Streaming The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler Online
Dimanche, août 1st, 2010
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The ultimate conspiracy has been uncovered. The Smoking Man isn’t the father of “The X-Files” Mulder. Reporter Carl Kolchak is. . In January 1972 ABC ran a movie of the week they had mixed feelings about. The promos had received a respectable response and preview audiences rated it as highly as a very gracious theatrical film. “The Night Stalker” seemed like it was slumming since it really was a fright movie about a vampire stalking women in current day Las Vegas. The current day Van Helsing hunting down the vampire is a worn, cynical reporter in a seersucker suit. Reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) has had many expansive stories in his day but his sensationalistic style rubs his editor Vincenzo (Simon Oakland) the sinister map. Kolchak has a habit of ticking off city officials and generally getting the paper in hot water. When Kolchak announces in his narrative that a recent day vampire stalks the city streets he runs into a city camouflage up. Kolchak becomes the only person that can finish the vampire (Barry Atwater) because no one will occupy his amazing account.
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“The Night Stalker” really build ABC’s “Movie of the Week” on the plot. With an unheard of 54 piece (meaning over half the audience in the United States were watching the program), it blew away every other TV movie including the well regarded “Brian’s Song” that came before it. Writer Richard Matheson (”The Twilight Zone”, “What Dreams May Arrive”), producer Dan Curtis (”Gloomy Shadows”) and conventional TV and movie director John L. Moxey (”Circus of Apprehension”) crafted an improbable TV event. When it was first shown to gay preview audiences ABC vice-president Barry Diller realized that they should have turned it into a theatrical feature. McGavin’s Kolchak and the second TV film and 1974 TV series that followed became the inspiration for Chris Carter’s “The X-Files” and “Millennium”. The first TV film holds up very well thirty-three years later. Moxey’s exciting, realistic direction, Matheson’s silly but no nonsense script and the strong performances from the cast invent this that rare TV movie that has the same qualities as a dynamic theatrical movie. At 74 minutes the brief, mighty first film is the better of the two. The sequel “The Night Strangler” also station the industry abuzz with a script that took all the best elements of the first film and crafted another suspenseful account that, if slightly less effective, unexcited managed to seize the imagination of TV audiences.
“The Night Strangler” takes region in Seattle, Washington. Kolchak was fired at the destroy of the first film. Vincenzo now the editor of the Seattle Daily Fable runs into a drunk Kolchak showing his clippings about the killer in the first film to any reporter that will sit peaceful. Vincenzo takes pity on Kolchak and, against his better judgement, hires him again. The tedious slay fable of the slay of an exotic dancer suddenly inflames local officals when Kolchak discovers that the same pattern of murders reoccur every 100 years. The circumstances are quite different from those of the first film. The victims all had their necks broken but with 7cc of blood and a puncture trace at the contemptible of the skull. Kolchak’s fantastic fable causes Vincenzo’s ulcer to act up. Suddenly, Kolchak is hunting monsters again very remarkable on his possess.
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With a strong supporting cast, witty well written script and taunt direction by Dan Curtis, “The Night Strangler” also became a immense success prompting ABC to commission yet a third script from Matheson. Instead, the network decided to get the films into a TV series but then, strangely, dumped it in the TV graveyard on Friday night at 9 o’clock. It was summarily cancelled after only 21 episodes but the inspiration of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” and the rest, as they say, is history.
An exceptional transfer that looks sizable, there’s very few analog blemishes that I can detect. The record for both “The Night Stalker” and “The Night Strangler” occasionally appeasr a bit soft but, overall, the absorbing images and vibrant color restores these TV classics to the contrivance it should be viewed. The mono sound is faithfully reproduced.
We salvage two short featurette/interviews with producer/director Dan Curtis on the history and production of the film. Both include clips from the respective movies but tiny more. A bit more on the production and perhaps some of the publicity materials also would have been moving to include.
This dynamic duo of classic TV movies presented on a single dual sided disc both were overdue for such treatment. The transfers here appear better than the previous Anchor Bay editions. The brief featurettes with Dan Curtis discussing the history of both movies provide a fun observe into the challenges of producing TV movies in the 70’s. A pity there’s no commentary track from Dan Curtis, Richard Matheson or any of the surviving cast members for either movie.
