It’s a ritual in these parts: I buy bananas, they don’t get eaten, I make banana bread with toasted coconut and macademian nuts. On Thursday morning, I had a spare hour and I stirred up two loaves of banana bread, while watching “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” on the SciF Channel.
For the young’uns . . . the ABC Movie of the Week was once a very big deal, kind of the HBO Sunday night lineup of its day. And one of the ones I remember most vividly was “The Night Stalker,” a vampire tale set in Las Vegas. The scene I remember most vividly centered on a woman in a parking lot, who turned out to have a Doberman in her back seat. The Night Stalker twisted the dog’s neck (off camera). Utterly terrifying. The second one, set in Seattle, wasn’t quite as good, but it still had its charms. The series had to work much harder and I remembered nothing. So I happened to make its reacquaintance on Thursday morning. It was funny about the newspaper business, in ways I probably didn’t aprpeciate before I worked on a #2 newspaper that had to be more creative about its resources. The boss (the guy from Sheriff Lobo? Definitely Sgt. Schrank of West Side Story) does irascible well. I liked the fussbudget co-worker, too.
Darren McGavin was perfect as the walking anachronism, the newsman who still wore a hat and pounded on a typewriter. I can see why they tried it again this season — and see why it failed. I’m not saying the remake was good or bad; I never watched it. But Kolchak was a 50s character in the 70s. How does one update that?
At any rate, I know it may not be what he’d like to be remembered for, but I remember it fondly. In fact, when odd things happen in my household — and ordinary things have been disappearing lately, with no logical explanation — I tap my inner Kolchak, the cynic who was never less than open-minded about the supernatural.
Pay your respects to McGavin or Don Knotts, if you like, in the comments.
I vaguely remember Darren McGavin in Night Stalker, but not enough to have an opinion of him or the show. But Don Knotts, I’ll always remember him with Andy Griffith and being entrusted with one bullet.
I have no special nostalgia for Don Knotts, but Darren McGavin, Kolchak–well, that’s a different story.
I remember watching The Night Stalker when it first aired, in 1972, and being unable to get it out of my head for days. In fact, I think it and its (less good) sequel, The Night Strangler, were the direct ancestors of everything from the X-Files to Buffy, jeez, even to House, with their mix of horror and humor. And McGavin was prefect, ideal, as Kolchak, the ’50s man trapped in the ’70s, as Laura eloquently put it.
But let’s not forget where Kolchak came from. The Night Stalker’s screenplay was by Richard Matheson, a brilliant, way underrated writer of novels, movies, and TV. Just check out his resume on IMDB, and this is what you’ll see:
Matheson wrote one of the best, most literate, most haunting sf movies of the 1950s (The Incredible Shrinking Man); sixteen episodes of “The Twilight Zone” (including the classic one where only William Shatner sees the gremlin chewing up the wing of the jet plane he’s flying on); a series of Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price for Roger Corman in the 1960s; an unusually clever episode of the original Star Trek; Stephen Spielberg’s “Duel,” one of the best TV movies of all time; the great haunted-house chiller “The Legend of Hell House”; and the completely terrifying Zuni fetish doll segment of the Karen Blackapalooza TV movie “Trilogy of Terror”…among many other things.
And several of the above began as novels and short stories written by Matheson as well! Is there a genre writer alive with a more impressive track record? He’s still alive–has he gotten the attention, the “grandmaster” awards, he deserves?
This certainly has been a week of significant losses…
Just read that Dennis Weaver’s passed away, speaking of Spielberg’s Duel. (I’ve never thought of trucks the same way since that film..) Chester on Gunsmoke annoyed me mostly, but we always watched him in Sam McCloud back in the 70s. A pretty good show. And Weaver was marvelous as one of the jurors in ‘Seven Angry Men’ and as Buffalo Bill in ‘Lonesome Dove’. Here’s a link to the story: http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/02/27/Arts/weaver-obit060227.html
Don Knotts was truly a master of self-deprecating humor, though I was never a Mayberry fan. But my best memory of McGavin was in Christmas Story, when the leg-lamp was delivered… Frag-ill- lee, he said, reading the box label. I adore that film, can watch it over and over. Anything by Jean Shepherd works for me. (Banana Nose Zeke Benora, anyone? Now there’s a name for a real baseball player!
RIP, gentlemen.
“And McGavin was prefect….”
I appear to have been reading too many English schoolboy mysteries.
Kolchak was a favorite of mine also. One memorable episode involved Kolchak hunting zombies in a junk yard. To kill the zombies he had to pour salt in their mouths, then sew their mouths shut with heavy thread. He found a zombie doing the zombie equivalent of sleeping. He poured the salt, but just as he was beginning to sew, the zombie woke up. I know I jumped out of my seat when that zombie’s eyes opened, just inches from Kolchak’s face.
