EDITOR’S NOTE: Doctor Faustus was on the CBS Late Movie on August 14 and December 28, 1972 and August 30, 1973.

The only film directed by Richard Burton or Nevill Coghill, the actor’s Oxford University mentor, this adaption of The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe stars Burton as Doctor Faustus, Elizabeth Taylor as Helen of Troy and members of the Oxford University Dramatic Society.

It’s a stage play filmed in very stage play style, but yet you have to wonder what viewers who stumbled upon this in the middle of the night on the CBS Late Movie had to have felt like when they watched this. Shot on the sets at Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica Studios in Rome, this movie was shot by Gábor Pogány, who would go on to be the cinematographer of Colt 38 Special Squad, Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii and Last Stop on the Night Train.

If celebrities as big as Burton and Taylor made a movie filled with this much occult energy in 2023, I have no idea how insane people would go. The cameras get gelled all over the corners, things get neon, skeletons appear and the idea that this is the sixth of thirteen movies that Liz and Dick would make together takes on numerological significance.

It’s an indulgent project just for Burton and if only he’d let go and gone wild in this instead of seemingly sleepwalking through the movie, but you know, you can’t have everything. Not when this looks so fantastic. It’s like Burton watched a few Bava movies late at night and was like, “I want that.” Imagine if he’d gone all the way and hired John Old and given him the money no one ever gave him before and they made something truly inspired — not that this isn’t — but something that shook the very foundations of our reality.

But hey — Liz painted silver and barely speaking and she was the biggest movie star there was at the time.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Omen III: The Final Conflict was on the CBS Late Movie on October 17, 1986.

Directed by Graham Baker (Alien Nation) and written by Andrew Birkin (Slade In Flame), this was released in Germany and Hungary as Barbara’s Baby, as if the third Omen movie wasn’t enough of a reason to get people into theaters.

It starts with the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom killing himself, setting Damian Thorn (Sam Neill) up for his father’s old job and his final path toward taking over the world. Yet Father DeCarlo (Rossano Brazzi) has found the Daggers of Megiddo from the ruins of the Thorn Museum that burned back at the end of Omen II, While Damian romances reporter Kate Reynolds (Lisa Harrow) and tries to take over her son Peter (Barnaby Holm), the priest and six other holy men attempt to destroy him.

Oh yes — after the alignment of stars in the Cassiopeia constellation on March 24, 1981, a second Star of Bethlehem appears and Damien orders his followers to kill all boys born in England on the morning of March 24, 1981, as one of them may be Jesus Christ. One of the followers even kills her own son with an iron.

But man, the end of this movie? Jesus himself shows up to kick Damian’s ass. I can only imagine that some audiences found this inspiring, others found it over the top and a lot just stayed home. I kind of love this movie for just how wild it gets, but it’s so far removed from the other films in the series. I can’t wait to see the fourth.

EDITOR’S NOTE: In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro was on the CBS Late Movie on May 3 and September 26, 1988.

The only movie directed by producer Raju Patel, this is the story of Jack Ringtree (Timothy Bottoms) and Chris Tucker (John Rhys-Davies) in Namanga, Kenya as they try to figure out a tribe of baboons that are capturing and killing people.

The film has this in the credits: “The film you have just seen is a fictionalized account of a true incident which took place in Africa during the serious drought in 1984. The producers wish to make it known that not a single animal was mistreated during the making of this motion picture. On completion of filming the Baboons were rehabilitated to their natural surroundings. The Baboons were captured under the supervision of the Kenyan Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife from the areas where they had been a nuisance to the local population.”

This is kind of like a zombie movie except, you know, with baboons. I wish I could say it was more exciting and wonder how a movie filled with human eating baboons can be slow, but there you have it. At least it has Irene Miracle from Inferno and Night Train Murders in it.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Lovely But Deadly was on the CBS Late Movie on May 24 and December 6, 1985; May 29, 1986 and July 25, 1988.

