Last night, we selected "A Howling in the Woods"(1971) expecting another werewolf-infused TV Movie. We were wrong; it's not even strictly horror, more of a twisted thriller, so we kind of got off track Halloween-wise (sorry, I'll make it up to ya), but it's still doggone spooky and a heck of a good story. And, you get Barbara Eden and Larry Hagman reunited.
Barbara is "Liza Crocker" (nee' "Staines"), back home in Stainesville, Nevada to realicecooperate pending her divorce from husband "Eddie" (Hagman). The reason for their breakup is unspecified but it's probably because he's an adulterer, given his job as a New York City cheesecake photographer.
So Liza is back, in the mining town her grandfather founded, but no one seems happy to see her. She's been gone since graduating from high school, which was 20 years ago. The sodbuster at the local gas station creeps her out, the way he eyes her while she's filling her tank until she finds out he's "Lonnie Henshaw" (Bill Vint), who was just a kid when she knew him in the old days. He's the Shurff's son. "Sheriff Henshaw" (Ford Rainey) also owns the gas station. Liza checks in at the Stainesville Hotel, owned by her Dad, but run at the moment by her stepmom, "Rose" (Vera Miles), who explains that Dad's out of town on an archaeological dig in Mexico. Liza only knows Rose through correspondence, but finds her a very nice lady, remarking, "So much for the myth of the Wicked Stepmother." Rose introduces her son from a prior marriage, "Justin" (John Rubenstein). He's a talented pianist, and also a Vietnam vet who was wounded in action. He walks with a limp and has a bushy Scott Jacoby hairdo, but seems pleasant enough. He and stepmom Rose tell Liza not to worry too much about the locals. "Maybe they're jealous or resentful 'cause you went to New York and made good."
There's a dawg who keeps howling in the woods (hence the title), a big, sad old bloodhound. "How come nobody rescues that dawg?" Liza asks. "Because he's a chicken thief!"one of the rednecks tells her. "Rescue him? I've been tryin' to kill him for weeks now." Liza is outraged. "That's cruel! I'm going to find him and bring him some food." Before she can do that, she's goes exploring around the lake, and meets a little girl named "Betsy" (Lisa Gerrtsen), who is crying. "What's wrong?", Liza asks her. "My friend Melanie drownded (sic) last month". Liza asks Rose if she knows of a little girl drowning. Rose says: "Oh, that must be Betsy, telling her stories again. She's a bright one, but lonely, and with a creative imagination. She makes things up all the time." But Liza wonders. "Why would she make up a story like that?"
Indeed. Why would she make up such a horrible story?
And now, when Liza goes to feed the howlin' doggo, the owner of the General Store doesn't wanna sell her any meat. He finally does, and she locates and feeds the dog, then he leads her to a spot in the underbrush at lake's edge, and starts howling all over again. Hunger wasn't his problem after all. He's sad because....(holy jumpin' juniper berries!)...there's a grave there! Okay, so maybe we do have a horror movie on our hands. We've got a drownded little girl, and now a wooded grave. And the town seems to have a secret. Everyone looks at Liza cross-eyed, wishing she'd make up with her husband and go back to New York. She has a better idea: "I'm gonna go to Mexico and find my Dad". But stepmom Rose doesn't like it, so she types a fake telegram, supposedly from "Dad", saying "no need to come, I heard about your plan but I'll be back in two weeks." Okay fine. But then Liza gets a message from "Sally Bixton" (Tyne Daly), the mother of the deceased Melanie. Sally knows Liza from high school and has been signaling a need to talk (to no avail) since Liza arrived in Stainesville. Sally is Lonnie Henshaw's sister, and the Sheriff's daughter. Before Liza meets with her, she sees little Betsy again. Her face is all bruised up, and we in the audience already know that her dog-shooting pappy beat her for talking about Melanie's drowning. Seeing her bruises, Liza becomes incensed. "Who would do that to a nine-year-old girl?!" She wonders why her "friendly" stepmom Rose, and her stepbrother Justin would say that little Betsy "makes up stories." "She showed me Melanie's grave! It's not a story, that little girl really drowned!" Justin then tells her, "Look, Liza, this town went bad after you left. Sometimes it's better to let a bad town die."
