May 27, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode, film historian Amanda Reyes and I talk about The Devil and Miss Sarah, an obscure made-for-tv Western with horror elements.
You can watch the movie here: https://archive.org/details/devil-and-miss-sarah-1975-gene-barry
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You can watch the movie here: https://archive.org/details/devil-and-miss-sarah-1975-gene-barry
Follow Amanda Reyes
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/madefortvmayhem/
X: https://x.com/madefortvmayhem
Bluesky: @madefortvmayhem.bsky.social
Made for TV Mayhem Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4bxcwZ5EXrtyWbR2BfcA6A?si=2b6c5cccb1ea4451
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tumbleweedsandtvcowboys/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western
film and TV podcast. My name is Hunter. This week
we're talking about a made for TV movie called The
Devil and Miss Sarah. Joining me in the discussion is
film history and Amanda Reyes. Amanda is a lot of
work in physical media special features, and she's the host
of a podcast that covers made for TV movies called
Made for TV Mayhem. She's incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about
(00:39):
made for TV movies and I'm so glad that she
was able to join me to talk about this obscure
but pretty interesting movie. Here's our conversation on The Devil
and Miss Sarah. Amanda, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I'm excited to talk about this movie that this is
kind of a new TV movie to me, so it's exciting.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. And for listeners
who may not be familiar with you, can you tell
us about yourself and your work in physical media releases
and your book and really anything else you want to mention.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Sure, I guess the way I introduce myself is like,
I'm a film historian and an academic, and I concentrate
on made for TV movies and horror movies in general.
I have a book called Are You in the House Alone?
A TV Movie Compendia of nineteen sixty four to nineteen
ninety nine, which came out in twenty seventeen, which is
kind of a reference guide more than anything, to the
(01:28):
history of made for TV movies in that era, and
since then it's kind of grown, and so I lecture
on them, and sometimes I do commentaries for TV movies
and horror films when they come out, and I write
essays and I've actually been in documentaries and stuff like
it really blew up bigger than I ever thought it would.
But my heart is really with made for TV films,
(01:49):
particularly genre films. Although I love every TV movie imaginable.
They're all my babies, and I'm happy to promote them
and talk about them whenever I get the opportunity. And
this is we talked about this a little before the
recording when we were texting back and forth. And also
just now that Westerns aren't necessarily my genre. I know
a little bit about TV westerns, but not as much
(02:12):
as you do, so I'm kind of expecting you to
sort of guide me through this and then I can
give you a little background on the TV movie and
where it sort of fits into the landscape.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, excellent, Yeah, well definitely. And also we should talk
about your podcast, the Made for TV Mayhem Show.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, I've recorded so sporadically now that it's like I
kind of almost forget because I do like three podcasts
and they all kind of come out when I have opportunity.
And the Made for TV Mayhem Show, actually, I know
you've had Dan on here and we have another host
named Nate Johnson, and we have had a difficult time
(02:51):
rolling and actually the second to last episode we did,
I still haven't been able to get online because of
sound issues, and so I've been off. I don't think
we've done a new episode this year.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Oh geez. Yeah, well the last one you did it
was on I think it was like Made for TV
Vampire Movies. Yeah, I think is the last one I remember.
But you have covered a couple of made for TV westerns.
You did Black Noon and Into the bad Lands, and
I actually I tried to watch Black Noon and unfortunately
one of my kids woke up and they weren't very
(03:24):
interested in it, so I had to turn it off.
But but yeah, obviously Western TV series, you know, we're huge,
But were there were there a lot of made for
TV Western movies around this time?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I was actually really surprised because I know this one
and Black Noon, of course I know them best, probably
because they're genre Westerns, so like they're not just a Western,
they have like some occult sort of thing happening to them.
There was also The Hanged Man with Steve Forest, which
I know just because Steve Forrest.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Isn't it. I have not seen that one.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
And then there was a bunch and I kind of
feel like I want to talk about the list of Westerns.
