Mr. Gorman

Hey, NipkowDisc, I was referring to Roseanne Barr singing The National Anthem! GAWD! As far as the SOUND OF HORROR goes . . . I'd give it a watch.

Interesting group of titles, Lawrence. Thanks for listing them. Speaking of 1973 TVM's -- I'm guessing this one is not in the book, but is decent: LINDA with Stella Stevens and Ed Nelson. I noted the 1970 TVM "Ritual of Evil" was on your list. I've not seen that one. I have seen the 1969 movie FEAR NO EVIL with Louis Jourdan. Have you viewed that one before?

GAWD!

NOWHERE TO HIDE stars Lee Van Cleef and Tony Musante. Van Cleef is supposed to guard obnoxious mob witness Musante. Musante was once a hit man and now he's marked for death. There's a picture of the U.S.A. Home Video on the IMDb if you wanna have a look, LawrenceA. It's watchable, but it's just not very good even by the standards of made-for-television movies. I was fortunate enough to find a PRISM Entertainment clamshell of CRUISE INTO TERROR years ago. I actually found 2 of them, but I had to 'merge' them. One had a cut box and a nice tape . . . the other had a nice box with nice insert artwork but a tape that turned out to be screwed up. The clear leader had gotten loose from the spool and I don't know how to fix those kind of problems. However, because the box art was in such good condition with no fading or edgewear I reckon it turned out all right. I liked those PRISM clamshell releases of TVM's. And there were plenty of 'em! EDIT: What Tv fright films have you seen from the book?

I noted you're from Canada, misswonderly3, and I thought to mention my fondness for the Canadian label ASTRAL VIDEO. At present, I've got some 225 of them. All released in the 1980s with the ROOSTER-IN-THE-CIRCLE logo. I should say I don't have 225 different titles -- that number includes multiples of a number of Astral releases. For instance: The 1980 Canadian comedy DIRTY TRICKS, the 1981 Maple Leaf comedy UTILITIES and the 1978 comedy SILVER BEARS I rounded up 3 clamshells of each. UTILITIES was especially easy to find. I could've rounded up 5 of them, but I stopped at three.

NipkowDisc: Did you smoke some special kind of HOT SPELL-brand toilet paper before typing out the above? Or are you doing an impression of 'spence' trying to type stuff out using the worst grammar and sentence structure possible? And where's the capital letters at the beginning of the sentences? Back to 6th Grade English for you! In regards to CRUISE INTO TERROR, I find it a lot of lunatic fun! I know 'Leonard Maltin & Co.' gave it a 'Below Average' before he pruned all the TVM's from his Guide and you don't find it amusing, either. But I rather liked it. Sure there were some silly TVM's made in '70s. That doesn't mean they can't be entertaining! Like THE HORROR AT 37,000 FEET. That was fun, too. And given a 'Below Average'. To date, of all the TV movies I've watched the worst is NOWHERE TO HIDE (1977). A good cast is unfortunately let down. That said, I'll probably fish out my tape of it and watch it again just for the hell of it!

Speaking of PARAMOUNT and their theatrical release of "Testament" they also released it on VHS. I admit I don't know what company, if any, has put it out on disc. Here's a tele-film Paramount released on tape in the 1980s: RED ALERT (1977-Tvm). William Devane, Michael Brandon. I'll do my best 'Dubya' impression of the plot: It's a nucular accident! EDIT: That's just plain goofy about KILLDOZER. A '2K Restoration' of a '70s television movie . . . maybe KINO-LORBER could do a '2K Restoration' on DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK, too. I noted the DVD release of that '73 tele-film was already 'Remastered', but ya know like . . . so what? Meanwhile, I prefer the mid-1980s 'U.S.A. Home Video' release in the GIANT box with the clamshell case holding the tape inside. Fancy!

@EricJ: KILLDOZER has been available courtesy of the UNIVERSAL VAULT Series on one of those MOD discs for years. I bought a disc of "Killdozer" several years ago and the copyright date on the back is '2012 Universal Studios'. So if you dig KILLDOZER you can go and pick the disc up right away.

Thought I'd ♦BUMP♦ this since 'CinemaInternational' started a TV MOVIE thread "The Curious Case of TV Movies" so if anyone has missed this thread and digs old-time TVM's have a look.

I kept the 2001 MOVIES UNLIMITED CATALOG. It's rather large. I ordered quite a few tapes from Movies Unlimited back "in the day". Maybe a few DVD's, too.

He wasn't radioactive was he?

I remember reading that JACKIE GLEASON was drafted and rejected as 'too fat'.

A trivial thought: Did JOE ALVES work on HALLOWEEN 2 in any capacity? I remember actress Gloria Gifford played 'Nurse Alves'. Not the most common of last names and all that.

HOSPITAL, The (1971) (What else?) next: A horror movie that's full of gore yet has little to no suspense. Boo! Hiss!

I think you need to see a therapist after watching all that, o Sepiatonal One.

His last movie was the George Strait-starred 1992 release PURE COUNTRY. By then, unfortunately, Rory had emphysema. Those darn cigarettes.

Listening to a couple of songs on YouTube by the smooth-sounding yet very obscure country singer DANNY SHATSWELL. LAID OVER IN DALLAS - This recording was apparently never released; I could be wrong, but the 'upload' sounds like it's from a reel-to-reel recorder. ♦I like this song♦ I'd buy it if I could find a 45' single . . . but there likely isn't one. Then on to his only Billboard Country charting single -- albeit it 'reached' [if you could call it that] #97 in 1978. On Mercury Records. Title: I'M A MENDER.

