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.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I, Desire was on the CBS Late Movie on August 5 and 23, 1988..

When you see the name John Llewellyn Moxey on the credits of a movie, you know you’re getting into something extraordinary. Just look at The House That Would Not Die, A Taste of Evil, The Night Stalker, Nightmare In Badham County, Deadly Deception and, well, just about everything he did. I didn’t even mention The City of the Dead and Psycho-Circus!

Originally called I, Desire and airing November 15, 1982 on ABC, who knew this little vampire film would be amongst the best ones I’d find for our vampire week? There’s a great cast — David Naughton from An American Werewolf In London makes for a fine lead, as well as Brad Dourif as a priest, Barbara Stock as the bewitching vampire, Dorian Harewood (he was in Sudden Death!) as a cop, Marilyn Jones as Naughton’s fiancee and even an appearance from Not Necessarily The News‘ Anne Bloom (or Frosty Kimelman in that long-lost HBO program).  Oh yeah — and Marc Silver, who was the guitarist in Ivan and the Terribles, the ill-fated band in Motel Hell.

There are some great twists and turns in this one, as well as an incredible vampiric apartment at the end that I wish I could live in. I’ll assume it’s just a studio set so that I don’t get sad that I can never go back in time and see it for myself.

You can watch this on YouTube.