Two young women in present-day Los Angeles are menaced by syndicate hit-men after one of their couriers, a guy on the take, apparently hid a package or a safe-deposit box key in the ladies' apartment. Surprisingly engrossing TV-movie with a taut direction by Jean (Jeannot) Szwarc, solid cinematography by television mainstay Howard Schwartz, and colorful performances by Martin Balsam as a detective, Agnes Moorehead as a physical therapist and Chuck Connors as the head bruiser for the mob. Only Donna Mills disappoints in the central role (she's blandly incredulous throughout, with a whiny voice). Teleplay by Cliff Gould shamelessly apes "Wait Until Dark" in its final stretch, however the plot is satisfyingly worked through. Schwartz's work won him the Emmy, most likely for his handling of an escape sequence by car in an underground parking lot; art director William L. Campbell was also Emmy-nominated.
11 Reviews
A Good Crime-Drama from the Early 70's
Uriah4330 March 2013
The mob is after something and due to an unfortunate set of circumstances they believe that a school teacher by the name of "Lindy Daniels" (Donna Mills) may have it. And they will stop at nothing to get what they are after. In one specific scene Lindy Daniels is seriously injured trying to get away and this makes her plight even more difficult for her in the days ahead. Now, since I don't want to spoil this movie by giving out too many details, I will just say that this is a "made for television" film that has a couple of tense moments and Donna Mills looks as beautiful as always. Martin Balsam also gives a decent performance as a retired policeman-turned-private investigator named "Captain Caleb Sark". On the other hand, I was underwhelmed by the one-dimensional performance of Chuck Connors who played the hit man "Brian DiPaulo" and I suspect that some of this film was left on the cutting room floor. Be that as it may, this film doesn't have any graphic violence, sex or profanity that one would find in a typical movie today and because of that it may appear tame to some. In any case, it's worth a look for anyone who is interested in a good crime-drama from the early 70's.
ABC movie of the week
christopher-underwood22 April 2014
This is a 1972 ABC movie of the week and whilst not startlingly original is fairly diverting. Most interesting for the excellent performance of Eddie Egan as an ex-cop, when, of course, he was the ex-cop that inspired The French Connection, in which he also had a small part. Similarly convincing is the ever menacing Chuck Connors as chief bad man who spends the whole film trying to get at the heroine, played by Donna MIlls. Donna is excellent here in a difficult role, mostly performed in a wheelchair, and yes we do get a sequence of her travelling up one of those sinister little one man internal lifts. She would later perform equally effectively with Clint Eastwood in Play Misty For Me.
"If I Had It, I'd Give It To You!"...
azathothpwiggins19 August 2018
In NIGHT OF TERROR, Linda Daniel (Donna Mills) and her friend Celeste (Catherine Burns) are giving their usual, children's art class in Linda's apartment. Outside her door, a scuffle draws Linda's attention, causing her to witness a man being brutalized and killed in the hallway for something he supposedly has.
Believing she's been given whatever it is, a group of mob-types, led by Brian Dipaulo (Chuck Connors), begin following and terrorizing Linda and Celeste. These guys mean business! While fleeing from Dipaulo, the women are involved in a tragic automobile accident, resulting in Linda's lengthy hospitalization. With Celeste gone, and Linda's legs out of commission, she fears she'll have to face the relentless, maniacal Dipaulo on her own.
Enter Captain Caleb Sark (Martin Balsam), who agrees to help Linda. Taken to an undisclosed location, Linda and Sark hunker down. Meanwhile, Dipaulo and his fellow thugs close in.
Tense and perfectly-paced, this made-for-TV suspense thriller is a great example of the care put into these 1970's productions. Mills and Balsam are fantastic, as is Connors in his eeevil role.
EXTRA CREDIT FOR: Agnes Moorehead as Linda's strict physical therapist, Bronsky. Highly recommended...
Believing she's been given whatever it is, a group of mob-types, led by Brian Dipaulo (Chuck Connors), begin following and terrorizing Linda and Celeste. These guys mean business! While fleeing from Dipaulo, the women are involved in a tragic automobile accident, resulting in Linda's lengthy hospitalization. With Celeste gone, and Linda's legs out of commission, she fears she'll have to face the relentless, maniacal Dipaulo on her own.
Enter Captain Caleb Sark (Martin Balsam), who agrees to help Linda. Taken to an undisclosed location, Linda and Sark hunker down. Meanwhile, Dipaulo and his fellow thugs close in.
Tense and perfectly-paced, this made-for-TV suspense thriller is a great example of the care put into these 1970's productions. Mills and Balsam are fantastic, as is Connors in his eeevil role.
EXTRA CREDIT FOR: Agnes Moorehead as Linda's strict physical therapist, Bronsky. Highly recommended...
Oh stop it
jgkelley-4879724 September 2020
Not too bad
Delrvich31 May 2020
Night of Terror: Not what you'd expect
Platypuschow29 September 2018
Look at that cover image, doesn't that look like an 80's horror movie?
