The Night Strangler (1973) (TV)

Director:

Dan Curtis

Writers:

Richard Matheson (written by)
Jeffrey Grant Rice (characters)

Release Date:

16 January 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Horror | Mystery

Plot:

A reporter hunts down a 100-year old alchemist who is killing women for their blood.

Plot Keywords:

Reporter | Blood | Murder | City | Underground

Cast

Darren McGavin	...	Carl Kolchak
Jo Ann Pflug	...	Louise Harper
Simon Oakland	...	Tony Vincenzo
Scott Brady	...	Capt. Schubert
Wally Cox	...	Mr. Berry
Margaret Hamilton	...	Prof. Crabwell
John Carradine	...	Llewellyn Crossbinder
Al Lewis	...	Tramp
Nina Wayne	...	Charisma Beauty
Virginia Peters	...	Wilma Krankheimer
Kate Murtagh	...	Janie Watkins
Ivor Francis	...	Dr. Webb
Diane Shalet	...	Joyce Gabriel
Anne Randall	...	Policewoman Sheila
Francoise Birnheim	...	Restaurant Woman

Also Known As:

The Time Killer (USA) (working title)

Runtime:

74 min | USA:90 min (video version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Not Rated (DVD) | USA:TV-PG | Iceland:16 | UK:12 (1998 video re-issue) | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Bradbury Building - 304 S. Broadway, Downtown, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

ABC Circle Films

Trivia:

At the end of the film Kolchak is telling Vincenzo and Janie Watkins (now both also out of work thanks to him) that he's going to drive them to New York City and that they'll love New York. Director Dan Curtis and screenwriter Richard Matheson had actually planned to do a third Kolchak movie set in NYC. In New York, Kolchak was going to discover that Janos Skorzeny - the vampire from the first film - was not only not dead, but active again! This film was going to complete a planned trilogy of Kolchak movies, entitled The Trilogy of Terror.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Researcher Wally Cox traces the Night Strangler all the way back to the 1870s. All of the old news paper headlines report a murder in "Pioneer Square". This name wasn't adopted until 1970 to replace the original name of the neighborhood, "Skid Row".

Quotes:

Tony Vincenzo: Go to Journalism School, my father said. It's a good, sound, down-to-earth profession.
Carl Kolchak: Don't you want to hear this?
Tony Vincenzo: What I want to do is raise tulips for a living but there's not enough demand.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Svengoolie: The Night Strangler" (1996)

Superior sequel.

Relocated to Seattle, reporter Kolchak stumbles on yet another series of murders, a series which seems to be repeated every twenty-one years. Of the two movies, `The Night Strangler' has the slight edge. This is possibly down to its location, Seattle. Very unfamiliar to me, it adds certain freshness to the story, while the underground ‘old' Seattle is a fantastic location, macabre and memorable; it sticks in my mind long after watching the movie. The candle lit, cob-webbed corpses are perhaps one of the most vivid images in American genre television.

Also of note is Richard Anderson's villain, a crazed, immortality seeking Doctor, he is far more impressive than the original's vampire. A more assured script (which is genuinely funny in places), plus some enjoyable cameo's (Carradine, Hamilton), help make this a rare sequel which is better than the original.

Sadly, plans for a third movie were abandoned and instead a short-lived, inferior television series (without Matheson's involvement) resulted. A patchy effort, despite McGavin's best efforts it never attained the quality of the two movies.