TV Movies, Part I

Bad Ronald aired on October 23rd, 1974 just a week before Halloween. I was eight years old and it scarred the hell out-of-me! It was one of those creepy TV movies from the 1970s that relied on mood, atmosphere and truly great writing to scare viewers without the need for unnecessary gore. Scott Jacoby -a favorite on 1970s TV often playing nerds and underdogs- plays Ronald Wilby, a socially awkward teen who accidentally kills a 12-year old girl who teases Ronald calling him "weird!" Ronald's overbearing mother, played by Kim Hunter convinces Ronald to construct a fake wall over the door to a spare bathroom in their large house and hide inside. A trap door leading to the pantry allows Ronald to escape from time-to-time. Mom Hunter tells the police that Ronald ran away in order to avoid his pending second-degree murder charge. All works well for a short time until his mother dies in the hospital following a gall bladder operation. That's when things start to get creepy. When a family with three young daughters move in, no one ever notices that a strange young man is peering out at them through peepholes in the wall. Ronald spends most of his time in a fantasy world of his own making filled with princesses and goblins that inspire Ronald to illustrate them in giant demonic-looking paintings. His growing obsession with one of the new young residents leads to the film's shocking conclusion. Based on the novel by Sci-fi writer, John Holbrook Vance, Bad Ronald also features a cast including Dabney Coleman and Pippa Scott. It was directed by TV veteran, Buzz Kulik who directed many classic TV films from the 1970s including Brian's Song. Oscar-winning composer Fred Karlin, provides a creepy score to go along with the odd and frightening images. Bad Ronald did enjoy a VHS release in the early 1980s on USA Home Video. We had a copy at our store for years until it was stolen by some creep who managed to rip us off twice with a bad credit card. In fact, he kind of looked a lot like the creepy Ronald portrayed in the film. But I digress. The video has been out-of-print for almost twenty years and a DVD release is still wishful thinking. Bootlegs can be found on ebay, but the quality is bound to be poor. If you're lucky enough to catch this film on late night TV or find an early VHS copy lying around be sure to give it a look. But when it's over don't be surprised if you find yourself checking all the walls in your house for small holes with a pair of eyes peering out back at you.

In Reference To...

From time-to-time customers would approach the counter looking for movies with only vague recollections of what the film was called or about. Someone once asked..."Do you have the one where the guy with a fast car likes the girl who is being chased by the cops?" Well, with such little to go on, a little cross-referencing was necessary to find the answer to the customer's question. Back in the days before online databases like IMDB.com, several different books were needed to do this. In our store three books were extremely helpful in helping customers identify movie titles they were looking for. First among them was Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide. Originally published in 1969 as TV Movies and then annually in 1988 as Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide, the book is one of the most impressive listings of movies and reviews that can be found. The earlier printings boasted well over 7,000 titles including made-for-tv films, and star and director indexes. But as each year's volume got bigger and bigger, the indexes and tv movie listings were dropped. Maltin, who has been seen on the syndicated Entertainment Tonight television program for the last 24 years as it's resident film critic, edits the book annually, providing reviews along with other critics like USA Today's Mike Clark. What made the Maltin book indispensable, was it's listing of all movies including those that were not available on home video. In the early 1990's a similar reference book would be published called VideoHounds Golden Movie Retriever. A larger book in size, but not necessarily in volume, the retriever restricted itself to movies that were only available on home video. But what made the VideoHound so valuable was it's plethora of indexes. Cross-referencing with the VideoHound was a breeze. There are indexes by actor, director, composer, cinematographer, writers and a whole lot more. Like the Maltin guide the VideoHound is also published and updated annually.
The last of the books we used in our video store was The Film Encyclopedia originally published in 1979 by filmmaker, Ephraim Katz. Katz, who also updated his book annually until his death in 1992, was a film critic and documentary filmmaker. The Katz book is not an index of film titles, but rather an alphabetical listing of actors, producers, directors, composers, writers and their biographical information as well as a dictionary of film jargon and industry terms. The Katz book, which is still published annually today, was a great help coming up with weekly trivia questions for our store. (See earlier posting Trivial Pursuits 6/13/06) So in the end I'm happy to report that we did find the film the customer was looking for about "...the guy with the fast car who likes the girl." It was Smokey and the Bandit of course!