There's obviously a Big Ol' Honkin' Secret goin' on, and we've gotta find out what it is. But as Liza knows, the more They Don't Wanna Tell Ya, the bigger the secret must be! And, they are trying to gaslight her, all and sundry, but she just keeps digging and digging. Tyne Daly spills the beans, for which she gets beaten by Lonnie her sodbuster brother.
By now, Liza's husband Eddie has driven to Stainesville from New York, trying to save his marriage. Liza at first doesn't wanna see him, but he keeps sticking around, hoping for another chance. Good thing, too, because Liza is going need him. She's just been attacked in the woods at night, knocked down and scratched by what Rose says was the big dog, but we know it was a person; we saw a human hand.
At one point, it looks like some pretty Oedipal stuff is going on, and you go "Wow! Who wrote this movie, Jim Morrison?" But then there's a twist, and while the ending is a nail biter (and very scary), it still takes five minutes of exposition to ex-schplain things, because it's very, very convoluted.
I don't wanna tell you what Tyne Daly told Liza because that would reveal the big secret, but the convolution at the end has to do with clearing all of that up. There's a cut-and-paste note identifying little Melanie's killer. It's a creepy flick in general, but it could've been 15 minutes shorter. Still, Two Bigs and a high recommendation. 1971 was a weird year, because the 70s didn't yet know what to do with themselves once the 60s had immediately ended. Everything was still unsettled, zeitgeist-wise, and you could say that 1971 was like Canada, in the way that Canada isn't a real country. 1971 wasn't a real year because it wasn't of the 1960s or the 70s, It kinda got caught in-between. Prog rock hadn't started, and glam rock had yet to be invented. I don't know if the Smiley Face was around yet, or the Green Ecology Flag, but it was a year when nothing happened, except for guys getting killed in Vietnam. Long story short, it wasn't a real year, but then 1972 got the ball rollin', and by 1974 things were cookin'. It was the greatest rock 'n roll year of all time. So things worked out pretty well for the decade as a whole, despite its unceremonious start. In the '60s, there were no non-years. Every year in the '60s was its Own Thing, with its own flavor. '63 was different from '64, '68 from '69, 1967 was a Decade Unto Itself, and they were all amazing, every year in the 1960s was a mondblower. No wonder, then, that 1971 got lost in the shuffle. The picture is good but not great. ////
The previous night, continuing our TV Movie run, we watched "The Longest Night"(1972), another classic I remembered from the genre's heyday. This one aired on September 12th, 1972, just two weeks before "Moon of the Wolf". I definitely saw it on that night, and while once again it's not strictly horror, it has a horrific element (you'll see what), and the subject matter is again plenty scary. It's another TV movie that scared me silly as I watched, and what's more, it's based on a true story. James Farentino stars as "John Danbury", an escaped convict/kidnapper. The script wastes no time getting things underway. A mother and her young adult daughter are staying in a motel. "Norma Chambers" (Phyllis Thaxter) has come to pick up daughter "Karen" (Sallie Shockley) from her university, to get her away from the Hong Kong flu epidemic. Karen is already running a fever. There's a knock at their door. A man wearing a police cap looks legit, asks for Norma by name, and she answers. But Holy Deception, Batman!, because it's not the police, it's James Farentino with a shotgun. He's got a trampy, insouciant woman with him (Skye Aubrey). Other than the police hat, they aren't trying to disguise themselves. They tie-and-tape Mom, and carry Karen, bound and gagged, to their car parked outside the motel door.
Mom soon escapes the room, and manages to honk a car horn, but by now, the kidnappers are long gone. Already they're burying Karen in a coffin-like wooden box, in a pre-dug hole in the ground. Farentino has rigged it with an air pump, a light, and a fan, all run by battery. There's a jug of water with a rubber straw, but no food, and there's instructions for her to follow. "The more you use your light and the fan, the shorter your battery will last. If you use them sparingly, you will live as long as one week. I'm sure your father will have paid your ransom by them, so don't worry. But don't use your light unless necessary."
So there's your horror element: buried alive in a coffin-like box, not unlike the protagonist in Corman's "Premature Burial". But in that story, written by Poe, the guy chooses to be buried alive. The gal in this story did not, and it happened in real life.
