Classic TV-Movies that ought to be on DVD (and/or Blu) (1 Viewer)

[jcb07]

Blue Knight, The (1973) - william holden, lee remick
Cold Sassy Tree (1989) - richard widmark, faye dunaway

 

[LCD22]

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Jeff Goldblum)

 

[Sadsack]

THERE are so many fine Made-for TV flicks that have yet to make it to home video in DVD or Blu. Many were never even issued on VHS/ Beta. (Don't know if there's already a thread for this subject, please correct me if there is).

A DEADLY GAME (1979) (Aka CHARLIE MUFFIN) David Hemmings, Jennie Linden

No, this was released on dvd from Network in their "Armchair Cinema Collection." There's an Australian version of the same collection, just to confuse things.
https://www.amazon.com/ARMCHAIR-CIN...1-2&keywords=Armchair+Cinema+Collection+[DVD]

Noone asked, but a nicely restored SATAN'S TRIANGLE 1975 was released in France dvd under the name "Le Triangle du Diable." Unfortunately in PAL (not a fan of the audio pitch).
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Le-Triangl...3&sr=1-1-fkmr1&keywords=el+triangle+du+diable

 

[Sadsack]

WORLD OF DARKNESS (1977) Granville Van Dusen, Beatrice Straight, Gary Merrill, Tovah Feldshuh

THE WORLD BEYOND (1978, sequel to above) Granville Van Dusen, JoBeth Williams, Barnard Hughes

These were essentially episodes for a non-existent TV series (50-58 min. each). I guess you could call one a sequel since there are only the two.

 

[Jack P]

Babe Ruth (1991-NBC). MUCH superior to the godawful big screen movie about Ruth with John Goodman that came out the following year. Stephen Lang plays Ruth in a narrative that provides nuance to his relationship with Yankee manager Miller Huggins and also gets things more accurate than the stupid Goodman movie did. Pete Rose has a cameo as Ty Cobb (because of his being banned by MLB he was not allowed to wear a uniform in the movie by MLB. So they rewrote the scene to have Ruth and Cobb having dinner in a hotel). I have my off-air recording but the transfer I made wasn't good. Warner Archive I am told does control this.

MIracle On Ice (1981-ABC). The first telling of the Miracle of Lake Placid is also much superior to the better known big screen movie of 2002 with Kurt Russell, even though Karl Malden is completely miscast (30 years too old) as Herb Brooks (Robert Conrad would have been the perfect choice). But the telling of the story is better, more accurate, was filmed at the actual locations and also used the authentic Al Michaels-Ken Dryden play by play calls instead of the too obvious recreations in the 2002 big screen version.

 

[Richard V]

Attack on Terror: The FBI vs the Ku Klux Klan

 

[Charles Ellis]

Amateur Night at the Dixie Bar and Grill- an early effort by Joel Schumacher. The cast had Victor French, Dennis Quaid, Don Johnson, Tanya Tucker, Jamie Farr, Roz Kelly, Louise Latham, Candy Clark- pretty amazing. WHY ISN'T IT ON DVD?????

 

[Sadsack]

I'm not saying this "needs" to be released on dvd, and it isnt actually a TVmovie but it looks like one. Worth watching once for some reason - if you're a fan of the cast or the quirky '70's family psychokiller genre. Directed by actor Darren McGavin..."Run Stranger Run" aka "Happy Mother's Day, Love George" (1973).

 

[Blimpoy06]

The two I mostly want are:

Assault On The Wayne (1971) -
Espionage aboard a nuclear submarine in an attempt to steal a missile guidance system. Stars Leonard Nimoy, Joseph Cotton, William Windom, Lloyd Haynes and Keenan Wynn. May have been released on VHS. Bad copies are on the net.

Goliath Awaits (1981) -
A two night TV event about the survivors of a British ocean liner sunk by a German submarine in 1939 who have been living in a trapped air bubble under the sea. They are discovered by a deep sea diving team in 1981. Stars Mark Harmon, Emma Samms, Christopher Lee, Frank Gorshin, Eddie Albert, John Carradine, Alex Cord and Jean Marsh. A VHS version was released cutting about half of the running time of the original.

 

[Jack P]

My version of "Goliath Awaits" is uncut from an early 90s cable airing. Glad I never saw the butchered version.

 

[Blimpoy06]

My version of "Goliath Awaits" is uncut from an early 90s cable airing.