I maybe towards the end, because I have some my
thoughts about this film and particularly miss Sarah okay, and
so I'll talk a little bit about women in the
Westerns what little I know about them. But there was
a bunch. So I just I pulled up a list
and I couldn't believe how many there were, and I'm shocked,
(04:20):
and I feel like it's a real void in my knowledge.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And that's partially because.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
And I'm just going to put it out there, and
I think I talked about it on the episode I
did where we covered Black Noon and into the bad Lands.
So my parents were really big western fanatics and spaghetti westerns,
John Wayne, you name it.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
They loved it.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And I remember being a kid and watching westerns with them,
and all I could think was how gross everybody was,
Like they just look like they haven't bathed, and like
they watched all those spaghetti westerns, and I was like,
this is too greasy for me, and everybody was really
mean to each other, and for some reason, it kind
of just like created a wall for me in a
lot of these movies, and I didn't really seek them out.
(04:59):
Later I have seen a few, like I saw True
Grit for the first time maybe five years ago, and
I loved it.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
It was great.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
I sort of discovered the show Laredo by accident because
it was on like me TV or something, and Phil
Carey is one of the stars of it, and I'm
a big one Life to Live In and he played
Ac Buchanan and I had never seen him on another show,
you know where. He starred on it, and I started
watching it and I felt, I just think I've seen
almost every.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Episode of Laredo.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I do really like Laredo, and I've kind of casually
drifted in and out shows like Bonanza and stuff like that.
But and I've listened to the radio is it Gunsmoke?
Is that the one that William Conrad was the voice of.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yes, Yeah, I've listened to some of those.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Those are really good, so I have a little bit
very casual knowledge of them. But it's just I think
it was those early years with my parents, like they
watched crazy stuff. I mean I could talk for hours
about the stuff that they watched that just like The
Prisoner freaked me out because it had that Rover with
people up.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And I've not been able to watch.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
The Prisoner since I was a kid, you know, Like
they watch a lot of things that traumatized me, and
I just I never went back and revisited it.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh yeah, I have the exact opposite, like I Actually,
I did grow up watching a lot of classic Hollywood westerns,
not so much spaghetti westerns. So my parents, I didn't
really see anything that traumatized me. When I was young.
I watched a lot of more safe, really stuff that
was before nineteen sixty. I didn't watch a lot of
(06:29):
movies that came out after nineteen sixties growing up. But
you did mention. You mentioned The Hanged Man, and I
think that that was actually directed by Michael Caffey, who
directed The Devil Miss Sarah. But yeah, but let's go
ahead and get into kind of our main discussion now.
I think Michael Caffey he only ever worked in TV,
and he worked on a bunch of different series and
(06:50):
made some TV movies as well. But he directed eight
episodes of one of my favorite shows, The Virginian Yes,
which also starred which starred James Drewy who plays Gill
in this and it's written by Calvin Clements Junior. And
he mostly has TV credits as well. I know he
actually wrote some episodes of Laredo, and he wrote some
(07:11):
episodes of The Wild Wild West, and wrote seven episodes
of gun Smoke, and he actually saw on IMDb. He
currently has a couple things in development, which kind of
surprised me. But Jean Barry plays Rankin and he worked
in television a lot, but he's in a couple pretty
big movies. He's the star of the original War of
the Worlds and he was in Forty Guns, which is
a great Sam Fuller western and he was the lead
(07:32):
in a couple series Bat Masterson and also Burke's Law.
And then Janis Rule plays Sarah, and she has a
pretty interesting filmography. She worked in TV a lot. She's
in a couple episodes of Burke's Law, which you know,
the Jean Barry series, and she was in an episode
of Wagon Train and of Have Gun, Will Travel. But
I think where I know her from is Bell Booken Candle,
(07:54):
like the movie with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. But
she was also in The Swimmer and Three Women. But
at this point, I think I'll go ahead and get
into I'll go and read the synopsis on letterbox and
then we can get into our thoughts on the movie.