I read a bio of John Wayne and apparently being married with 4 children meant he would've had to enlist as opposed to being drafted. By the 1960s Wayne had taken on the mantra of being a 'SuperPatriot' -- perhaps feeling latent guilt about not serving during WWII. From what I gathered with so many other Hollywood actors being drafted or enlisting that Wayne decided he could better serve the public by making pro-U.S. war movies. And he sure did that! I suspect the seeds of this were sown by the failure of THE BIG TRAIL in 1930. After that he did 9 years of "B"-movie purgatory working away on one low-budget movie after another -- 98% of which were quickie Westerns. So then Wayne hits it big with STAGECOACH in '39 and continues his rise up the movie star ranks. By Dec. 7, 1941 he was long married to his first wife, Josephine, and had four children which apparently was enough children so that a 34-year-old Wayne would not have been drafted. Let's say Wayne had only 1 or 2 children by then -- I think he would've faced the draft. Wayne perhaps feared he would tank his career by going off to enlist some 2½ years after climbing up to the "A"-list after nearly 10 years of low-budget/low-pay movie purgatory working all the time to support his growing family. I got the feeling from the bio Wayne remembered all too well how hard it was to make a decent living in the 1930s scraping by and now that money and prestige were coming his way at last he didn't want to take a chance of throwing it all away and come back from the War to face being a second-banana in Poverty Row productions or go back to "B"-Western movies and other lowly bottom-feeding films. He'd already made enough of those. My 2¢ worth.

I noted the article said "the rights were unavailable" for the Top 5 Disney animated films Mr. Bird fancied. Maybe I missed it, but I didn't think I saw the ♦reason♦ the rights for said animated Disney flix were unavailable. Pity.

I remember watching EXECUTIVE ACTION when I had a Warner Home Video tape of it. I sold the tape after watching it. I found it to be an unfortunate waste of a lot of talent. Ugh! Even movies I don't particularly like I keep, but I knew I'd never watch "Executive Action" again. I just watch WINTER KILLS in its place. It's close enough plot-wise for me.

I have very little trouble with the picture or sound quality on my old tapes. That's why I keep playing them. If they started giving me trouble I'd be aggravated, but they don't. I keep my VCR heads clean and my tapes neatly rewound. I also keep the videos away from dampness and humidity. Store In A Cool Dry Place.

I noted Dick Cavett's name mentioned above. Has anyone else seen the goofy interview Cavett did with Eddie Murphy aired in November 1985? I saw it on YouTube recently. Out of the blue, Cavett starts talking about Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn then says 'nee-ga' -- that's close to how Cavett pronounces it -- and Eddie was like "What the hell?". Then Eddie says something funny and Cavett lamely tries to explain what he meant "You know me better than that" he drones after talking about how Lester Maddox walked off his show in '71. Jeepers. The heading on the upload is "Dick Questions Eddie Murphy on the 'N' Word". Runs 8 minutes 45 seconds for anyone interested. The full interview is on YouTube as well; think it runs a little over an hour.

Laserdiscs are likely to deteriorate due to 'laser rot'. As far as VHS tapes go . . . I reckon I've got some 800 pre-recorded VHS tapes released on video between September 1977 thru the end of the 1983. Some old-time video labels in existence from 1984 and before: Magnetic Video Corporation 20th Century Fox Video [in the Fox sliding-drawer boxes] CBS/Fox Video [in the Fox sliding-drawer boxes] Many of these boxes ended up with serious edgewear or were cut to pieces by video stores. Allied Artists Video Corporation (Went bankrupt in Sept. 1979; bought up by Lorimar). FOTOMAT Drive-Thru Movies Niles Videocassette, Inc. Time-Life Video Video Tape Network (VTN) All-Star Video Trolley Car Video Electric Video, Inc. (In business from 1981-82; later re-named "Imperial Video Corp."). Imperial Video Corporation (What "Electric Video" morphed into before disappearing for good after 12 releases) Catalina Home Video (In business for a year before going under: 1983-84). MCA Videocassette, Inc. (later 'MCA Home Video', then 'MCA/Universal Home Video', then simply 'Universal'). Paramount Home Video Warner Communications, Inc. (WCI) Columbia Pictures MGM Embassy Home Entertainment VCI/United Home Video IUD [Independent United Distributors] Force Video Monterey Home Video Continental Home Video Active Home Video Video Gems Paragon Video Productions Unicorn Video, Inc. Best Film & Video MEDA/MEDIA Home Entertainment Vestron Video PRISM Entertainment MOGUL/ALL-AMERICAN Video WORLD VIDEO, Inc. WORLDVISION ------------------------------------------ A favorite VHS release of mine is the 1983 Catalina Home Video release ('CV 01') of ALLIGATOR (1980). Somehow Catalina got hold of a TV print of the movie instead of the theatrical version. There is very little missing in terms of gore -- less than 15 seconds cut overall --and a few cuss words are overdubbed, but there is over 8½ minutes of footage added to the television version. Some interesting material has been put back in to the movie. When roaming through video stores of the misty past you'd see various titles available for rent from at least SOME of the labels above. I'm sure there's more old-timey video labels I've forgotten that should be in the list above. Maybe I'll think of another label or two!

1990s comedies I like -- they amuse me. NATIONAL LAMPOON's LOADED WEAPON I (1993) SPY HARD (1996) WRONGFULLY ACCUSED (1998)

There are no more video stores around where I live. Hasn't been one for years. Those fun days of the past when video stores were plentiful and I'd go looking for interesting video goodies to rent are long gone. I must cheerfully disagree with you on one point, EricJ. I'm not a VHS 'fanboy'. Hardly. I'm too old for that 'fanboy' nonsense at 47. But I do like my tapes. I have 4500+ of them. I still collect them. There are many groovy videos out there to be had. And as my budget allows I shall round them up.