Mary Ann “Lovely” Lovitt (Lucinda Dooling, The Alchemist, Surf II) has gone back to school to get revenge for the drug overdose death of her brother. Yes, twentysomething teenagers, martial arts, bad drugs and more await in this film directed by David Sheldon, the writer of Grizzly and the director of Devil Times Five. He also co-wrote this with Lawrence David Foldes (Young Warriors) and Patricia Joyce.

Stay for fistfights with cheerleaders in the locker room and an appearance — as one of the bad guys! — by former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rick Moser as drug dealing football player Mantis Managian (he even dates Pamela Jean Bryant from H.O.T.S.). Mel Novak is his boss!

Dooling is great in this and I’ve seen it described as a white girl version of Coffy, which pretty much says it all.

You can watch this on Tubi.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Psycho II was on the CBS Late Movie on April 14, 1989.

Making Psycho II was a thankless task but there’s no reason why this movie is as good as it is.

Author Robert Bloch had already written his sequel, which satirized Hollywood slasher films. Universal didn’t want to film, that, but they did want a sequel. They turned to Road Games director Richard Franklin — a student of Hitchcock — to make this from a script by Tom Holland.

Hilton A. Green, assistant director of the original Psycho, was contacted and asked if he wanted to produce. He wasn’t sure that Hitchcock would have approved the movie, but the director’s daughter Patricia gave her blessing.

As for Anthony Perkins, he turned down the role until he read the script, learning that it was Norman’s story and that he was the hero. Seriously, the entire world is the enemy in this movie, wanting to see Norman become insane again and all he can do is struggle against them.

He just wants to live behind the hotel and work in a diner and allow life to just keep going, finally free from being in a mental institution. But then the calls and notes from mother keep coming and Norman starts lashing out at everyone, thinking that it has to be someone like new hotel clerk Warren Toomey (Dennis Franz) or Lila Loomis (Vera Miles), the sister of the woman he killed so many years ago.

As Norman is locked inside his mother’s room, a female figure keeps killing people throughout town and soon, even in the house. And just how does Mary (Meg Tilly) figure into all of this? Can therapist Dr. Bill Raymond (Robert Loggia) figure it out in time?

I waited for years to watch this as I figured there was no way it could compare. Even when others told me I was wrong, I didn’t believe them. I can admit it. I was very wrong.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outland was on the CBS Late Movie on July 30, 1986 and December 16, 1988.

Federal Marshal William O’Niel (Sean Connery) has been assigned to the titanium ore mining outpost Con-Am 27, operated by the company Con-Amalgamate on the Jovian moon of Io. It’s rough work in a place where gravity a sixth of Earth’s with no breathable atmosphere and the men are forced to work in heavy spacesuits with hardly any air. But there is money and productivity is up ever since the new manager, Mark Sheppard (Peter Boyle), was hired.

O’Niel is left behind with his wife and son leaving for Jupiter, but he does have a mission. That’s because several miners have died from getting stimulant psychosis and tearing off their suits. That may be because the miners are abusing polydichloric euthimal, a drug that allows them to stay awake for days at a time. The side effect? After ten months, they go insane.

With only one person on his side — Dr. Lazarus (Frances Sternhagen) — O’Niel has to battle the corrupt mining company and their men, many of whom don’t want a chance to their way of life, no matter how wrong it is.

Outland is pretty much a Western in space, directed and written by Peter Hyams, who told Empire, “I wanted to do a Western. Everybody said, “You can’t do a Western; Westerns are dead; nobody will do a Western.” I remember thinking it was weird that this genre that had endured for so long was just gone. But then I woke up and came to the conclusion – obviously after other people – that it was actually alive and well, but in outer space. I wanted to make a film about the frontier. Not the wonder of it or the glamour of it: I wanted to do something about Dodge City and how hard life was. I wrote it and by great fortune Sean Connery wanted to do it. And how many chances do you get to work with Sean Connery?”

If you love this movie, I recommend the comic book adaptation by James Steranko.

The CBS version of Outland features scenes that were cut from the movie to extend parts of the film. This allowed the network to sell more commercial slots to advertisers.