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Reviews
The Wide World of Mystery: Alien Lover (1975)
Cheap but fun
Warning, I will tell the outcome of the movie This is to the best of my memory even though I haven't seen it since the premiere. Kate Mulgrew plays a young girl that has suffered a breakdown and is now staying with some family members. Roberts plays the father of the family. One other member is a teen, who I think was a electronics genius, and is very nasty and doesn't like anyone.
Mulgrew starts to see the handsome man is an old television. She knows it is crazy and fears that if she tells someone, they'll think she is having a breakdown. At times, there is a flashing affect and the man's head changes into the head of one of the aliens in the old Outer Limits episode "Keepers of the Purple Twilight." The teen finally tells her that it is they who trained in in electronics because they want him to build a device to bring them in this world. On day, one of them reach through and touched his dog, and it killed his dog. At that point, he knew to fear them. One day the girl hears screaming, she enters the world and sees in the television the teen being dragged off by two of the aliens.
At the last, Roberts is convinced that she is having another breakdown after she tells them about the world in the old television. She runs from them into the room (which I think is in the basement)and locks the door as they pound on it. Strange lights come from under the door and he hears strange noises. He gets in and there she stands with her alien friend. The alien is smiling, and there is the flashing effect, and you see his real face.
The Force of Evil (1977)
very good thriller
This was actually a pilot for the short lived, but very effective "Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected." It's sad that no one seems to rebroadcast this series. William Conrad provided the narration for the movie pilot and the series. The series had one of the creepiest and visually scary introductions that I ever have seen. It puts you in mind of the intro for the 80s version of the Twilight Zone series.
You could pretty much sum this movie up as a supernatural version of Cape Fear. The actor who played the angry ex-con was an effective character actor who did a lot of work during the 70s. He showed up a lot on shows such as Cannon as a heavy. Bridges and the rest of the cast do good jobs as the family living in fear of this man with a serious grudge. I hope Sci-Fi or someone will reshow both this movie and the series.
Richie Brockelman: The Missing 24 Hours (1976)
Spin off of the Rockford Files.
This is, as far as I know the only spin off of the long running Rockford Files series. Although, this appears to be a movie, the character was originally introduced on an episode of the Rockford Files. The series only lasted a single season.I remember the theme song for it was called "School's Out." Where private detectives were usually portrayed has the hard nosed type, this one offered a very young, boyish looking Dugan. Much like the Rockford Files, it gave us a character that tended to try to avoid getting into fights because you could get hurt in them.
It's been too many years since I last saw the series to remember it too well. However, if you keep an eye on rerun of the Rockford Files, you can catch the episode that first introduced Brockelman. I believe it was actually a two part episode. If memory serves me, his father is strong armed into a business deal or buyout by gangsters. Brockelman enlist the aid of Jim Rockford to scam the gangster out of the money they took from his dad.