Network: ABC
Original Air Date: September 18th, 1973
I’ve got all my favorite nouns covered in Dying Room Only:
Person - Cloris Leachman. This woman is a truly extraordinary talent, who brought up the bar in just about every production she graced. And on Phyllis her wardrobe was simply to die for.
Place - The Desert. I'll admit, I'm not a fan of the desert in real life. I grew up in one. It's boring, it's hot... oh, and it's boring. But in movies (the really good ones), there's something so undeniably atmospheric about it. In 70s TV movies in particular, the characters practically insisted on wearing layers of clothes with long sleeves. Yikes! What were they thinking?
Thing – Atmosphere. There’s tons of it here!
In Dying Room Only, the uber-stylish Leachman is Jean Mitchell, a woman who wears, like, three layers of tops (OK, it's more like a black shirt with a white safari type jacket, but I swear it felt like three layers!). She’s a mousy wife travelling across the desert (see, two of those nouns knocked out of the ballpark in the first five minutes!) with her hubby, Bob (Dabney Coleman). The couple stops at a remote cafe inhabited by the overly serious proprietor Jim (Ross Martin) and truck driver Tom (the normally affable Ned Beatty). Jean scoots to the bathroom to freshen up her already exquisite style and when she comes out Bob has disappeared.
What happens afterwards is about 60 minutes of pure suspense while Cloris looks for her man. I think the film takes place within an approximate 1,000 square foot area and it's extraordinary. Like The Stranger Within, Dying Room Only plays up the claustrophobia and plays down bulky effects (in fact, there are none. Zero. Zilch). In place of large visuals and set-pieces is an amazing cast that uniformly brings in brilliant performances. Everyone is in top form here, from Leachman to Martin to Beatty to Dana Elcar as the Sheriff. Dabney has the least amount of screen time but is good as the missing (and forever aggravated) husband.
Written by the always reliable Richard Matheson (who coincidentally also wrote The Stranger Within), what struck me most about Dying Room was the growth of Leachman's character. She's played out here in a realistic manner and goes from weak to loony to strong without missing a note. The situation calls for that, and unlike some "final girls" who seem to go from useless to bold in one stroke of the writer's typewriter, Leachman's dissent becomes her strength, but not without a few freak-outs along the way! I love the part where she loses it and starts hitting Beatty. I admit, by that point, I’d be slapping someone around too!
There’s also a grand sense of xenophobia, although that doesn’t really come into play in the actual story, but Leachman is treated in such a way that she may well just be a suspicious interloper. How those two guys continue to make Leachman look guilty of something is amazing!
So we’ve got our person, place and thing all in place… what about the ending? Well, that might be the movie’s only weakness. Still, even without a big ol’ huge payoff, this movie is the kind that lingers in the mind well after you’ve seen it. Another point for Matheson in an already extraordinary career.
- Mood:accomplished
Network: ABC
Original Air Date: October 1st, 1974
Ann Collins (Barbara Eden in one of her best roles) is an artist who discovers she’s with child even though her husband David (George Grizzard) had a vasectomy. David had the surgery because of a horribly botched pregnancy she had three years earlier. What happens afterwards is truly strange – no doctor can confirm that David’s procedure didn’t take and Ann swears she's been faithful. Then she starts acting bizarrely. She eats salt by the pound, drinks coffee to get drunk and reads entire textbooks in minutes. She takes long walks through the canyons and comes back covered in scratches only to have them disappear in a matter of seconds. She even tries twice to terminate the pregnancy only to have something stop her each time. As her condition advances (she’s only 3 months on but is somehow carrying a 7 month old fetus), things rapidly deteriorate between her and her husband as he unearths the ghastly secret behind the baby.
The Stranger Within is excellent. Sparse and claustrophobic with a knockout score by Charles Fox (Women in Chains, Dying Room Only), this movie keeps the viewer on the edge without any special effects or other contrivances normally allotted to supernatural thrillers. But make no mistake, this is no Rosemary’s Baby (another film to make use of suspense organically), even though many viewers seem to liken them. This film lacks that conspiracy angle. It does however prey on the viewer’s fears of everything from unexpected (even unwanted) pregnancies, indifferent doctors, home and personal invasion… the lot. And it does it amazingly well, with lots of thought and a true sense of dread that carries the film from the first frame to the very last.
Barbara Eden should have been one of those actresses, like Elizabeth Montgomery, that was allowed much meatier fare. This could have been Barbara’s Lizzie Borden but somehow wasn’t. It’s too bad too because such beauty and talent all in one is a rare commodity. David Doyle plays the couple’s friend Bob, an amateur hypnotist and he’s great too. In fact, the entire cast (all five of ‘em!) is fantastic in a movie that needs its characters to be consistent and strong. And the script! Adapted from his own story, Richard Matheson creates a taut, minimalist story that plays with the then-current theme of Roe vs. Wade in a fantastic yet thoughtful manner. Lee Phillips directed this film with a lush eye that makes the film feel larger than it is.
The Stranger Within is the kind of movie that made me love made for television films of the 70s. Excellent filmmaking on a small scale that still delivers a wallop! A must see for anyone who loves this genre.
- Mood:
good
Network: ABC
Original Air Date: October 23rd, 1974
A classic of the made for television genre, Bad Ronald is an almost perfect time capsule of what television filmmakers were trying to accomplish. Quiet, claustrophobic and disturbing, Bad Ronald gets better with each viewing.
Ronald (Scott Jacoby) is a lonely mama's boy. On his birthday, he gets the gumption to ask a female classmate to a movie. When she refuses (and brutally so), he takes it out on a taunting little girl and accidentally kills her. He confesses his crime to his mother, who walls him up in the bathroom located in the center of their house. Here is where Ronald lives, coming out only at night (through a hole in the cabinets) for food and conversation. He spends his days studying (because his mom believes he will still become a doctor), doing his exercises and creating the fantasy world of Atrana. One day his mom checks into the hospital but doesn't check out and soon after, a new family moves in (lead by Dabney Coleman!). Ronald, who has now been fending for himself with nothing but chocolate and a fantasy world, gets really bad. He drills holes in the walls so he can watch the daughters. The youngest girl bears a striking resemblance to Princess Vancetta of Atrana, so guess who Ronald puts his sights on?
I watched this movie a couple of years ago with a group. What I remember most is that people who grew up on these television films in the 70s were enamored with Ronald, while the younger ones found it boring. For me, it's impossible to imagine someone thinking Bad Ronald wasn't this super disturbed horror fest, but you know, I'm old and stuff... Like Gargoyles, this is a movie where it helps to be a fan of the sub-genre.
Having said that, I love this movie and think it's damn near perfect. I still have a difficult time getting what the naysayers are nagging about, and Ronald remains one of the best films of the decade. The build-up is agonizing and the payoff (i.e. the scene with the peephole) is abso-freaking-unbelievably terrifying. I love making up words!
Ronald is also not that unlikable... at first. He's kind of a sad sack. Pining for acceptance, but still perfectly comfortable with his mother and not regretful of their relationship. He's confused and lost and Atrana aptly captures his deep need for friendship.
Scott Jacoby was an amazing actor. He was nominated for an Emmy for his performance in the excellent tele-film That Certain Summer, and he always put his all into every film he starred in. Most recently, I saw him in Smash-Up on Interstate 5and really enjoyed the layers he gave to his character. Like Ronald, he was someone you rooted for even though you were a little afraid of him. He worked on into the 90s, mostly doing direct to video horror towards the end. He made some good movies... but I think for most of us, Bad Ronald will remain his tour de force.
- Mood: excited
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