As Oregon celebrates it’s 158th birthday Cinema Runner takes a look at 5 made-for-TV movies filmed in the Pacific Wonderland.
From the earliest days of silent films with The Fisherman’s Bride to beloved 80’s classics like Goonies and on to more modern offerings like Green Rom, Oregon has long been a favorite filming location for filmmakers. Even TV shows have gotten in on the action with shows like Leverage, Portlandia and Grimm all calling Oregon home. This makes sense of course as Oregon offers a wide variety of beautiful landscapes that serve as a perfect backdrop to almost anything.
We all know about these larger properties though. Everyone knows Goonies is set in Astoria and Portlandia takes place in Portland. But there’s been a lot of smaller entries that haven’t stuck with us in quite the same way and that’s too bad. I’m going to do my best to shine some light on some of those lesser known films, specifically focusing on made-for-TV movies.
A lot of made-for-TV movies have actually been filmed in Oregon over the years and they’ve varied greatly in quality. I have chosen five of my personal favorites. I’m not saying they’re the best five, I’m not even say they’re all good, but they are all very interesting and for that reason alone they are most certainly worth your time.
Isn’t It Shocking? – 1973 – Dir. John Badham
Sometimes made-for-TV movies are incredibly bizarre and cannot be accurately described. That’s sort of how I feel about John Badham’s Isn’t It Shocking?, an ABC Movie of the Week entry from 1973. The always wonderful Alan Alda stars as Dan Barnes, the police chief of Mount Angel, a small town in Oregon. It’s a very sleepy town in which not much happens and most of the population is older. At one point they joke that they women in the town have never been younger than 47.
A bit of excitement hits the town as a handful of people die from apparent heart attacks. Barnes notices something strange with each death, however. The victims, who are found in their beds, appear to be sleeping nude or mostly nude, which is odd because they’re all elderly and old people don’t sleep in the nude. With the help of his secretary (I guess, it’s never quite clear what her role with the police force is) Blanche (Louisse Lasser), Barnes begins to investigate further into the deaths and discovers the town as a kill on the loose.
I have no idea what time of movie Isn’t It Shocking? is or is trying to be. It’s not really a slasher, but it certainly has some slasher elements. There’s also a big murder-mystery element at play and it has a bit of a comedic vibe at time but a lot of the humor is random and misplaced. It probably would have made for a great episode of Matlock.
What I do know is that the film is oddly fascinating. It’s not good but it will absolutely keep you engaged. The performances are so weird, especially when you consider the cast. Alda is no slouch, Lasser has had a great career and even Ruth Gordon makes an appearance as a town crazy. But all of their performances are kind of nuts. One can only imagine the type of direction Badham was giving. Alda is especially worth a watch. At one moment he’ll be so nonchalant and not really seem to care what’s going on and the next minute he’ll be laughing like a maniac. It’s something else, I’ll tell you.
Isn’t It Shocking? is a strange slice of made-for-TV goodness that one has to see to truly believe.
Flood! – 1976 – Dir. Earl Bellamy
In the 70’s there was one man leading the disaster movie front – Irwin Allen. He first got started in the subgenre by producing the theatrical releases of The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno. Shortly after those films he moved to the small screen to produce a number of disaster flicks for Warner Bros. starting with Flood! in 1976.
Flood! follows the same basic formula that most of Allen’s produced disaster movies followed. A devastating disaster is about to hit an unsuspecting town largely due to ignorance of man and a star-studded cast is going to do their best to prevent it. In this case our town is Brownsville, Oregon which after experiencing weeks of heavy rainfall has a dam that is close to spilling over and flooding the town. The town mayor, John Cutler (Richard Basehart), is reluctant to open the flood gates for fear that it will negatively impact the town’s fishing season which in turn would hurt the town’s profits.
Joining Basehart is a cast of heavy hitters like Robert Culp, Martin Milner, Barbara Hershey, Cameron Mitchell and Roddy McDowall. This was a pretty standard move on Allen productions. The cast was always jam-packed with actors that maybe aren’t the biggest names but they’re all recognizable faces and in a way it makes it easier for the audience to relate with these characters because they already feel like they know them.
Flood! does a solid job building tension. You know that dam is going to either burst or overflow at any moment, it’s just a race against time. The downside is you don’t actually get much of the disaster. A lot of time is spent leading up to it and a good chunk of time is dealt dealing with the aftermath but the flood damage actually happens pretty quickly. When I’m watching a disaster movie I want to spend more time watching the carnage unfold.