A notorious outlaw being escorted to prison by a homesteader
and his wife turns out to have Satanic powers. He
uses them on the man's wife to try to possess
(08:15):
her and help him escape. Amanda, what did you think
of The Devil, Miss Sarah?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Okay, Well, I have some mixed feelings about it. I
was very excited to check it out because it's got
kind of an interesting reputation in the TV movie world.
It was until recently pretty hard to find, and it
was one of those movies that I think was on
a lot of people's lists for must see TV movies.
(08:40):
A lot of people in the TV movie world. We're
not a huge amount of us, but we're kind of sinophiles,
and there's a certain list of films that are really
interesting to us, generally movies that are like have a
horror bent on them. And I know that this has
come up in different circles where people have asked about
it or remember seeing it, and people who are curious
(09:00):
about finding it. So I was I was really excited
to sit down with it. I thought it was really
cool to see Jean Barry in this kind of role.
That was a super unexpected kind of move on his part.
I'm used to him as like, you know, Amos Burke
on Burke's Law and those kinds of characters, and here
he's very dark.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It's it's different.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I think critics called it offbeat, and I would agree
it was.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
It was certainly not.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
The way I was used to sing Jean Barry, even
though I know he plays the original killer in the
first Colombo and all that stuff, but.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Just different. Different.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
The mustache was different, everything was different, and he's really
powerful and it's a really quietly strong performance.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And it's an interesting story.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
But I was kind of dismayed by Miss Sarah in
that she is clearly the most compelling character in the film.
She's clearly the who knows what's going on the most.
She's clearly the most interesting thing about it, and it's.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Not her story.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
It becomes about her husband, and that really bothered me,
particularly when we get to the end. And this was
a really weird time for me to be watching a
TV movie that takes this route. But to be honest,
Black Noon, I think also mistreats its female characters. So
now you haven't really had a chance to see that,
(10:30):
and I've softened over the years towards it. It's much
better than when I originally saw it. I originally saw
it to write about from my book, and I was
pretty not pleased with the depiction of women in that,
because it's got these two women and their sort of
binaries of each other.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
It's like.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
One is the beautiful mute, she never speaks, but she's
everybody's fantasy. And then we have the other woman who's
the wife who can't have children, and she's this obnoxious,
like kind of very unlikable character and it really felt
like really badly drawn women and ended upset me. And
so Miss Sarah is very well drawn and Jennis role
(11:09):
is terrific in the part. But I don't like when
I see movies that should be about women.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I mean, her name is in.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
The title, but it becomes about her husband, and that
really bothered me.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I will say I enjoyed The Devil and Miss Sarah.
I think that it is pretty well paced. It's definitely
more of a psychological Western, but there is some action
in it as well. I think the characters are a
little more complex actually than what I was expecting going
into it. And the dynamic I think between the three
(11:43):
main characters, Gil, Sarah, and Rankin is something you see
in a number of Westerns where there's a couple and
then there's a man who's maybe a little more macho
or maybe more well suited to thrive like in the West.
He'll come into this scene and make the husband either
feel and secure or feel like he has to prove
(12:03):
to his wife how much of a man he can be.
And of course, like what sets us apart from those
is there is this supernatural element, which I think is
pretty fun in a Western setting, And I think the
performances are good, and it's got a pretty strong supporting cast,
Like I love Charles McGraw and so I thought it
was cool that he showed up as the marshal in this. Yeah,
(12:25):
and Donald Moffatt is in this slim Pickens Like I
think overall, it's a solid cast, and I like the score.
I thought it was like pretty eerie and ominous in
places and kind of added to the overall tone of
the movie. So Yeah, it's entertaining. I would recommend it.
