TV Movie Titles We'd Unlikely See on Blu-Ray or DVD for That Matter... (1 Viewer)

[DeWilson]

As a regular reader of the Kino Lorber Insider Thread, and knowing of their deal with Universal, which includes the odd TV Movies, I was thinking of two TV Movies that were pilots to unsold series that would most likely never be released by them, or anyone else for that matter...

A thought of Two Crazy Universal Television TV Movies I doubt we'd ever see- so I'm sure they are not on KL radar but since the subject of Universal TV movies pop up every few pages, these crossed my mind...

The 1966/1973 TV Movie pilot for the unsold "I Love A Mystery" series (Directed by Leslie Stevens and Starring Ida Lupino) I'm guessing it would have low sales and maybe rights issues since it's based on a radio series.

"The Return of Charlie Chan: Happiness is a Warm Clue" (1973/1979) Starring Ross Martin as Charlie Chan - Obvious reasons why it wouldn't be released...also a pilot for an unsold TV Series.

Anyone else want to add Thoughts regarding TV Movies/TV Movies that were pilots to unsold series that would unlikely ever turn up on Blu-Ray or DVD - in house or licensed out? (Not to mention stuff like movies edited from the anthology series like the 3 from "Kraft Suspense Theater")

 

[jayembee]

Two I'd like to see are a couple of 1970 science fiction telefilms.

One of them I had asked the KL Insider about, and he said it's not in the cards: Hauser's Memory. It's not a sequel to Donovan's Brain (a theatrical movie that KLSC released on Blu), although it's based on a book by Curt Siodmak that is a sequel to Siodmak's Donovan's Brain novel.

The other one I have a hankering for is one that has always gotten a bad rap. I'd probably think it was lousy if I saw it again, but I'd like to find out. It's The Love War, with Lloyd Bridges and Angie Dickinson. It's about aliens disguised as humans waging a covert war with each other on Earth. I took a liking to it because it was the first time I'd ever seen a movie where

Spoiler

the bad guys win because they cheated!

Near as I can tell, it's a Spelling production, so it's probably with CBS.

 

[Jack P]

We'll never see the first two Love Boat pilot films, the first of which had none of the eventual cast members, while the second had Bernie Kopell, Fred Grandy and Ted Lange only. We were fortunate to get the third pilot that had all the regulars in place.

 

[MatthewA]

Reunion movies don't seem to be high on too many studios' priorities or we'd have seen at least DVDs of The Brady Girls Get Married (Paramount), Still The Beaver (Universal), or — dare I say — The Facts of Life Reunion (Sony/Disney co-production deal) by now.

 

[Billy Batson]

I'd think there's a massive amount of TV movies. One that I'd love is, Goliath Awaits, Columbia TV 1981. A truly bonkers plot about a passenger ship being sunk by the Germans in WW2, & for some reason the water doesn't flood into the ship & the crew & passengers somehow survive & carry on living a strange life at the bottom of the Atlantic. It stars Christopher Lee & Frank Gorshin plus a really good cast. I believe a cut-down version was released on VHS. I'd love the full version on DVD/Blu-ray.

I'd think Fox TV movies could be a bit dodgy, with the Disney takeover.

 

[JamesSmith]

Murder Can Hurt You, which was a TV detective parody with Don Adams narrating.

A Howling in the Woods with Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman. There were some pretty good tv movies. At the very least, they captured my imagination.

--james

 

[PODER]

Not a TV movie, but a series of Special Events called THE DOW HOUR OF GREAT MYSTERIES.
How I'd love to again see "The Datchet Diamonds", directed by Gower Champion and starring
Tammy Grimes, Rex Harrison, Reginald Denny and Melvin Cooper. Many years later I got to
work on 42ND STREET with Gower and Tammy, something my younger self could never have
even imagined!

 

[Rick Thompson]

The one TV movie I'd buy in a heartbeat is City in Fear, a tightly-written film with an eye-popping cast — David Janssen (his last performance), Robert Vaughn, Mickey Rourke, Perry King, William Daniels and Susan Sullivan.

