Charlie’s Angels (1976)

          Nearly all the elements that made the glossy detective series Charlie’s Angels popular are present in the feature-length telefilm that preceded the weekly show, and yet some early ideas that were later abandoned are in evidence, as well. The pilot is just as fluffy and silly as the rest of the series, although the T&A quotient is relatively tame considering how much focus was later given to displaying the series’ leading ladies in bikinis, cheerleader costumes, low-cut gowns, and such. Rather than cleavage and legs, the caveman-mentality focus is primarily on the “novelty” of beautiful women demonstrating competence as private investigators, although the distaff detectives get even more male supervision during the pilot than they usually did in their weekly adventures.

          The pilot introduces the three original protagonists—Jill Munroe (Farrah Fawcett-Majors), Kelly Garrett (Jaclyn Smith), and Sabrina Duncan (Kate Jackson)—receiving their first assignments from mysterious employer Charles Townsend (the never-seen character whose voice is provided by John Forsythe). In a brief prologue that later became the show’s iconic opening-credits sequence, viewers are told that the women graduated from the police academy only to be given thankless jobs, and then were hired to work for Townsend. The Angels, as Townsend calls them, take instructions from their direct supervisor, Woodville (David Ogden Stiers), a character who was dropped before the first regular episode. The ladies’ other male colleague is fellow detective John Bosley (David Doyle), portrayed in the pilot as a cheerful buffoon and later reworked as stalwart coworker.

          Written by series creators Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts—veteran screenwriters whose collaborative record stretches all the way back to the James Cagney classic White Heat (1949)—the mystery that the Angels explore in the pilot isn’t really a mystery. Undoubtedly bearing the fingerprints of producer Aaron Spelling, who made a fortune playing to the lowest common denominator of the American viewing audience, the narrative is spoon-fed to viewers, with every complication explained in a condescending manner. The daughter of a wealthy California vintner disappeared years ago, and now that the vintner has also disappeared, his estate may fall into the hands of his unscrupulous widow. It’s up to the Angels to determine whether anything shady is happening, thus prompting the usual cycle of Jill, Kelly, and Sabrina masquerading as various people in order to find information.

          The supporting cast features solid players Bo Hopkins and Diana Muldaur, as well as a young Tommy Lee Jones, and the whole thing drags a bit, not just because the thin story is stretched to almost 80 minutes but because composer Jack Elliot uses the series’ signature twinkling musical sting so many times the cue becomes annoying. Seeing as how Fawcett-Majors was the first season’s breakout star thanks to her dazzling barrage of big hair, erect nipples, and shiny teeth, it’s interesting to note that Smith gets the most screen time in this initial outing. As always, she’s lovely but vapid. In any event, Charlie’s Angels the pilot movie is exactly as disposable as any episode of Charlie’s Angels the series, so the appeal of watching the piece (besides eye candy) is the opportunity to examine the unremarkable beginnings of an enduring pop-culture franchise.

Charlie’s Angels: FUNKY

Thunder and Lightning (1977)

Yet another drive-in flick about rambunctious moonshiners, Thunder and Lightning would linger far below the pop-culture radar if not for the popularity of its leading actors, David Carradine and Kate Jackson. Working once again under the penny-pinching aegis of producer Roger Corman, Carradine pours on the rebellious charm to liven up the story’s aimless cacophony of chase scenes, explosions, and fist fights. In fact, Carradine is forced to contribute extra effort—if smirking can be described as effort, that is—because Charlie’s Angels spitfire Jackson is more or less a nonentity given the colorless nature of her co-starring role. Carradine plays Harley Thomas, a good ol’ boy whose graying uncles cook up moonshine that he delivers in his souped-up ’57 Chevy. Harley dates Nancy Sue Hunnicut (Jackson), a wealthy young woman who doesn’t realize her father, Ralph Junior Hunnicut (Roger C. Carmel), hides a massive moonshine operation behind the front of his legit soda-pop empire. Through the machinations of an unnecessarily convoluted story, Ralph Junior gets into trouble with the Northeast mafia, Harley gets into trouble with Ralph Junior, and everybody ends up chasing after a massive shipment of poisoned moonshine. The fast-moving picture also makes room for an alligator-wrestling preacher, a pair of incompetent Noo Yawk assassins, and Ralph Junior’s knuckle-dragging henchmen, two of whom are played by ’70s B-movie stalwarts George Murdock and Charles Napier. Although Thunder and Lightning is ostensibly a comedy, frenetic onscreen action is presented in lieu of actual jokes. Given the movie’s choppy editing, one suspects that director Corey Allen’s on-set camerawork was chopped apart during post-production to rev up the pacing, so if Thunder and Lightning ever had nuance (unlikely), it disappeared long before the movie hit screens. Still, the picture offers a few brainlessly diverting scenes, as well as some choice examples of redneck patois—like the moment when a motorcycle cop sees a pair of cars zoom by and exclaims, “Sweet kidneys of Christ, those boys were movin’!”