I get the criticism of the treatment of Sarah because
(12:48):
I do think it is her movie, and I kind
of I agree that. I also don't like that it flips,
even though I absolutely love James Drewy, because I mean,
The Virginian is like one of my favorite shows ever,
and I thought his character kind of wrote a fine
line of being someone you sympathize with while also being
(13:10):
slightly frustrated with some of his decisions. But what did
you think of his character and his arc in this?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, it's so interesting that you asked that question, because
I don't like it. I don't I think it bothers.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
I don't know when we get to the end of this,
but like that the part of the amory is like
I'm gonna be a real good husband now, was like, okay, really,
this is like it just bothers me when women get
the narrative taken away from them. And then I agree
with you on a lot of things. So, first of all,
it's a very well made movie. It's really beautiful to
look at. Even in the not great quality copy that
(13:50):
we watched, it's clear that it's stunning photography. And I
like the landscape a lot, and I do like the
isolation of it, the way it feels. And as I
mentioned earlier, Gene Barry is just fantastic in this in
a really unexpected kind of turn. And he loved doing
this part, by the way, and he wanted to make
(14:13):
it into a series. He loved the character that much.
But he said he couldn't understand how they would be
able to sustain that character in a series, but he
just loved it. It was just this great opportunity for him,
and he had talked about it's very common for actors
who played leading roles on television series to get kind
of frustrated because a lot of actors that play the
(14:33):
supporting characters on TV series are allowed to have growth,
but the made protagonst should always stay the same. He's
like the anchor of the show, and so they don't
get that sort of joy and a lot of I
think it's different now, but back then it was like
he's the hero. He has to say the hero, he's
got no flaws. This happens and you just go from
point A to B and there's no there's nothing in between.
(14:55):
And so I think he saw all the gray in
this error in this character and chance to really play
something dynamic that he wasn't able to do, and I
feel like he really sunk his teeth into it and
he loved doing it.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
And you can kind of tell for James.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Drewery this is probably I don't know that I've seen
him in a lot of stuff. I thought he was
really good. He wasn't the problem so much as the
character was. But it is interesting because he's being told
by all these different people just let this guy go,
and he refuses to do it, and there's definitely this
like machismo thing that's going on. He really feels like
(15:28):
he has to make a stand, and I don't know,
because there's an interesting kind of side story where Sarah
talks about how she had a miscarriage and she feels
like her husband has been holding it against her, even
though he hasn't said anything, and I kind of wonder
if they're both sort of misreading the room in their relationship,
and maybe he's thinking he has to be more exciting
(15:49):
for her, and I think he does talk about that
because he's just this farmer and he's constantly moving them
from place to place when the land dries up and
is no good, and he thinks she deserves better, and
I think she doesn't necessarily feel that way, but she
thinks that he's blaming her for the loss of their child,
and so they've ended up in this position where they
don't really know what the other one is thinking about
(16:09):
that person in the relationship, and so he's kind of
going all out to prove that he can be this exciting,
heroic kind of guy, to the point where he's putting
a lot of other people in danger and including him
and his wife. And I found that to be really
interesting and frustrating, and at the same time, again, I
(16:32):
think it all hinges on the end because I was
reading some newspaper articles where they were like, it's clear
what Chean Barry is, but I don't know if it
is clear. Did you get a firm understanding of whether
or not he was actually evil?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Well, the one thing that I do think points to
him actually being evil is there are there's one moment
where it seems like he's communicating to Sarah, like telepathically.
There's like really close up shots on just their faces,
and you can see in her reaction to him that
(17:07):
it seems like he is communicating something to her. Now,
that doesn't necessarily mean that he's has satanic powers, but
there's definitely something odd going on with him. But I
don't but is he like pure evil? I don't know
if it definitively says that.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah, that's how I felt.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
And I'm really glad you mentioned the eye close ups
because one of the notes I took was like, I
was like, this is like Lucio Folci directed this, because yeah, yeah,
it's really into the eyes and I love that, And
I love that on the small screen because theatricals play
so differently, you know, than they than the small screen does.
