Time Travelers was scripted by Jackson Gillis (whose career stretched back to radio) from a story by Rod Serling (which led to a lawsuit, as Charles Willard Byrd claimed that this movie was taken from an unpublished 1959 book A Time To Live. Byrd and the producers reached a monetary settlement that allowed Byrd to claim the original story as his work). It was developed by Irwin Allen in the hopes that he could relaunch his series The Time Tunnel, but the litigation kept the show from being bought and it ended up running as an ABC Movie of the Week on March 19, 1976.

Dr. Clint Earnshaw (Sam Groom, Deadly Eyes) and Jeff Adams are trying to cure the XD virus that has been slowly wiping out humanity. When they discover that a similar disease had been seemingly cured around the time of the Chicago fire, they head back in time to see if they can learn anything from Dr. Joshua Henderson (Richard Basehart!) Jeff ends up falling for Henderson’s niece Jane (Trish Stewart, who played Basehart’s daughter in Mansion of the Doomed) and nearly stays behind. However, the timeline must be protected and our heroes end up saving the day, if not every person.

Director Alex Singer went to the Bronx’s William Howard Taft High School with Stanley Kubrick and one of his first jobs was as the cinematographer on Kubrick’s short Day of the Fight. He also made the films A Cold Wind in August, Glass Houses and Captain Apache*, but the majority of his credits were in television.

*Written by Night Train to Terror impressario Philip Yordan!

You can watch this on YouTube.

This was a made-for-TV movie but was released in theaters internationally with extended footage and nudity. It was so popular in China that actress Deborah Raffin became the first Western actress to make a promotional tour of the country and became an unofficial ambassador helping China make deals with Hollywood.

Raffin plays Cathy Phillips, who is driving across the country with her friend Diane Emery (Lynne Moody), ends up on the wrong end of the law after turning down the intentions of Sheriff Slim Danen (Chuck Connors), who puts them in jail and assaults Diane. This being a small Southern town, our heroines get sent to a work camp run by Superintendant Dancer (Robert Reed) and his guards, Dulcie, Smitty (Lana Wood) and Greer (Tina Louise).

Not everyone is going to make it out alive in this John Llewellyn Moxey — the man who made just about every great TV movie — film. Its writer, Jo Helms, also wrote the scripts for Play Misty for Me and The Girl in Lovers Lane.

This is another movie that reminds me I don’t go on vacation and talk to police officers too long. The saddest thing about this movie is that for all the attention it paid to having the women be in segregated jails, the actors all had to stay in segregated hotels while making this movie.

Jack Bauer (Robert Urich) is a workaholic who gets involved in a case of child kidnapping when he returns a doll found in the subway. This ends up finding him get repeatedly abused, verbally and physically, and making you wonder why he even tried.

Director David Greene also was behind Madame Sin; the movie adaption of Godspell; Rich Man, Poor Man; Hard Country and the TV movie remakes of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and Night of the Hunter.

Bauer soon joins with the girl’s mother, played by Megan Gallagher, and they do what they can to find her daughter. This, again, involves Urich charging in like an alpha male and continually getting beaten unmercifully.

This looks way better than a TV movie and could have played theaters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Herbert P. Caine is the pseudonym of a frustrated academic and genre movie fan in Pennsylvania. You can read his blog at https://imaginaryuniverseshpc.blogspot.com.

The Rape of Richard Beck, also known as Deadly Justice, is a far more serious film than its exploitation-style title would lead one to assume. Far from the Death Wish wannabe its alternate title suggests, it is a serious examination of one man’s response to being raped, highlighted by an award-winning performance from Richard Crenna.

Crenna plays Richard Beck, a jocular homicide detective with a mean streak towards rape victims. Like many police officers back then – and far too many now – Sergeant Beck regards rape as a less important crime that victims bring upon themselves. When Beck allows a rape suspect to go free in exchange for information about the whereabouts of a murderer, he is forced to join the sex crimes unit, where his insensitivity comes to the fore, to the disgust of a community representative played by Meredith Baxter.

Then Beck himself gets raped by two criminals whom he chases into an underground passageway….

The main selling point of this film is Richard Crenna’s performance as Sgt. Beck. This role is the polar opposite of his stolid performances in the Rambo movies as Col. Trautman, requiring Crenna to display a wide range of emotions as Beck struggles with his traumatic experience. As Crenna described in an interview with the Television Academy, many people advised him against taking the role due to its disturbing content. He wisely ignored them, going on to win an Emmy for his performance. Crenna is backed by an excellent supporting cast, with George Dzundza as a fellow officer, Meredith Baxter as an anti-rape activist, Joanna Kerns as his girlfriend, and Frances Lee McCain (the mother from Gremlins) as his ex-wife.

The film is as graphic as could be gotten away with on 80s broadcast television, to the point that the TV Guide listing from its first airing noted that “ABC plans an announcement warning that this movie may not be suitable for all members of the family.” Although the rape is not depicted, we see the build up to it as the criminals threaten and terrorize Beck. Director Karen Arthur does well at making the film as disturbing as she could given the limitations of network censorship, as in scenes where we see a woman and later Crenna examined following their rapes.