Well, this isn't 80's and it isn't a horror either.
Night of Terror tells the story of a woman forced into hiding after a mysterious man comes after her and those she loves hunting for something he believes she has.
It was an ABC movie of the month so for those unfamiliar with what that means it was essentially a made for television Lifetime like movie.
So minimal budget, faces you recognise but can't name and a plot so generic you couldn't pick the script out of a lineup of other similiar films.
Unoriginal tripe with little going for it.
The Good:
Martin Balsam
The Bad:
Seen it all before
Catherine Burns
Things I Learnt From This Movie:
Sometimes he splurges
Night of Terror tells the story of a woman forced into hiding after a mysterious man comes after her and those she loves hunting for something he believes she has.
It was an ABC movie of the month so for those unfamiliar with what that means it was essentially a made for television Lifetime like movie.
So minimal budget, faces you recognise but can't name and a plot so generic you couldn't pick the script out of a lineup of other similiar films.
Unoriginal tripe with little going for it.
The Good:
Martin Balsam
The Bad:
Seen it all before
Catherine Burns
Things I Learnt From This Movie:
Sometimes he splurges
Donna Mills just can't catch a break.
mark.waltz8 December 2020
Warning: Spoilers
No wonder she went to play one of primetime's most memorable seductresses. She started off as a troubled former nun on the daytime soap opera "Love is a Many Splendored Thing", was stalked by the psychotic Jessica Walter the previous year in "Play Misty For Me" and here, is the subject of a mob hunt after being brutally paralyzed in a nasty car accident. If mobster Chuck Conners doesn't get her, physical therapist Agnes Moorehead just might with her non-stop exercising.
For a woman suffering from cancer, Moorehead doesn't show that here, and in spite of her age is able to maneuver Mills from a gurney into her wheelchair. It's the feisty Agnes audiences had known and loved since her first movies in the 1940's, and in spite of limited time on-screen is truly commanding.
Young Catherine Burns plays her fellow school teaching roommate, witnessing a mob hit on one of their own, violently pushed over a banister with a very long drop where the audience is fortunately spared the thud.
Conners and his crony's stalk Mills and Burns, beating Burns up and later driving her into a psychotic tizzy that results in one death and Mills without the use of her legs. Detective Martin Balsam is assigned to protect her and takes her to his rustic house with ocean view and thanks to training from Moorehead, sets out to make Mills better and find out more information to bring these nasty killers to justice.
Unlike other television movie thrillers of this kind, this fortunately has a light-hearted atmosphere through much of it, particularly with Balsam and Mills' interactions. Of course, the danger of the mob never completely leaves Mills' mind, and it's obvious like the end of "Play Misty For Me" that they will locate her.
While this movie is certainly suspenseful, there are elements of it throughout that are completely unbelievable and thus it becomes aggravating at times. The cast of veteran actors and newcomers is somewhat starry even though it's not a big ensemble. fortunately, films of this type made for TV at the time without commercials come in at just above 70 minutes so they are very easy to get through.
For a woman suffering from cancer, Moorehead doesn't show that here, and in spite of her age is able to maneuver Mills from a gurney into her wheelchair. It's the feisty Agnes audiences had known and loved since her first movies in the 1940's, and in spite of limited time on-screen is truly commanding.
Young Catherine Burns plays her fellow school teaching roommate, witnessing a mob hit on one of their own, violently pushed over a banister with a very long drop where the audience is fortunately spared the thud.
Conners and his crony's stalk Mills and Burns, beating Burns up and later driving her into a psychotic tizzy that results in one death and Mills without the use of her legs. Detective Martin Balsam is assigned to protect her and takes her to his rustic house with ocean view and thanks to training from Moorehead, sets out to make Mills better and find out more information to bring these nasty killers to justice.
Unlike other television movie thrillers of this kind, this fortunately has a light-hearted atmosphere through much of it, particularly with Balsam and Mills' interactions. Of course, the danger of the mob never completely leaves Mills' mind, and it's obvious like the end of "Play Misty For Me" that they will locate her.
While this movie is certainly suspenseful, there are elements of it throughout that are completely unbelievable and thus it becomes aggravating at times. The cast of veteran actors and newcomers is somewhat starry even though it's not a big ensemble. fortunately, films of this type made for TV at the time without commercials come in at just above 70 minutes so they are very easy to get through.
My wife and I thought that the main character in this one was rather annoying and the film had LOTS of plot holes.
planktonrules6 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
While the other reviews for this made for TV are very good, my wife and I just didn't see it at all. We both felt that the main character was incredibly annoying, there were many plot holes and the baddies were very inconsistent. It's a shame, as the story could have been a whole lot better.
When the film begins, several thugs are confronting some guy in a hallway. In the process, the end up killing him...just outside the room where two ladies are. The ladies truthfully tell the cops they had no idea what occurred but not only do the cops doubt this but the killers!
