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Bridget Hanley, who was a series regular on Here Come the Brides and later Harper Valley P.T.A., has died. She was 80.

The Edmonds Beacon, a local paper in Washington state, said she died Wednesday of Alzheimer’s disease at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, CA. The paper cited a tweet from L.A.’s Theatre West that announced her death:

With heavy hearts, Theatre West bids farewell to longtime member Bridget Hanley.

She is pictured here with Jim Beaver from “The Lion in Winter” in 2006, one of our most acclaimed productions.

Tw extends its condolences to Bridget’s family and friends. pic.twitter.com/3iszFbyQI9

— Theatre West (@TheatreWest) December 17, 2021

Born on February 3, 1941, in Seattle and began her screen career guesting on such popular mid’-1960s series as Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie and Gidget before landing her first regular gig on Here Come the Brides. The...

Hello, everyone! As we begin to look forward to a new month, we have one last round of home media releases coming our way to finish out the last few days of June first. Prospect, one of this writer’s favorite indie sci-fi films of the last few years, is getting the 4K treatment from Vinegar Syndrome and Gunpowder & Sky, and Scream Factory has put together a Limited Edition Steelbook for Battle Beyond the Stars. Other Blu-ray and DVD releases for June 29th include Night Terror (Aka Night Drive), Scare Us, and Night Things.

Battle Beyond the Stars: Limited Edition Steelbook

Seven mercenaries are recruited from throughout the galaxy to save a peaceful planet from the threat of an evil tyrant bent on dominating the entire universe. Among them are a lizard-like humanoid, a space cowboy, a female warrior and a brooding killer-for-hire.

Bonus Content:

2K Scan of the...

Anyone familiar with this column knows my deep-rooted affection for Ms. Kate Jackson; I espoused her many virtues when I covered Satan’s School for Girls (you can ponder my musings here), and I promise (warn?) you I will do so again as I discuss the couple-in-a-house-is-met-with-animosity-from-a-possible-ghost telefilm, Death at Love House (1976), aka How Much Is That Dead Actress In the Window?

Originally broadcast as The ABC Friday Night Movie on Friday, September 3rd, Love House was up against The CBS Friday Night Movies and NBC trotted out The Rockford Files/Quincy M.E. for folks like mine. So who won out? We all did! I loved Rockford and Quincy. Okay, CBS probably lost. But if you were looking for some charming stars doing charming things in a charming manor with a hint of danger, look no further than ABC.

Let’s open up our battered faux TV Guide and see...

Boy howdy, people were sure digging vampires by the end of the ‘70s, weren’t they? Back in vogue, 1979 alone brought Frank Langella as a very sensuous Dracula, George Hamilton with a humorous take in Love at First Bite, Werner Herzog’s retelling of Nosferatu, and Tobe Hooper’s bone-chilling Stephen King miniseries adaptation, Salem’s Lot. There was another small screen vamp to appear that year no one talks about however and that’s ABC’s Vampire, a generically branded thriller that works due to some heavy Richard Lynch lifting as the titular doomed creature.

Originally broadcast on October 7th as The ABC Sunday Night Movie, Vampire had to contend with Alice/The Jeffersons and Trapper John, M.D. on CBS, and NBC’s The Big Event, their dumping ground for specials and TV flicks. And while it doesn’t hold a cross to any of the above entries,...

The dusty and evil 18-wheeler of Duel (1971) cast a large and ominous shadow across the TV landscape; some kid named Spielberg showed that the medium could come across as cinematic with even the simplest of stories: truck chases guy in car. Six years later the Valerie Harper vehicle Night Terror (1977) pulled up to a similar station; and while it’s no Duel, it is an effective thriller that manages to reach its destination before running out of gas.

Originally broadcast on February 7th, Night Terror was part of the NBC Monday Night at the Movies, and was roundly trounced by The ABC Monday Night Movie (and you can forget about The Sonny and Cher Show on CBS); no matter, those who stuck by the Peacock were treated to a suspense-filled show with Harper put through the wringer.

Flip open your faux TV Guide for more info:

Night Terror

A woman...

By Lee Pfeiffer 

Scorpion has released the complete version of the 3-part 1978 mini series "The Dain Curse" as a double DVD set. The show has a checkered history in terms of home video. A truncated version was available for a while on VHS, then Image released the full three episodes on DVD. Now Scorpion has done the same and the quality of the set is very good, capturing the relatively rich production values of the series. Those of us of a certain age can remember when the major networks put a great deal of time, talent and financial resources into mini-series. In the 1970s and 1980s, many of these shows constituted "must-see" TV. In an age in which the average household didn't have video recorders, some shows were so special that people altered their lifestyles to ensure they could catch each episode. Today, those days seem long gone, with network...

The Amazing Spider-Man (1977) Director: E.W. Swackhamer Stars: Nicholas Hammond, David White, Lisa Eilbacher When white people begin committing robberies and other crimes, it's obvious that they're simply under mind control and Spider-Man needs to find the true criminal responsible. Long before there was Andrew Garfield, way past Tobey McCryFace Maguire, and even pre-dating the animated 90s cartoon. there was 1977's The Amazing Spider-man. This hour and a half movie...

If you’ve listened to the newest Foycast, then you’ve already heard me discuss in detail the 1981 obscurity Longshot - the world’s only foosball movie. Odds are you’ll never see this film, but in this B-Sides you can experience the magic of its title song and dramatic final shot.

In Foycast Xiii: Marching into Madness, I dissected Longshot in more detail than probably anyone has in over 30 years. For those that haven’t listened, what we’re talking about here is a coming-of-age underdog sports flick based around the game of foosball. Yes, foosball. Someone actually made a foosball movie.

Longshot was directed by E.W. Swackhamer and starred past-his-prime teen idol Leif Garrett as a California dude who wanted to go to Europe with his best friend to become soccer players because they knew nobody in America gave a damn about soccer in 1981. But before they can go become Euro soccer sensations,...