The Rape of Richard Beck also deserves praise for its realistic depiction of the trauma caused by rape. The movie traces his emotional struggles in the immediate aftermath of the incident, as well as the social ramifications when his fellow police officers find out. The character is inspired by Sgt. Richard Ramon, a police officer who gave talks to police cadets about the best ways to treat rape victims.

The Rape of Richard Beck can be seen for free on YouTube.

Rankin/Bass had some experience working with Japanese filmmakers after making King Kong Escapes, the Desi Arnaz Jr. feature Marco, Rudolph and Frosty’s Christmas in July, Willy McBean and His Magic Machine, The Bushido Blade (which has Mako, Sonny Chiba, James Earl Jones, Richard Boone and Laura Gemser all in the same movie), The Bermuda Depths and The Last Dinosaur there.

The last two movies we mentioned and this one were made with Tsuburaya Productions, the company that brought us Ultraman.

While this debuted on ABC on April 18, 1980, an extended version would later play theaters in Japan.

A rare albino gorilla has escaped somewhere in Bermuda, and the hunter who caught it once before (Jack Palance!) is set to destroy it. Can Steven Keats (Bronson’s son-in-law in Death Wish) and Céline Lomez (originally going to play Linda Thorson’s part in Curtains) stop him in time?

Kotani’s work, including The Bushido Blade, is a fascinating blend of Western and Eastern elements. The film, which stars Richard Boone leading sailors versus samurais under the command of Toshirô Mifune, is a unique exploration of cultural dynamics. If that’s not enough to pique your interest, the fact that Laura Gemser is in it might. Kotani’s diverse filmography also includes Pinku redi no katsudoshashin, a feature-length movie about Mie and Keiko Masuda, two idol singers whose Japanese success was imported to the shores of the U.S. Their song “Kiss in the Dark” reached #37 in America, making them the first Japanese act to chart here since Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki” in 1961. Sadly, their Sid and Marty Krofft developed series – The Pink Lady and Jeff – only lasted six weeks on NBC during Fred Silverman’s disastrous year of 1980, which also unleashed the Supertrain on an uncaring television audience. Kotani’s other works include The Last Dinosaur and The Bermuda Depths.

There’s something truly unique about the 1970s TV movies from Rankin/Bass. Each one carries a certain level of darkness and palpable sadness, making them the perfect choice for a snowy day in 1981 when all you wanted to do was stay under the covers. They still possess that same strange magic today, evoking a sense of nostalgia and appreciation for their historical significance.

You can watch this on YouTube.

My acting career pretty much begins with an appearance as Sergeant-Major Morris in The Monkey’s Paw and ends with my role as Dr. Green from this story. No, I was not in the movie. I was in a stage play version and the kiss that gave me a fatal heart attack was the first kiss I ever had from a non-family member girl. She said I tasted like a chili dog. A much cuter blonde girl offered to give me lessons after the play (and some mints).

Inspired by The Second Face, this was written by Joan Rivers and Agnes Gallin It was directed by Lee Phillips, who starred in Peyton Place and also made The Stranger Within and The Spell. It was the ABC Movie of the Week, first airing on November 6, 1973.

It’s also Stockard Channing’s first movie and she’s Miriam Knight, an intelligent young lady who is overlooked because of, well, her looks. Her roommate grows jealous when Miriam gets the lead in a stage play, so she sneak attacks her with roses. Miriam’s allergies send her running from the stage and into an accident which changes her looks and life forever.

Once the bandages come off her face, she’s a totally new girl. One who is now willing to do whatever it takes to get revenge — murderous revenge — on everyone who has ever wronged her.

The Girl Most Likely To… has a great cast, such as Ed Asner, Jim Backus, Joe Flynn from McHale’s Navy, Chuck McCann (a voice of a ton of animated characters), comedy magician Carl Ballantine, Fred Grandy from The Love Boat, CHiPs star Larry Wilcox, future director Dennis Dugan (who, before directing a LOT of Adam Sandler movies, such as Just Go with It, acted in films, such as 1980’s The Howling) and the man who would be Captain America and Yor Hunter from the Future, Reb Brown.

This is a comedy, but man, it’s a really dark one. How was my school allowed to put this play on?

Man, I’m on a Kathleen Beller made-for-TV kinda sorta giallo kick. I’m also a huge fan of Ouija-board-themed movies, even if I refuse to ever have a spirit board in my house. Combine the two and have Jack Bender (The Midnight Hour, Child’s Play 3, multiple episodes of Lost and Game of Thrones) and I’m all over it.

Beller plays Laura Daniels, a young girl in love with lawyer Michael Krasnick. When she gets home from a date with him, she watches a black-gloved and masked figure strangle her roommate Cindy Matthews (Sherri Stoner from Reform School Girls!), who had become obsessed by speaking to the ghost of David, who was murdered in the same apartment in 1978.