So far, it's an interesting premise. But when one of the ladies is found beaten very badly and their place torn to pieces, the film starts to degenerate into clichés and plot elements that simply don't make a lot of sense. When the injured lady gets out of the hospital, she and the other woman, Linda (Donna Mills), are in their car...and the beaten lady sees her attacker. She responds by driving like a maniac through the parking garage--screaming all the while. The car eventually hits something and it flips--killing the hysterical driver and leaving Linda paralyzed! Talk about overdoing a scene!! Sure, she was scared but this whole sequence was utterly ridiculous.
When Linda awakens in the hospital, she's in a strange mood. Instead of trying to get better, she's very whiny and starts yelling at the cops. Why? I have no idea. It also later turns out she's paralyzed and instead of taking her physical therapy seriously, she whines that it is 'too hard'! She whines so much that when the leader of the killers (Chuck Connors) tries to kill her in the hospital, you are rooting for him to succeed.
As a result of this hospital attack, the cops arrange for a retired police Captain (Martin Balsam) to take Linda to a hidden location and guard her. During this time, Linda whines a lot more and then reveals that she told her landlady where she was going to hide!! Huh?! Not surprisingly, the killer (always on his own after the first scene--which is odd because if he still had his henchmen the film would have ended VERY differently) soon is spotted nearby and what does the retired cop do? Yup...he leaves her home alone!! Duh. Soon the baddie arrives and like Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark", she is chased through the home by the killer--but instead of her being blind she's a paraplegic and has to grope her way around the place. And, when she gets on the phone to call for help, the phone goes dead the second she begins to tell them where she is!!! Will he succeed in killing her or what? And, will anyone care?!
Again and again, the evil killers DON'T kill people when they should have considering they didn't want any loose ends. Why leave victims to identify them? And, if you are being chased by evil murderers why do you whine and do so little to try to help yourself during most of the film? The bottom line is that the basic idea was sound but the characters were one-dimensional and annoying. The made for TV movie just should have been a lot better.
When the film begins, several thugs are confronting some guy in a hallway. In the process, the end up killing him...just outside the room where two ladies are. The ladies truthfully tell the cops they had no idea what occurred but not only do the cops doubt this but the killers!
So far, it's an interesting premise. But when one of the ladies is found beaten very badly and their place torn to pieces, the film starts to degenerate into clichés and plot elements that simply don't make a lot of sense. When the injured lady gets out of the hospital, she and the other woman, Linda (Donna Mills), are in their car...and the beaten lady sees her attacker. She responds by driving like a maniac through the parking garage--screaming all the while. The car eventually hits something and it flips--killing the hysterical driver and leaving Linda paralyzed! Talk about overdoing a scene!! Sure, she was scared but this whole sequence was utterly ridiculous.
When Linda awakens in the hospital, she's in a strange mood. Instead of trying to get better, she's very whiny and starts yelling at the cops. Why? I have no idea. It also later turns out she's paralyzed and instead of taking her physical therapy seriously, she whines that it is 'too hard'! She whines so much that when the leader of the killers (Chuck Connors) tries to kill her in the hospital, you are rooting for him to succeed.
As a result of this hospital attack, the cops arrange for a retired police Captain (Martin Balsam) to take Linda to a hidden location and guard her. During this time, Linda whines a lot more and then reveals that she told her landlady where she was going to hide!! Huh?! Not surprisingly, the killer (always on his own after the first scene--which is odd because if he still had his henchmen the film would have ended VERY differently) soon is spotted nearby and what does the retired cop do? Yup...he leaves her home alone!! Duh. Soon the baddie arrives and like Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark", she is chased through the home by the killer--but instead of her being blind she's a paraplegic and has to grope her way around the place. And, when she gets on the phone to call for help, the phone goes dead the second she begins to tell them where she is!!! Will he succeed in killing her or what? And, will anyone care?!
Again and again, the evil killers DON'T kill people when they should have considering they didn't want any loose ends. Why leave victims to identify them? And, if you are being chased by evil murderers why do you whine and do so little to try to help yourself during most of the film? The bottom line is that the basic idea was sound but the characters were one-dimensional and annoying. The made for TV movie just should have been a lot better.
It's Blah!
Rainey-Dawn9 December 2019
See it.
bigk35811 September 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Good movie from the early 70's..An ABC "movie of the week". I watched this in reruns several times. A good Donna MIlls flick. Without spoiling the story, Donna Mills plays a school teacher who;s friend and roommate has something that a drug dealer wants. Donna Mills and her roommate get in a car crash, the friend gets killed and Donna Mills character is rendered a paraplegic who is stalked by this killer (Chuck Conners)..The rest of the movie is a cat-and-mouse series of sequences whereas Donna Mills is staying in this police officers large home alone, when this killer finds her and chases her around the house until the cavalry finally arrives.... A good movie for its time.
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