And they did some really they had some interesting choices
to kind of convey emotion and stuff in this and
(17:52):
that's one of the things that I really liked about
this film. Yeah, I was like, I'm not real sure
because he was easy to take down ultimately that I
felt like, well, maybe.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
He was just a guy.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
And I actually read somewhere I don't know if it
was an overview on IMDb or not that really struck me,
but somebody said it was Manson inspired and I never
thought about that, and I was like, you know what,
that sort of makes sense to me. You know that he's,
like you, cult leaders have a way about them where
they get people to do things that they don't normally
(18:25):
think that they would do, and he's sort of embodying that.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And then that made it even.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
More great to me because it's like, well, if he's Manson, like,
then he's not supernatural, you know, he's just like really
he's a powerful person and he's good at reading people,
you know, And so I found that really interesting.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, I definitely got the Manson kind of vibe because
he is someone who is He meets Sarah and he
kind of builds her up at first and says that
she he like knows she has a special power, but
he all, but he could also be doing that knowing
that maybe she is I don't want to say week,
(19:08):
but knowing that he is somebody that she is, somebody
that he can kind of like pray on, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, well he certainly listens to her more than her
husband does, because she has this thing at the beginning
where she knows something's coming and then something comes. Right,
they show up Jean Barry and the sheriff, and it's like,
you know, she's been doing this since you guys have
been married. You know, maybe she should pay attention to
(19:34):
this premonition stuff that she has, and he does it.
And so when when Rankin is like, you know, I
see these things you can do. That probably made her
feel seen, you know, and understood to some degree. So
I can see that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, definitely. And yeah, now let's talk about Janis Rule
a little more because I mean, I agree with you.
I think she has the most difficul character to play,
and you know, she has these premonitions and yeah, people
obviously think that she's crazy. And at one point she
even tells Rankin that she left her husband and then
(20:13):
he pursued her and brought her back, and she doesn't necessarily,
I wouldn't say she clearly states it was completely against
her will, but I do think that that is implied.
And it seems like, you know, her husband, you know,
really wants to you know, control her, and he is
doing this for what he thinks is for her own good.
(20:36):
And then all of this leads to her, uh, you know,
with meeting Rankin, and I feel like he's found somebody
that he thinks he can easily manipulate. But I thought
her performance like I would kind of describe it as
being sedated, like I don't know of another way to
describe it, but I think it works perfectly for the character.
(20:58):
But what did you think of her? And kind of
like the way Rankin like slowly like seduces her.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Well, it's interesting because she constantly, like not constantly, but
there are scenes where you can tell that she is
maybe not stronger than him, but is a good adversary
because there's that part where he says, shoot your husband,
and then she does and she shoots. I can't remember
what happens. She shoots the gun at something else and
(21:29):
he can't until the Andy can't really get complete control
over her, you know. And I like the character and
it's so interesting because I was thinking about this movie
called Ghostkeeper that is a Canadian horror film from the
very early eighties and years ago I wrote a review
of it and I wrote that the lead actress was
either wooden or really good in the role. And then
I kind of regretted writing that because I revisited the
(21:51):
film and she is really good in the role. But
it's like a very quiet performance, and it's about a
character in that film that's sort of in a position
where she's not very happy in her relationships, her husband
or a boyfriend, has kind of a wandering eye, and
there's this other woman in the film and it's clear
something might happen between them, and also she's dealing with
(22:12):
like a past with an insane mother, and so everything
about her has to be sort of like I have
to look before I react kind of thing, and it
makes sense in the universe of the film, and I
kind of feel like Janis Rula is using the same approach,
obviously with different motivations, but that first of all, she's
(22:33):
a woman out in mill of nowhere, you know, and
in this kind of world that's very male driven, and
she is being highly disregarded for this gift that she has,
and I kind of feel like everything is like, look
before you leap, and so her performance is more about
taking in her surroundings and then figuring out how she
(22:56):
can fit into them than it is about her reacting
openly to them, if that makes sense. And so I
think she's great in it. I think it's a really
under the radar kind of performance and it works really
well because Jean Barry is also really under the radar
in a lot of ways because he's very casual about
these things that he's going to do to these people,
(23:17):
and he's been pretty successful along this journey where he's
being hopefully taken to justice, but where he's got this
band of American Indians that have been following and they're
causing a lot of havoc here and there, and yet
he never overplays his hand, he never gets overexcited, he
never gets under excited. He just has this very kind
(23:38):
of interesting demeanor and she sort of matches him, and
really the excitement is happening around all the other people
who can't figure out exactly what's happening. So it's like
It's like these two people know that they have power,
and they know that the power is strong enough that
they don't really have to express it in a big way,
and they just have to figure out where each other
stands in this kind of standoff, and then what are
(24:00):
they going to do about it? So I think it's
a really great sort of quiet performance.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, now you mentioned the Native Americans, and I actually
I meant to talk about this movie. We talked about
James Drewy, But one thing that I wish that they
maybe could have done a little bit better because, like you,
like you talked about, there are you know, there's like Sarah,
and then there's the supporting characters who are all trying
(24:27):
to get James Drewy to just let Rankin go. But
there are these Native Americans, you know, like following them,
and I kind of think if they had sold a
little bit more that like keeping Rankin was helping keep
all of them alive. Yes, if they had done that,
(24:52):
I think that the movie would be a little bit better.