When the cops show up, all of the evidence — and Cindy’s body — are gone. The cops — hey there Dennis Franz and Kurtwood Smith — don’t believe Laura, who is being trailed by the killer everywhere she goes.

Laura decides to use the Ouija board and also comes in contact with Mark, who claims to have been the one who has murdered Cindy and announces that he is going to kill her next.

Oh man — this is getting good.

Seriously, even a swim in a pool leads to the killer attacking again, but a doctor thinks that it’s all in Laura’s head. And when he examines her brain, he discovers that she’s received electroshock therapy in the past and may be dealing with either extreme depression or schizophrenia. Her boyfriend can understand all that, but when he learns that the majority of her life story has been taken from a series of books by an author named Laura Brooks.

Actually, I really don’t want to spoil this movie for you because the plot gets totally wild and just keeps getting wilder. It’s has so much in common with the side of the giallo genre where a woman loses her mind and descends into a nightmarish odyssey of lost memory and revelation.

It was written by William Bleich, who wrote another great movie in this lost woman genre, The Hearse, as well as From the Dead of Night, The Gladiator, A Smoky Mountain Christmas and Danger Island. Nearly all of those movies are going to end up on our site.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Heather Locklear was a big deal. Like, the biggest. When I was a kid, I didn’t have a poster of her next to my bed, but my grandfather did. In fact, he framed it with a rustic wooden frame and mounted it dead center of the wall, as if he was challenging my grandmother, saying, “This is what you should look like.”

The first part of this movie teases that this is going to be a giallo-esque TV movie, with Locklear as Andrea McKnight, an office drone that everyone loves and who never leaves her apartment. Then, the ex she’s run from for years — Terrence Knox, way better than this movie deserves — starts stalking her again, up until the point that to get her, he starts blowing up entire buildings up real good.

Seriously, what a plan. Can you imagine?

“How did you and mom meet, dad?”

“Well, he blew up everyone I loved and where I worked and then I saw that he was finally serious about settling down.”

Who can save the day? How about Gerald McRaney?

Robert Michael Lewis made many — and many better — made-for-TV movies. I would recommend The Astronaut and perhaps one of the best films ever made expressly for TV, Pray for the Wildcats. Writer William Wood wrote the much better regarded Haunts of the Very Rich, as well as Victims and Death Car on the Freeway.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Ripped from the headlines TV movies are my jam. In the world before the internet and the 24/7 news cycle, we had to wait for these movies to get the real story.

This is the tale of Marla Hanson (Cheryl Pollak), a model who moves to the big evil town of New York City but finds who she thinks is a nice guy to help her out. He even puts her up in an apartment and gives her tips to get ahead in modeling. But by the end, he’s hiring thugs to slice her face apart. It gets worse, because she has to defend herself in court despite not being the one on trial.

This was written and directed by John Grey, who created Ghost Whisperer. It’s not the best TV movie you’ve ever seen, but it does get pretty brutal in parts.

The real story of Hanson is shown here though. After resisting the attentions of her landlord Steve Roth, he hired two friends named Steven Bowman and Darren Norman to attack her. They left her with cuts that required a hundred stitches in her face, ruining her modeling career.

Hanson was subjected to brutal cross-examination by Bowman’s defense attorney Alton H. Maddox who was part of several high-profile civil rights cases in the 1980s. He claimed that Hanson had identified Bowman and Norman because she was racist. They got the maximum sentence and the judge told Hanson that he was incensed at the way the criminal justice system treated her.

Hanson would later write two Abel Ferrara films, the short Love on the Train and The Blackout.

You can watch this on YouTube.

You know, I never watched soap operas, but Susan Lucci knew how to make a TV movie. Yeah, she may have been nominated for an Emmy every year for All My Children, but she made some awesome stuff like Invitation to Hell, Haunted by Her Past and Lady Mobster.

Yet this tale of Lucci’s Italian shopgirl falling for David Soul and watching him get gunned down on her wedding day before following his past life has a twist that I feel that only I could appreciate. It was made in Pittsburgh!

It also has Reginald VelJohnson as a boxer who teaches Lucci how to take care of herself, Finola Hughes as an old flame of Soul’s and Tony Todd. Tony Todd in a TV movie!

Director James Goldstein also made Rollercoaster, Jigsaw and Cry Panic. Either fate has made me watch these movies for the reason that they are connected by this director or I just watch way too many movies. Perhaps both.

This also has Ronald V. Garcia as cinematographer. He was the director of The Toy Box and shot Fire Walk with Me.

This was written by soap scribe Claire Labine and Jack Laird, the man who wrote all the silly parts of Night Gallery. But yeah — at one point, Lucci was in the City of Champions, making a movie where she undergoes the journey of introspection that comes from having one’s life violently destroyed before one’s eyes. I can only imagine that she went to Images to dance after filming wrapped.