Ultimately Flood! doesn’t give me everything I want, but it is still a fun suspenseful ride with a good cast of characters.
Quarterback Princess – 1983- Dir. Noel Black
Quarterback Princess is maybe the most interesting film on this list, particularly because it’s so different from the rest. Every other film I’ve selected is sort of genre-esque whereas Quarterback Princess is more afterschool special.
Helen Hunt stars as Tami Maida a high schooler that just moved to a new town. The first thing Tami wants to do is try out for her school’s football team but she gets a lot of pushback due to the fact that she’s a girl. Tami won’t be deterred and sets out to prove everybody wrong.
This is actually a factual story. Tami Maida was a real-life girl who moved to Oregon during her junior year of high school and ended up quarterbacking the varsity football team. She’s the first girl ever to play quarterback and be homecoming queen at the same time.
Quarterback Princess is a really fun, uplifting movie. It’s great to see a young Hunt in one of her first (maybe her first?) starring roles and it’s easy to see why she went on to star status. Hunt’s Tami is easy to get behind and root for as she brings down sexism in a small Oregon town. I would not only recommend this movie but this feels like a movie they should show in schools today because the message is just as important as ever.
The Haunting of Sarah Hardy – 1989 – Dir. Jerry London
When I decided to put together a list of made-for-TV movies The Haunting of Sarah Hardy is exactly the type of made-for-TV movie I had hoped to include. Why? Because this is the type of made-for-TV movie from the late 80’s-early 90’s that my memory is littered with.
This one aired on the USA network where I’d guess a dozen or so of the small screen movies I best remember aired. It’s a mild horror film about Sarah Hardy (Sela Ward), a woman who can’t seem to escape the strange death of both her parents at a young age. This is too bad because other than she seems to have it made, living in a beautifully mansion.
Flash forward to adult Sarah and things finally seem to be getting back on track. She gets married and moves back into the mansion she grew up in as a child. Unfortunately once she’s back home visions of her mother begin to return. Is there a supernatural element at play or is someone playing a trick on poor Sarah?
Tbis is such a TV movie. It was directed by Jerry London, who has worked almost exclusively in TV, and stars a cast made up of primarily TV actors including prolific soap star Roscoe Born. This films like something you could see on Lifetime. It’s not scary at all but there are some moments that are modestly ominous.
For those of you that have ever lived in or spent much time in Oregon you’ll find this to be geographically hilarious. The primary location of the film is the historic Pittock Mansion located in the West Hills of Portland. From this location you get beautiful view overlooking the entire city. In the film, however, Sarah darts out of the front door and after a short run ends up at the ocean. In real life it takes about a 2-hour drive to reach the coast from Portland. This isn’t a big deal as far as the film goes but it is hilarious.
The Haunting of Sarah Hardy isn’t great but it gets the job done. If you grew up watching and have an appreciation for made-for-TV movies from the 90’s this will hit your nostalgia right on the spot. Oh and it’s worth mentioning that it co-stars Morgan Fairchild.
Child of Darkness, Child of Light – 1991 – Dir. Marina Sargenti
If you want to have a double feature with any of these 5 movies I absolutely suggest watching The Haunting of Sarah Hardy back-to-back with Child of Darkness, Child of Light. In terms of plot they’re not similar at all but they’re both made-for-TV movies from the same era and as a result have a very similar feel and look.
Based on a James Patterson novel, Child of Darkness, Child of Light is the story of two virgin pregnancies that occur at the same time. A catholic priest sets out to investigate both pregnancies assuming the worst – one may be giving birth to the son of God while the other may be preparing to deliver the anti-Christ. This priest is desperately trying to prevent the end of days.
This is very much good vs evil and science vs religion. The priest at the center of it all just wants to prevent an all-out war between the sons of God and the Devil that would surely destroy along of mankind. At the same time he and the other religious figures most deal with the medical world failing to believe them. The church thinks the pregnancies are the work of higher beings we don’t understand while medical doctors think there’s a logical explanation that is just being missed.
Child of Darkness, Child of Light is my least favorite of the 5 movies on this list. It’s a slower, more difficult watch. Which is not to say it’s bad but it’s not super engaging. Still it’s worth a watch especially when paired with The Haunting of Sarah Hardy.