 

[John Sparks]

All the Hart and Wade Williams movies that those bastards are keeping from us. But of course, we have these in our collections, but it would be nice to have them in SD/BD.

We're not getting younger and they're not getting any younger either...so, who do you think they want to show them to???

 

[MatthewA]

I'd think Fox TV movies could be a bit dodgy, with the Disney takeover.

If they were smart, they would be moving heaven and earth to exploit as much of the Fox library as possible as soon as possible — and their own.

 

[JamesSmith]

there was also The Stranger with Glen Corbette, about an astronaut stranded on a fascist Earth. For some reason, it still sticks in my mind. Possibly a pilot for a series.

--jthree

 

[MatthewA]

Who owns the rights to all those TV movies Gary Coleman made? The production company that made them was called Zephyr Productions, and they also made the non-musical 1981 movie Evita Peron with Faye Dunaway. There were video releases in the 1980s from Prism Home Video IIRC, but apparently, no one kept track of the rights after Coleman's lawsuit against his parents for mishandling his sitcom earnings.

 

[B-ROLL]

Reunion movies don't seem to be high on too many studios' priorities or we'd have seen at least DVDs of The Brady Girls Get Married (Paramount), Still The Beaver (Universal), or — dare I say — The Facts of Life Reunion (Sony/Disney co-production deal) by now.

The Brady Girls Get Married is arguably included on DVD- as four individual episodes of The Brady Brides on:

Posted as part of an Amazon review -

The Brady Brides (1981)

This series begins with Marcia and Jan and their new husbands buying a house and living together. The clashes between Jan's uptight and conservative husband, Philip Covington III (a college professor in science who is several years older than Jan, played by Ron Kuhlman) and Marcia's slovenly and more bohemian husband, Wally Logan (a fun-loving salesman for a large toy company, played by Jerry Houser), were the pivot on which many of the stories were based, not unlike The Odd Couple. Ten episodes were aired before the sitcom was cancelled. This was the only Brady show in sitcom form to be filmed in front of a live studio audience. Bob Eubanks guest-starred as himself in an episode where the two couples appear on The Newlywed Game. The Brady Brides features Maureen McCormick (Marcia) and Eve Plumb (Jan) in regular roles. Florence Henderson and Ann B. Davis also appeared regularly. The first four episodes is presented as "The Brady Girls Get Married"; although scheduled to be shown in its original full-length movie format, NBC at the last minute divided it into half-hour segments.

Episodes:

The Brady Girls Get Married: Part 1
The Brady Girls Get Married: Part 2
The Brady Girls Get Married: Part 3
Living Together
Gorilla of My Dreams
The Newlywed Game
The Mom Who Came To Dinner
The Siege
Cool Hand Phil
A Pretty Boy is Like a Melody

Caveat Emperor as the packaging is not well liked ...

 

[Dick]

Almost any t.v. movie from the 60's-80's is unlikely to get a Blu or a DVD release. The list would be much shorter if you were challenging us to come up with a list of likely releases. So much out there that I would instantly purchase, even before current movies like TENET. I am pleasantly surprised when one actually surfaces. But if it took this long for an Emmy-winner like BRIAN'S SONG to be given a Blu-ray release, what chance has any of these...?

THAT CERTAIN SUMMER (Early LGBTQ topic.)
SURVIVING (A family coping with the suicide of a child.)
THE CIRCLE OF CHILDREN & LOVEY (Jane Alexander. 'Nuff said.)
THE BURNING SEASON (Raul Julia as a doomed South American rainforest activist.) WAC?
A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH (We all know about and want this one.)
MARY JANE HARPER CRIED LAST NIGHT (Child abuse.)
THE PEOPLE (KIm Darby and William Shatner.)
HEARTSOUNDS (James Garner & Mary Tyler Moore. Downbeat but powerful.)
COUNTDOWN TO LOOKING GLASS (Nuclear thriller.)
RED ALERT (Ditto.)
SOMETHING EVIL (Spielberg supernatural thriller.)
COMMON GROUND (Three stories about gay struggles.)
THE DARK SECRET OF HARVEST HOME (Should have been an R-rated theatrical film.)
EXECUTION OF PRIVATE SLOVIK (Emmy-winner with Martin Sheen.)
TRAPPED (James Brolin locked into a store at night with several guard dogs.)
GO ASK ALICE (Teenage drug addiction.)
THE U.F.O. INCIDENT (with James Earl Jones & Estelle Parsons)
VAMPIRE (with Jason Miller and E.G. Marshall.)
WELCOME HOME, JOHNNY BRISTOL) (Martin Landau.)
SMALL SACRIFICES (with Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal)
and so, so many more...