After leaving Karen Chambers in the ground, Farentino and his sociopath girlfriend hole up in a beachfront crash pad. He starts making phone calls to Karen's wealthy Dad (David Janssen) with ransom instructions. "No law enforcement and no mistakes, or she's dead." Farentino demands half a million clams in unmarked 20s. "Gonna take at least 8 hours to sort 'em" says the bank president. Of course, the FBI is in on it, though Janssen doesn't want them interfering. "I'll deliver the ransom myself. I'm not taking chances with my daughter's life." But on the first delivery, the Santa Monica cops inadvertently screw things up, by running a check on Farentino's car. He's forced to flee the scene without the ransom money, and now he's really pissed off. Janssen is worried that he's gonna kill Karen as payback, so he puts ads in the paper, and gets his plea on the news: "To the kidnapper, please know that the screw up wasn't my fault. I brought the money like you asked. I did not bring those police officers." Farentino hears this and believes him. He gives Janssen one more chance: "But this time, if I see one cop - even if it's not your fault - I'm walking away, money or no money, and you'll never see your daughter again." Needless to say, Janssen is scared shiftless. The FBI, led by Mike Farrell, insists on having their agent ride along. He's hunkered down in Janssen's back seat, covered up but ready to start shooting.
This time, the transfer goes smoothly. Farentino has already sent his girlfriend back East, to meet up with later. Right now, he's bought a fast boat to escape in, and he's bailing to Acapulco. However, he does keep his promise to reveal Karen's location. His directions aren't good, though. She's somewhere on the grounds of an abandoned government property, now in total darkness and almost out of air. A screen shot has kept us abreast of the clock. "Day One: 0800". "Day Two: 1320". Now we're on Day 5, but she's long since used up her battery. Mike Farrell finally finds the sycamore tree that Farentino gave as a marker. "Dig, men, dig!" They use shovels, then bare hands. Karen is rescued, barely conscious, as Farentino's boat is located by helicopter and run aground. The aftermath is given in voiceover.
Here's the thing that bothered me: this movie is based on a true story, and they put the guy's name on the YouTube post, so I looked him up. He's Gary Krist, who in 1968, did the same, actual kidnapping. You can Google the victim's name also. But what astounded me, is that he only did ten years of his sentence. The reason? Because he "reformed"; i.e he studied in prison to be an MD (he was a smart guy), and so they let him out to freaking practice medicine in South America. A guy who buried a girl in the ground! I can personally testify that the criminal often gets treated better than the victim, and this MF walked free - after burying a person alive - after just ten years. He was rearrested in the early 2000s for running a Mexican immigrant smuggling scheme. Gee, ya think? It's like that murderer Jack Henry Abbott who was championed by Norman Mailer, because he had "street level" writing talent. Okay fine, but does that mean he's reformed, or should be let out of jail? Of course, Mailer got him out, and he murdered some kid waiter at a restaurant, for bumping into him in a hallway.
And you ask me why I don't like liberals. As a victim myself, I stand for all victims of violent crime, especially unacknowledged ones like me. I effing hate criminals, I don't think they should EVER get out of prison. I'm not for or against the death penalty, but if a murderer gets executed I don't give a flying f-k. In fact, there are some who, if they're 100% for-certain guilty, I'd be glad to pull the switch myself.
And that's because I know what it feels like to be kidnapped, to be bound up and tortured. I wasn't buried in the ground, but.....
And so it's freaking unbelievable that this Krist dude got only ten years. It's NOT about whether some POS is "reformed" (and I'm talking about violent criminals). Once you've shown your true nature, it's about What You Have Done, not about how you have "reformed". Heck, even if you're now a devout Christian, and even if you sincerely mean it, if you are a kidnapper, murderer, rapist, etc. - you still need to spend your entire life behind bars. When you die in your cell is when they'll let you out. So screw these people, and screw the parole boards who let them out. The freaking Chowchilla guys got out, too. Un-freaking-believable! They buried kids alive in a school bus and they're walking the streets today. Is it any wonder this country is in trouble?
I'm sorry, I'll shut up now. And please excuse the vehemence. But when I read about Gary Krist, after seeing this movie, it really, really upset me. Two Big Thumbs Up for "The Longest Night". The picture is very good. ////
And that's all I've got. My blogging music is (you guessed it) Klaus Schulze again, "La Vie Electronique #2". My late night is Wagner "Parsifal". I hope your week is off to a good start and I send you tons of love as always. ////
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