Another aspect I liked about Kolchak was the goofy little Instamatic camera he kept on his wrist. I had the same kind of camera.
These days my kids know Darren McGavin not as Kolchak, but as Ralphie Parker’s father from “A Christmas Story.” As long as our leg lamp continues to shine in the front window, so to will the memory of Darren McGavin.
“The Night Stalker” was banned in my household as too scary, so it was important to get invited over to spend Friday nights (it was Friday nights, right?) with a friend who had more liberal parents. My friend Lizzie Dennis had a slumber party for her 10th birthday the night one of the vampire episodes aired — eight little girls watched it and then stayed up telling ghost stories. We also tried “Light as a feather, stiff as a board” that night, but it never worked… although Beth Shapiro SWORE it had worked for her at camp the previous summer.
We need more Kolchaks.
I love you guys. Props to Joe for the background on Matheson.
“A Christmas Story” is an interesting story. IIRC, it was slammed by reviewers. (And perhaps diehard Jean Shepherd fans, such as Sarah, might have more insight into that.) But it holds up as a charming seasonal movie. The visit to the department store does Santa-terror very well.
God bless Don Knotts and Darren McGavin. It’s amazing how “The Night Stalker” is emblazened in the memory of anyone who saw it back in the day.
TRILOGY OF TERROR! The memory of that Karen Black segment is still vivid enough to send chills down my spine. Decades later, it is stupifyingly easy to upset someone in my family by making the little spear-slashing gesture the pygmy made and approximating the “eee – eee” sound.
And Laura, PLEASE do a separate Memory Project someday about the ABC Movie of the Week. How I would dearly love to see people’s remembrances about such classics as “Dr. Cook’s Garden” with Bing Crosby, Blythe Danner and Frank Converse or “Bad Ronald” with Scott Jacoby. And “Crowhaven Farm” – I get nauseous just thinking about that one.
I watched reruns of Baretta in the wee wee hours of the mornings when I was supposed to be studying for the bar exam.
Banacek! I watched way too many episodes of that show as a kid which was why I had kind of a perverse crush on George Peppard. Though I always wondered why the women tended to dress so…well, let’s just say the early 70s was not exactly a good time for women’s fashion and makeup.
As for A CHRISTMAS STORY, if I recall the consensus was that the guy who made PORKY’S couldn’t possibly do this kind of movie justice and I think people didn’t really know what to do with it. Whereas now the quirky charm is far more appreciated.
Annie beat me to McCloud. I was devoted to those Sunday night shows and my affection for Columbo has never waned. Meanwhile, “Banacek” got me through a tough bout of insomnia in college, when it was rerun in the wee hours of the morning.
>>>>well, let’s just say the early 70s was not exactly a good time for women’s fashion and makeup.<<<
You can say that again! I’ve always thought it was a funny reflection on styles that Mary Tyler Moore looked so fashionable on the Dick van Dyke Show (from the early ’60s), yet was frequently dressed so absurdly on her own show just a few years later. (In my opinion, of course.)
I have a vivid memory of George Peppard showing up on the Tonight Show (several times, I think) after having been divorced, and mumbling in the most depressed manner about how poor he now was, as Johnny looked on as if desperate to get to a commercial.
By the way, banana bread with toasted coconut and macademia nuts sounds a lot better than a plain banana. I suspect that the members of your household are deliberately not eating the bananas, holding out for the banana bread?
>>And Shanley said, puzzled: “Well, of course it’s mine. Who else’s would it be?”<<<<
This made me laugh.
So you mean I should stand on my own two feet even when discussing how flatteringly a woman is dressed? That’s scary–who knows how many women wearing bright yellow micromini skirts with big purple dots on them are reading this blog???
“In my opinion” . . .I’m going to digress here and tell a story about my favorite college professor, J. Lyndon Shanley, who read Chaucer better than anyone. (Okay, he’s the only person I’ve heard read Chaucer, but I still think he’s hard to top.)
At any rate, Shanley once told me that he was in the faculty lounge, discussing the film “Lolita,” which he didn’t like. Alfred Appel, who wrote the annotated Lolita, drew himself up and said: “That’s YOUR opinion.” And Shanley said, puzzled: “Well, of course it’s mine. Who else’s would it be?”
So no defensiveness about personal opinions here and no clarifications unless it really is someone else’s opinion.
Carry on. (As my hero, Tim Gunn, is wont to say.)
And now Jack Wilde, my first crush. (Not so much for H.R. Pufnstuf, but for Oliver!, which I think holds up very well, despite what Premiere magazine said about it recently.
Have we done first crushes here? Mine was Barbara Feldon, Agent 99….
Then again, there was that weekly crush: whatever scantily clad alien woman popped out–I mean up–on Star Trek each week.
Joe,
talking ’60s fashions again