 29, 1975, May 24, 1977 and June 12, 1978.

John D. MacDonald had several of his books turned into movies. The Executioners was filmed twice as Cape Fear, Soft Touch inspired Man-Trap, plus the novels Darker Than Amber, The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything, Condominium and A Flash of Green were all made into movies. Even this story was turned into two TV movies with the second starring Virginia Madsen as Linda.

Linda Reston (Stella Stevens) has a bad marriage with Paul (Ed Nelson, The Devil’s Partner), who is daydreaming of leaving her when she suddenly shoots their friend Anne Braden (Mary-Robin Redd) and turns the gun on Anne’s husband Jeff (John Saxon!) while at the beach. Paul calls the cops and when they arrive, Jeff is alive and the twosome accuses Paul of killing Anne.

As you can tell right away, Linda and Jeff are working together to get rid of their spouses and make a new life for themselves. Luckily, Marshall Journeyman (John McIntire, who replaced both Ward Bond on Wagon Train and Charles Bickford on The Virginian when both of those actors died), an elder lawyer, takes on his case and starts to investigate Linda and Jeff.

Paul sneaks out of his cell and soon learns that his wife has been conspiring with Jeff, which leads Journeyman to get the cops in on a scam to call her and try and get a confession. She’s too tough but man, Jeff folds right away. She tells him he’s spineless and also informs her now ex-husband that she won’t be in jail long.

Originally broadcast as the ABC Saturday Suspense Movie on November 3, 1973, this was directed by Jack Smight, who made one of my wife’s favorite movies, No Way to Treat a Lady, as well as Airport 1975, The Illustrated Man, The Traveling Executioner, Number One with a Bullet and Damnation Alley.

Stella Stevens is quite wonderful in this. She’s so cold and has everything figured out, yet as she laments, she’s never been able to find a man who isn’t spineless. Her husband can’t even bury a dead animal without having a nervous breakdown, and her lover gets her arrested for murder. I’d love a sequel where we learn how she takes over prison.