 

[Billy Batson]

Yup, I'd think any TV movie with sci-fi or horror aspect has the best chance of release (& selling well), like, A Cold Night's Death on your list.

 

[DeWilson]

All the Hart and Wade Williams movies that those bastards are keeping from us. But of course, we have these in our collections, but it would be nice to have them in SD/BD.

We're not getting younger and they're not getting any younger either...so, who do you think they want to show them to???

Plus Willliams is sitting on TOM CORBETT: SPACE CADET and SPACE PATROL... Supposedly a complete run of All 210 ABC Half hour Space Patrols (UCLA is sitting on over 300 of the daily 15 minute local version!) and alot of unseen Tom Corbett shows from across the entire 4-Network 5 year run! (Nobody is really sure how many of The Corbett episodes, but it's alleged to be substantial - both the 15 and 30 minute versions - runs of story arcs for the 15s.)

 

[Doug MacGregor]

I'd like to see a re-release of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (the movie) and a release of the series as well.

 

[SIBIE]

Would be great to see DAUGHTER OF THE MIND (1969), with Gene Tierney and Ray Milland, and REFLECTIONS OF MURDER, a 1974 well made for TV remake of Les Diaboliques, with Tuesday Weld, Joan Hackett and Sam Waterston.

 

[Lasermanfan]

Almost any t.v. movie from the 60's-80's is unlikely to get a Blu or a DVD release. The list would be much shorter if you were challenging us to come up with a list of likely releases. So much out there that I would instantly purchase, even before current movies like TENET. I am pleasantly surprised when one actually surfaces. But if it took this long for an Emmy-winner like BRIAN'S SONG to be given a Blu-ray release, what chance has any of these...?

THAT CERTAIN SUMMER (Early LGBTQ topic.)
SURVIVING (A family coping with the suicide of a child.)
THE CIRCLE OF CHILDREN & LOVEY (Jane Alexander. 'Nuff said.)
THE BURNING SEASON (Raul Julia as a doomed South American rainforest activist.) WAC?
A COLD NIGHT'S DEATH (We all know about and want this one.)
MARY JANE HARPER CRIED LAST NIGHT (Child sexual abuse.)
THE PEOPLE (KIm Darby and William Shatner.)
HEARTSOUNDS (James Garner & Mary Tyler Moore. Downbeat but powerful.)
COUNTDOWN TO LOOKING GLASS (Nuclear thriller.)
RED ALERT (Ditto.)
SOMETHING EVIL (Spielberg supernatural thriller.)
COMMON GROUND (Three stories about gay struggles.)
THE DARK SECRET OF HARVEST HOME (Should have been an R-rated theatrical film.)
EXECUTION OF PRIVATE SLOVIK (Emmy-winner with Martin Sheen.)
TRAPPED (James Brolin locked into a store at night with several guard dogs.)
GO ASK ALICE (Teenage drug addiction.)
THE U.F.O. INCIDENT (with James Earl Jones & Estelle Parsons)
VAMPIRE (with Jason Miller and E.G. Marshall.)
WELCOME HOME, JOHNNY BRISTOL) (Martin Landau.)
SMALL SACRIFICES (with Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O'Neal)
and so, so many more...

I have "Surviving" taped off the CTV network in Canada, and "Small Sacrifices" taped off ABC when it originally aired.

 

[Bartman]

All the Jesse Stone movies transferred to Blu-ray with care. Some (but not all) have been released but are now OOP.

Inspector Morse on Blu-ray. Amazon streamed a few episodes in HD (probably courtesy of Britbox) and they looked good.