But I don't remember there being like a line of
dialogue of of like James Drewy saying like, well, we
have to hold on to him because he's like like
our get out of jail card basically. But yeah, that
was one thing I meant to mention earlier but did
(25:14):
because I mean, you didn't feel like they were using
him as that, did you?
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I actually did, okay, And I don't know if that
was just an assumption on my part, but it did
feel like, like you said, they get out of jail card.
That's kind of the impression I got when I was
when I was watching it. But at the same time,
it was really frustrating because it was like, he's nobody
to you, you know, and I don't do they even
(25:40):
know what he supposedly did. And it's like, maybe just
let him, you know, do what he needs to do.
He's out in mill of nowhere, you know, and you
never have to see him again, and he's and it's
interesting because so maybe we should talk about the opening
of the film. One of the most striking images of
the film is that when they are bringing him to justice,
originally they have him his head covered, yes, and it
(26:01):
looks like they're going to hang him or something, you know,
And and the whole point is is that the sheriff
knows you don't want to look into this guy's eyes.
Because the second you do that, he's going to take
control of you. And I'm kind of surprised that he
removed the sack at all, you know, And I was
kind there are things he could have done here, you know,
to like make it a little better, but he didn't.
(26:22):
And then the American Indian thing was like, so I
have to remember, you know that a lot of these
things are very of their time, and this whole idea
of like the hoopy Juopy thing being like this so
overpowering that the indigenous people like will just follow him
is like, that's very I don't know that that would fly.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Today, you know.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, And at the same time it's fine. I mean,
I don't watch these movies and I get offended or anything,
but I do think, oh yeah, I'm kind of glad
we don't do that anymore, right, But it is an
interesting element, and I think in the universe of the seventies,
in the universe they've set up in the Western it
sort of works because the indigenous people were known for
(27:06):
being at one with the land, and I feel like
what he's dealing with in the supernatural world is all
part of like an American Indians like their belief system,
and so it sort of works in that way, and
he needs like a band of merriment anyway to kind
of like push that part forward.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
But it's also like, Okay, I don't know, maybe there's
something else we could have done.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
It's a complicated film. That's the thing about the seventies.
And it's interesting because a lot of these movies I
can go into and just kind of cheerly blindly, and
I do it, you know, But like some of these
movies I feel are maybe a little more complex, and
maybe this one deserves to be watched again, and maybe
I need to know more about the Westerns. I feel
like that's my feeling on it, because I think a
(27:54):
lot of these things. You probably run into a lot
when you're watching these old Westerns, the way the American
Indians are portrayed, maybe the way that women are portrayed,
and and you can see it in the context of
its time and also in the context of the Western,
where women obviously didn't have a lot of rights in
the eighteen hundreds and and American Indians were sort of
treated the way that they're treating a lot of these shows.
(28:15):
And and so I'm trying not to get too heavy
on him.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
But there are things that stick out to me.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah. Now, one other kind of complex, uh, like with
the characters. That one kind of complex element that I
thought was interesting with James Drewry's character is there is
a scene where he's talking to Sarah and he he
actually says like, I don't I don't think I'm trying
(28:43):
to prove anything, and and then and then he tells
her I am afraid of him, and then and then
he says, I don't know where I was going with that.