Thunder and Lightning: FUNKY

Death at Love House (1976)

Although it suffers from the rudimentary execution that doomed most ’70s TV movies to oblivion after their initial broadcasts, Death at Love House has such a kicky story that some enterprising soul could probably put together a worthwhile remake. Plus, the movie stars a pair of comfortingly familiar actors. Kate Jackson and Robert Wagner, respectively of Charlie’s Angels and Hart to Hart fame, play authors who take up occupancy in a gloomy Hollywood mansion while researching a book about long-dead ’30s actress Lorna Love, the mansion’s onetime owner. Joel (Wagner) is the son of Lorna’s lover, so when paranormal events suggest that Lorna’s spirit is roaming the grounds of the mansion, Joel begins to wonder if he’s being courted by a ghost. As happens in this sort of story, Joel starts to reciprocate the attraction by becoming obsessed with a giant portrait of Lorna. He also fantasizes about her in dream sequences featuring beautiful ’60s/’70s starlet Marianna Hill as the glamorous Lorna. This is all enjoyably undemanding stuff, right down to the obligatory subplot involving a creepy old caretaker (Sylvia Sidney) who serves the otherworldly whims of her dearly departed mistress. The idea of blending old-Hollywood glamour with the ’70s supernatural fad was novel, whether the credit goes to writer James Barnett or producer Hal Sitowitz, but a limp screenplay and perfunctory acting prevent the piece from realizing its potential. So, even though Jackson summons a smidgen more gravitas than the ever-wooden Wagner (and even though Hill is so sexy it’s easy to believe she can beguile from beyond the grave), it’s only a matter of time before Death at Love House tumbles into bad-movie chaos during the conclusion. Still, there are worse ways to spend 74 minutes (though not many) and the basic concept is memorable.

Death at Love House: FUNKY

House of Dark Shadows (1970) & Night of Dark Shadows (1971)

          Although the name of producer-director Dan Curtis looms large over small-screen ’70s horror—his projects from the era include the series The Night Stalker and the TV movie Trilogy of Terror—Curtis’ brand of melodramatic horror didn’t connect as strongly on the big screen, as evidenced by the fact that he only made one proper theatrical feature in his career, the 1976 Bette Davis shocker Burnt Offerings. Accordingly, it’s not surprising that the two big-screen spin-offs Curtis made from his cult-favorite supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows are unimpressive: The gimmicks that seemed bold and exciting in America’s living rooms weren’t enough to sustain interest in darkened theaters.

          Running from 1966 to 1971, Dark Shadows was an oddity in the milquetoast realm of daytime TV, mixing ghosts and werewolves and vampires into the usual soap tropes of domestic drama and doomed romance. Additionally, the show’s cheesy production values were part of its charm—so the fact that House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows are competently made actually works against their efficacy. Whereas the series had a quasi-intentional tongue-in-cheek quality thanks to actors flubbing lines and stagehands walking through shots, the features are presented without irony, so they feel dull and humorless.

