In 1972, ABC aired a “Movie of the Week” about a newspaper reporter who could best be described now as the Woodward and Bernstein of the supernatural set, and in doing so, ABC gave birth to one of fiction’s most memorable characters: Carl Kolchak in The Night Stalker. The movie was based on an unpublished novel by Jeff Rice called “The Kolchak Papers” – which in manuscript form bounced around Hollywood for a time – but when legendary writer Richard Matheson was put on the job as screenwriter, and Dan “ Dark Shadows” Curtis was brought on to produce, the result was a “perfect storm” of talent that was topped off with the casting of Darren McGavin as investigative journalist Carl Kolchak. Although The Night Stalker ended it's run in the summer of 74, it is still missed these many years later. When the first Kolchak movie 'The Night Stalker' scored the highest rating for a Television movie ever in 1972, at its inception, it was a clear notion that investigating the supernatural was a winner. The Night Stalker 1972 Rapidshare Files. Supernatural Terza Stagione Download Ita. OLV Mediterranean Foods, 123 Name Street, Chicago, IL 54321. 1 Applies to shipping within Georgia. This made-for-TV movie was not only an amazing mash-up, but it also garnered the highest ratings of any TV movie at that time. Now, almost five decades have passed since it’s original airing, and The Night Stalker is still as fresh and pertinent as it was back in the 70s; so let us journey back and re-visit a seminal moment in television history. The movie opens with a weary Carl Kolchak () listening to a replay of his dictated notes about a series of murders that took place in Las Vegas, a story he covered but which was subsequently quashed by the authorities. This narrative device would carry on throughout this movie and would become the signature element of the sequel and the series it spawned. The character of Kolchak is a perfect avatar for an audience that is entering the world of the supernatural for the first time; he is a world weary cynic, having been fired from ten papers across the country due to his unbridled desire for the truth, and he certainly doesn’t believe in ghosts and ghoulies or things that go bump in the night. Dum maro dum song. When Kolchak is first assigned the case of a murdered girl at the Gold Dust Saloon, by his ever beleaguered editor Anthony “Tony” Vincenzo (), he is not happy about the assignment, referring to it as, “A two-day old, third-rate murder,” but when the body count continues to climb, he becomes very interested, as a serial killer story could be his ticket back to the big leagues of journalism. Carl Kolchak, professional cynic and hunter of the truth. The Night Stalker came about in a period of time when the public was starting to lose its trust in people of authority; the Vietnam War was dragging endlessly on, and Nixon’s Watergate scandal was just around the corner, thus having a Don Quixote-like reporter pushing at the “windmills” of government would have certainly struck a nerve in audiences of 1972. Much of this movie’s short 75 minute running time deals with Kolchak butting heads with authority, in the form of Sheriff Butcher (), Police Chief Masterson () and District Attorney Paine (), who block every attempt Kolchak makes in publishing reports of a man murdering young women and draining them of blood. Now at first, Kolchak is a firm believer that “This nut thinks he’s a vampire!” but even the idea of a crazed serial killer is bad for tourism, so his stories are repeatedly suppressed. That the governmental authorities held such power over the press is almost as chilling as the idea of a vampire running around Las Vegas, but even more chilling when you consider the fact that vampires aren’t real and corrupt governments are very real, and far more dangerous.
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