Do you remember that scene?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I do, vaguely.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
And you know what, that's a very honest I'm really
glad to said that, because that's that's what you would
hear in an everyday conversation, you know, like I don't
know where I'm going with this purpose and you know,
but like I do feel like he's trying really hard
to prove that he can be a leader, you know,
and it just keeps getting worse and worse as they
keep going farther and farther into this trip. And maybe
that was part of Rankin's plan, you know, if he
(29:18):
is this kind of supernatural creature, maybe not Satan, but
some minion of his or something somebody who's in touch
with that. That part of it was about like sort
of diminishing, like finding out where somebody's weaknesses and then
really pushing that button.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, you know, and that and that would make.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Sense that he would be afraid of him and not
fully know why he was saying that or where it
was going. But it did seemed to me too that
he was trying to prove something, at least to his
wife through a lot of this film.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, definitely, No, I agree completely. Now, I do think
I think we should talk about the the ending. So
by the end, like Sarah is basically like under Rankin's
spell or control, and Gil is trying to kill Rankin
while Rankin and his wife are like mocking him and
(30:13):
Rankin is laughing at him. And this kind of calls
back to something Sarah tells Gil earlier in the earlier
in the movie is she sees, you know, her husband
dying and Rankin laughing, And so it seems like one
of her premonitions is playing out. And there's this there's
(30:35):
this idea that I'm not sure is completely successful visually,
where Rankin says that he's positioned Gil where he's at.
So that his eyes would be looking directly in the
sun's right. Yeah, and and and Gil, I think he
does get shot in the leg here, but he's still
able to like maneuver around. And then he does eventually
shoot Rankin and it seems like he's greatly under underestimated
(30:59):
Gil and is shocked by the outcome. And then Sarah
like snaps out of Rankin's control, and it's more kind
of how we've seen her throughout the movie. And then
this brings you reference this already, but Gil apologizes for
not listening to her and says he's going to change now.
I know you said you didn't like that aspect of it,
(31:21):
but what did you think of the ending overall?
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Well, that was what frustrated me. So I think Sarah
should have saved herself, and it really bothers me that
she didn't. And it made me think about a couple
of TV movies, one which course I can't remember the
name of, but I recovered it on the podcast and
it was with Ralph Waite from The Waltons, whom I love,
and his daughter gets raped and then the movie somehow
at the end becomes about his response to it. But
(31:47):
I was like, well, what about your daughter, Like, you've
just totally stolen the narrative of the person that was
survived a rape, right. And there's another movie called Revengeful
Rape with Mike Honors where he's I don't know if
he's on his honeymoon or not, but he's with his
wife and a small town and she gets attacked and
(32:08):
then it becomes about his revenge, and then it's got
this really craptastic ending where I'm just gonna spoil it.
She had misidentified a rapist, I believe, and it's like,
oh my god. So first of all, she's an hysterical woman,
and now it becomes about the man, and then at
the end he hurt somebody that didn't actually attack his wife, and.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
It really bothered me.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
And I feel like we're at the okay, So it's
important for me to give a little context here. So
TV movies have lots and lots of different things happening,
and then they are very male centric TV movies. The
Night Stalker, of course, is a good example of that.
But the general demographic for television in this era and
to this day is women age eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
I talk about this a lot on my podcast and.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
That was because women in this era were housewives, and
we're the largest consumer in the household. So people who
advertise their product on TV wanted their stuff shown on
programs they knew women would be watching, and so a
lot of TV movies cater to women. And of course
TV movies were born at the era, at the beginning
of the second wave feminist movement, so a lot of
(33:15):
these TV movies reflected this kind of growing agency that
women were coming into in the late sixties and early seventies,
and it's everywhere, you know, And some movies don't have it.
Some movies just have their action and adventures and they're great.