          The narratives also move at a glacial pace, as long stretches of screen time are filled with characters wandering through forests or hallways while spooky music plays in the background. Furthermore, it doesn’t help that the both movies awkwardly rehash plot threads from the TV show. House of Dark Shadows is a sort of “origin story” adventure featuring the series’ beloved vampire Barnabas Collins (Jonathan Frid), and Night of Dark Shadows is a Gothic romance about Quentin Collins (David Selby), an artist haunted by the demons of his past lives; both main characters were regulars on the series. In the first picture, anguished bloodsucker Barnabas explores a possible cure for vampirism until a romantic triangle involving a reincarnated lover ruins his plans for a plasma-free future. In the second picture, Quentin moves into the haunted family estate in Collinsworth, Maine, where he’s seduced by the angry spirit of a witch he loved in a previous life, a turn of events that understandably creates tension in Quentin’s marriage to spunky Tracy Collins (Kate Jackson, pre-Charlie’s Angels).

          Both pictures deliver the familiar visual style of the series, which means lots of deep-focus camerawork juxtaposing background and foreground actors; super-low angles accentuating ornate castle walls; and waves upon waves of ominous music. The acting is enthusiastic but mediocre, with actors hamstrung by florid dialogue and turgid pacing. Another reason neither movie is particularly satisfying is that each has something the other lacks—House of Dark Shadows has a steady flow of action leading to an overwrought Grand Guignol finale, while Night of Dark Shadows boasts a more vivid love story. In fact, had these movies been the world’s first exposure to the Dark Shadows franchise, it’s unlikely anyone would remember Barnabas and his extended clan today.

House of Dark Shadows: FUNKY

Night of Dark Shadows: FUNKY

Satan’s School for Girls (1973) & The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

          Two of Hollywood’s favorite lowbrow fascinations intersect in these craptastic telefilms, both of which depict the troubles that befall coeds whose dorms are fronts for Satan-worshipping cults. College girls and cultists: Two great tastes that taste great together. Produced by schlockmeister Aaron Spelling, Satan’s School for Girls is the real howler of the pair, cramming all sorts of shock-cinema gimmicks and gobs of kitschy ’70s-ness into a runtime that barely reaches 80 minutes; everything about the movie is so goofy that Satan’s School for Girls is a hoot from start to finish. Unlucky student Elizabeth Sayers (Pamela Franklin) enrolls in a private school under an assumed name so she can investigate why her sister killed herself while attending the school, only to discover that sis was a victim of the headmistress and students, who, as the title suggests, shill for Satan. Two of Spelling’s most famous protégés, future Charlie’s Angels beauties Kate Jackson and Cheryl Ladd, are among the students enthralled by the Prince of Darkness, so despite shlocky production values, Satan’s School for Girls offers plenty of eye candy. The ending is also hilariously overwrought, going all the way down the bad-cinema rabbit hole.

          A few years later came The Initiation of Sarah, the story for which was co-written by future Fright Night guy Tom Holland. In this one, pretty coed Patty Goodwin (Morgan Brittany) and her “plain” adopted sister, Sarah (portrayed by the not-plain hottie Kay Lenz), get picked for different sororities, which have been locked in a bitter feud for decades. Patty joins the stuck-up babes at Alpha Nu Sigma, while Sarah ends up with the misfits at Psi Epsilon Delta. Copping plot devices from Stephen King’s then-recent novel Carrie, the story depicts Sarah’s discovery of telekinetic superpowers, then shows what happens when the beeyotches at Alpha Nu push Sarah too far. Meanwhile, PED’s housemistress, Erica Hunter (Shelley Winters), reveals her true identity as a nutjob cultist trying to use Sarah’s powers for revenge against Alpha Nu.

          Lenz’s sad-eyed sexiness and Winters’ gorgon routine are fun to watch, plus it’s enjoyable to see actor/producer Tony Bill and Airplane! guy Robert Hays in early roles. Icy sexpot Morgan Fairchild steals the show, however, with her villainous turn as the queen bee of Alpha Nu. A vision of uptight late-’70s comeliness with her feathered Farrah hairstyle and perfect alabaster skin, she’s entertainingly conniving. Both of these telefilms are unapologetically silly, but that’s exactly why they’re so watchable—and it’s probably why both got remade. The redux of Satan’s School for Girls (with Shannen Doherty!) hit the tube in 2000, and The Initiation of Sarah v.2.0 aired in 2006.

Satan’s School for Girls: FUNKY

The Initiation of Sarah: FUNKY