Tag: '70s Movies

Gloria Swanson’s the queen in *Killer Bees*.

The killer bee genre is a crowded one, with films like The Swarm (1978, starring Michael Caine in his “Sure, whatever, pay me in cash” phase); 1995’s Deadly Invasion: The Killer Bee Nightmare; and, perhaps most famously, My Girl (1991). I could go on and on. What makes this killer bee telefilm, creatively titled Killer Bees, so special, is its cast. Forget Kate Jackson and Lillian Gish, a memorable pairing in Thin Ice (1981). Here we have Kate Jackson and Gloria Swanson.

It opens with a pushy salesman pulling up to a filling station. The attendant (John Getz of Blood Simple) warns him not to trespass onto the neighboring Van Bohlen Winery property, but he does so anyway, and is summarily killed by bees. Forgive me, I’m being flippant. Technically, a swarm follows him into his car (it would’ve been funny if they had voice boxes like Richard Romanus in Night Terror), resulting in a crash and an enormous explosion. “I told him. I told the darn fool,” the gas station attendant mutters. Must happen all the time.

The Secret Night Caller: Psst—Mike Brady’s a Perv!

By Cranky Lesbian

On April 11, 2022

In TV Movies

Robert Reed looks sinister in his car in an image from The Secret Night Caller. — Robert Reed plays a family man with a shameful compulsion.

The Secret Night Caller begins atmospherically enough. A woman walks home alone at night, carrying a grocery bag. She picks up the pace when passing a creepy man who smiles at her and then seems to follow her into the building. Inside her apartment, she locks the door with a sigh of relief—and, seconds later, the phone rings.

Before there was Scream‘s iconic opening scene, in which a mystery caller terrorizes Drew Barrymore’s character, there was this, in a 1975 made-for-TV movie. The woman picks up the receiver and is greeted by that scourge of the pre-caller ID era, the obscene caller. We only hear her side of the conversation: “Hello? Oh, yes, this is Charlotte, who’s this? Well, I’m fine, thank you, but who’s this? I’m sorry, could you speak louder? I can’t hear you.”

Arlene Golonka and Robert Reed in scenes from *The Secret Night Caller*.

Charlotte (Arlene Golonka, of The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D.) grows dismayed, then hysterical. “What?! What did you say?! Hey! Hey, who is this? Who are you? No, stop that! Don’t talk like that! Oh, stop it, stop it!” she shrieks, dropping the phone. That’s how my wife typically reacts to fundraising calls from her alma mater, so it didn’t alarm me too much, but Charlotte’s fright is meant to be contagious.

Valerie Harper Demonstrates the Perils of Allowing Women to Drive in Night Terror

By Cranky Lesbian

On January 2, 2022

In TV Movies

“Mare, I think I saw something nasty in the woodshed…”

Fans of Arrested Development will be familiar with J. Walter Weatherman, a character used to scare the crap out of children while teaching them valuable lessons (such as “And that’s why you always leave a note”). In the 1977 TV movie Night Terror (also known as Night Drive), Valerie Harper is our J. Walter Weatherman. The lesson? “And that’s why you always check your fuel gauge.”

Not once but twice does Harper’s Carol Turner, a doting wife and mother of two young children, neglect to keep her tank filled, and for that she nearly pays with her life. However, I would argue that her husband, Walter (Michael Tolan), is the real jinx who brought this curse upon her the second he smugly told her sister Vera (Beatrice Manley), “Your sister survives because I’m organized.”

Look what the homosexuals have done to me!

Killer Bees (1974): Gloria Swanson is Big, It’s the Killer Bees That Got Small

The Secret Night Caller: Psst—Mike Brady’s a Perv!

Valerie Harper Demonstrates the Perils of Allowing Women to Drive in Night Terror