But then there's movies like this, where as I mentioned before,
we have the female protagonist's name in the title and
(33:36):
it should be about her, but somehow they take that
away from her to the point where at the end
where she has to be saved by her husband, and
that just itches me the wrong way. So the showdown
is great, and it's fine, and you know, good one
or whatever, But I thought while I was watching, and
I kept thinking, is she going to like take an
axe and hit him in the back when he's not looking,
(33:58):
or is she going to do something where she actually
is her own savior, and she never does, and it
just sat with me so wrong, and I feel like
I'm giving you such a bad episode. I feel like
I should be like because I feel like a lot
of people that like Westerns.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Will like this, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I don't think that he's going to be sitting here
being like oh yeah, and a lot I know sometimes
when I mentioned second feminism, so people get, oh my god,
what is she doing? But this stands out to me
as a woman watching these things, and it's with so
many TV movies where women are really defining their roles
in really strong ways and taking their lives into their
(34:42):
hands and doing wonderful things with them. It's hard for
me to see a woman not do it in a
TV movie, you know.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
And so.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
For all of its merits, I do think that it
has some negatives too, And one of them was the
way this ended. So that and then and then when
he's just like, you know, you're right, I'm going to
be a much better husband. You know, I'm gonna pay attention,
and it's like, okay, okay, is that supposed to be
the compromise? Because it's I still feel like everything has
(35:09):
been really unfair to her throughout this whole film.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, I agree, I wish. I almost wish, because, yeah,
there is the scene. I don't think we talked about this,
but there's the scene where Rankin kisses Sarah and she
like really lights up and it's like the first time
in the movie where kind of her I'm not sure
(35:38):
how to say it, she almost like takes a It's
almost like she's taken a mask off, Like she's been
wearing this like depressed kind of mask the whole movie
and it completely comes off, and she looks like a
different person almost, And it almost would have been more
interesting to see her truly have aligned with Rankin and
her actually harm her husband. Now I don't think they
(36:02):
ever would have done that, but I do think that
that could have been an interesting way to end it,
because yeah, it does feel kind of like, oh, really
this is how it ends. He's going to be a
better husband.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Now. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
So I'm thinking about what you're saying, because at first
I was like, well, but that that would be a
really radical way for her to reclaim her story, and
I don't think it would have worked on television. It
might have worked like in a theatrical but I don't
know that it would have worked here, But that would
have been a really kind of cool ending. The more
you I think about what you said, the more I'm
(36:39):
kind of drawn to it.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
It's almost like seeing a movie where almost like, I mean,
this is a much more recent movie and a horror movie,
but like The Witch, like she the Anya Taylor, Anya
Taylor Joy, I think so. I think, yeah, like at
the end, she kind of like joyfully becomes a witch,
(37:05):
and so it could have been something like that, obviously
played with a very different tone and aesthetic, but yeah,
I think that that. I agree. I don't see that
happening in it made for TV movie necessarily, maybe in
a theatrical release, but yeah, it could have. That could
have been an interesting approach though.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
That actually works because The Witch is such a great
comparison because you know those women that were you know,
put on trial and executed, like they were called witches
because they were women who were like independent and like
took care of themselves and like they scared people. Their
power was the fact that they could take care of
themselves almost.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
And that's where she kind of came to it's like
she broke away from like this very traditional sort of
makeup and where she was living. And it's been a
while since I've seen The Witch. I'd have to rewatch it.
But this idea of becoming a witch now it's been
kind of reclaimed, you know, by women, and the idea
of the witch now is that you are powerful, and
that would have been so for her to do that.
(38:05):
So she's not becoming a witch, but like to sort
of give into this other side is not necessarily her
turning evil, but it's her kind of reclaiming herself in
a way. I think they could have another film could
do that, you know what I mean with this kind
of storyline and that ending for sure, But yeah, for
TV movies, I don't know that the audience would have
been like they would have been like what am I
(38:26):
looking at?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I think? Yeah, but that I really like that.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Well, Yeah, that is pretty much all of the notes
that I have. