Dracula in Sin City: The Night Stalker and Prime Time Horror

Steyn Online ^ | 29 Oct 2022 | Rick McGinnis

[Rummyfan]

Nowadays, when the best TV series on streaming services are better than almost anything in the theatres, it's hard to remember when made-for-TV movies were unmistakably second rate – the second to last destination for over-the-hill actors before their first guest shot on The Love Boat. But in the heyday of the TV movie, there were flashes of brilliance available to watch on prime time, just before the nightly news.

In the last hot flush of the Cold War, two films – The Day After (1983) on ABC, and Threads (1984) on the BBC – were both topical and popular. And an ambitious young TV director named Steven Spielberg caught the attention of the public and the movie studios with a stark action thriller, Duel (1971).

But the biggest blockbuster ratings success in the history of the made-for-TV movie came with The Night Stalker, an ABC Movie of the Week that pulled in a phenomenal 33.2 rating when it aired on January 11, 1972. (By comparison, the only program that beat it was All in The Family, then at the zenith of its popularity with a 33.3 rating, with a guest appearance by Sammy Davis Jr. that season. Brian's Song had been the biggest TV movie hit until then, just over a month previous, and The Night Stalker "blew it out of the water," as producer Dan Curtis later bragged.)

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Notafinga!

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McGavin was also great in the movie “Tribes” as the Marine DI.