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.

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.

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.

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.

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.