I'm jealous. I remember some details from the original airing. Specifically the little girl waving out a port hole at a diver, and the society in the ship lead by Christopher Lee. I've always wondered if seeing it again would have the same impact now as it did when I was 12.

 

[Jack P]

I saw it when it first aired on WPIX in 1981 and it was repeated several times in its original format through 1985 and then was on cable into the 90s. A couple months ago I revisited my recording for the first time in about 15 years and I found that if you quit hitting yourself over the head about the premise and instead think of it as the kind of story you might have seen done in the B/W world of "Twilight Zone" which gave us tales that don't even begin to approach any kind of modern scientific accuracy, the end result is quite strong and very reminiscent of the S4 episode "On Thursday We Leave For Home." Jean Marsh also at times manages to provide an echo of her performance from "The Lonely". What didn't hold up for me after all these years was Mark Harmon (with a very bad moustache) as the hero lead and also weak was Alex Cord playing a doctor from Scotland who first starts out trying to affect an accent that sounds more southern than Scots before he finally gives up.

The real surprise for me was how effective Frank Gorshin was as the menacing henchman of Christopher Lee. In a part that could have come off as caricatured and silly given Gorshin's heavy Irish brogue for the part and how most people only think of him as the Riddler he comes off quite good and showed he could be a good actor and not just an impressionist who caught lightning in a bottle one time.

 

[Jack P]

And while we're on the subject of TV movies about shipwrecks.

SOS Titanic (1979). Yes, this has been released on DVD but that's the version that was cut down for overseas theatrical release which is missing about 30-40 minutes from its original broadcast on ABC. In addition, the original version is framed as a flashback, opening with the Carpathia getting the SOS and then discovering the survivors and then we go back and revisit things, but for the cut theatrical version things are reshuffled into a linear format that is much less effective. This is by no means the best telling of the Titanic story but it does give us some aspects that were not present in "A Night To Remember", most importantly the Second Class perspective of survivor Lawrence Beesley (played by David Warner, who of course was also in Cameron's film which I confess to loathing on all levels). Beesley is given a platonic fictional female friend in Susan Saint James, whose purpose is to give us someone Beesley can talk to and express aloud observations about the journey that came straight from his fascinating memoir of the disaster published just after the sinking. The film works more as a supplement to "A Night To Remember" without surpassing it (Ian Holm gives us the best portrayal of White Star owner Bruce Ismay there's been). This should be seen in its original version (thank goodness for my 1987 TBS recording).

 

[Charles Ellis]

Plus we get Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown and in one of his last appearances David Janssen as John Jacob Astor. Having read Walter Lord's book it is surprising that Beesley isn't even mentioned or seen in the Cameron blockbuster or the '58 film version of A Night to Remember! Also, Second Officer Lightoller (as played by Kenneth More) is decidedly heroic in the '58 movie as he was in real life - staying until the sinking and then commandeering one of the collapsible lifeboats in a vain effort to try to save more people from the freezing sea. A LOT of people (me included) thought it made no sense to turn Murdoch into a villain in the Cameron film, and his family rightly attacked Cameron in the press.

 

[sjbradford]

Vanishing Act, with Mike Farrell, Elliot Gould, and Margot Kidder.

 

[Albert71292]

My version of "Goliath Awaits" is uncut from an early 90s cable airing. Glad I never saw the butchered version.

I have a VHS I recorded off one of the Encore Movie channels in the late 90's. It's also the full length version.

 

[mark-edk]

Vanishing Act, with Mike Farrell, Elliot Gould, and Margot Kidder.

Yet another version of a popular twist tale. My favorite was the one with Jack Klugman and James Franciscus One of My Wives Is Missing. I recall somewhere an article that found a few more versions I didn’t know about. The theatrical film Chase a Crooked Shadow is supposed to be one of the first though I don’t think I’ve ever seen it,

 

[A Pop Fan's Dream]

Vanishing Act, with Mike Farrell, Elliot Gould, and Margot Kidder.

I bought an ex-rental VHS of this about 20 years ago. Great film. It was shown on RTE television around 1990.
One Of My Wives Is Missing is excellent - have an off-air VHS copy taped around 2002.

 

[Jack P]

Plus we get Cloris Leachman as Molly Brown.

Surprisingly, that wasn't the first time she played Molly Brown.

 

[Richard V]

I could be wrong, but I don't think In the Line of Duty: The FBI Murders is on DVD