Big, bad TV movies

Wow, this takes me back, but then again I suppose that's the whole point of the TV Land channel. They're unfortunately including lots of 80s movies like "The Day After" -- isn't it a given that the 70s were the "golden era" of made-for-TV movies? I'd almost rather that they devote a full week to each decade.

Growing up as I did during the 70s, I have vivid memories of quite a few of Movies of the Week, especially the creepy ones. In fact, it seems like most of the big 70s "MotWs" had creepy storylines -- why hasn't more been written about this? The subject seems ripe for some cultural analysis. Just for starters there was Savages, where friendly hunter Andy Griffith reveals that he gets his kicks from hunting human prey, A Little Game where an innocent looking kid keeps killing people at his military school and makes them all look like accidents, and of course Steven Spielberg's Duel where Dennis Weaver gets relentlessly stalked by a truck driver. See the theme here? And those were just the ones I remembered in five minutes -- there are tons more that warped my young brain back in the day.

Then there were the sentimental TV movies like "Brian's Song" and "The Boy In The Plastic Bubble". I like Slate's discussion of "Bubble", with Travolta on the brink of megastardom (not to mention schoolboys' dream Glynnis O'Connor as his costar). I think "Bubble" surprised a lot of people who didn't realize that idiot-boy Vinnie Barbarino could actually act. You have to figure that it paved the way for his casting in "Saturday Night Fever", so "Bubble" is significant for that fact alone. Speaking of "Fever", ESPN's Sports Guy (of all people) wrote up a nice discussion of Travolta's performance. It's way down the page, so do a find on "Travolta" if you're interested.

By the way, the Slate article neglects to mention that Diana Hyland, who played Travolta's mother in the movie, was in a real-life relationship with him at the time (despite being twice his age), and that she died of cancer about a year later.