At long last…the two chilling, thrilling, witty and expertly crafted pilot TV movies to the cult 70’s TV series “The Night Stalker” are finally available on DVD.
“The Night Stalker” pilot telemovie was based upon the short unusual “The Kolchak Papers” written by ex-journalist Jeff Rice, and then adapted to the shroud by well known thriller writer Richard Matheson, who has contributed some improbable scripts to fantasy cinema including “The Fabulous Frightened Man”, “The Martian Chronicles”, and Steven Spielberg’s first hit movie, “Duel”.
Darren McGavin truly brings alive the character of the crumpled, abrasive, intrusive, but above all lovable newspaperman, Carl Kolchak in these two thrilling explorations into the undead region in new day Las Vegas & Seattle.
“The Night Stalker” sees our daring hero investigating a series of blood drained bodies amongst the glittering lights of Las Vegas. At first reluctant to contain that the murders could involve the supernatural, the cynical Kolchak is soon led to the conclusion that he is indeed tracking a current day vampire. Kolchak must battle his long suffering boss, Anthony “Tony” Vincenzo (wonderfully portrayed by Simon Oakland), the local law enforcement headed by Sherriff Butcher & Chief Masterson (Claude Akins & Charles McGraw) and the manipulative district attorney to show that an staunch vampire is committing these homely murders. Further depth is brought to the cast by zany character actor Elisha Cook Jnr as a compulsive gambler, and magnificent Carol Lynley is the cocktail waitress romantically entwined with Kolchak. When “The Night Stalker” originally aired on January 11th, 1972 on ABC, it attracted nearly 54% of the TV audience between 8.30pm and 10pm, and for many years it held the title of the most highly rated telemovie ever aired on US TV! Tightly scripted with anxiety, wit and humour…this film has not dated in over thirty years!
With the first outing being such a runaway success, another script was written pitching Carl Kolchak against the forces of injurious. “The Night Strangler” sees our heart-broken Carl, after having been bustle out of Las Vegas, now calling Seattle home and landing another reporters role with his mature boss, Tony Vincenzo. Before long, there is another series of brutal murders and Kolchak is on the paddle of a mysterious Civil War surgeon with an elixir to cheat death! Suave Richard Anderson ( best known as Oscar Goldman from “The Six Million Dollar Man” ) portrays the malevolent serial killer, Margaret Hamilton (the Rotten Witch from the Wizard of Oz) has a appetizing cameo as an intimidating professor of the occult, ex-screen vampire John Carradine (House Of Dracula, House of Frankenstein) is Kolchak’s novel boss, the tyrannical newspaper owner Llewellyn Crossbinder, sexy Jo Ann Pflug catches Kolchak’s roving contemplate as belly dancer Louise Harper, and ex “Munster” Al Lewis nearly steals the reveal as a boozy tramp…plus Wally Cox portrays the resourceful newspaper archive clerk Titus Berry, assisting Kolchak with his repulsive investigations into Seattle’s past!
PlUS, If you are a interested Kolchak fan…then grab the highly moving book “Night Stalking : A 20th Anniversary Kolckak Companion by Label Dawidziak. It’s everything you ever wanted to know about the series, but were disquieted to ask! Additionally, support your gape start for the chilling 1973 telemovie “The Norliss Tapes”, another Dan Curtis directed pilot for a supernatural TV series, that unfortunately never took off. Roy Thinnes from “The Invaders” plays a writer investigating erroneous psychics, shonky fortune tellers etc. who comes across an artist who has returned from the wearisome with a thirst for human blood. It stars Roy Thinnes, Claude Akins, Angie Dickinson & Slash Dimitri.
After the two successful telemovies, Kolchak became a TV series (total of 20 episodes) featuring an absorbing line up of guest stars including Jim Backus, Richard Keil, Tom Skerritt, Phil Silvers, Cathy Lee Crosby, Tom Bosley, Carolyn Jones & Keenan Wynn to name but a few!!
There is a right chemistry in both the Night Stalker / Night Strangler productions that is intellectual, witty and exhilarating entertainment…if you’ve never seen what inspired Chris Carter to manufacture “The X-Files”…now’s your opportunity to gawk Carl Kolchak on his two best cases!!
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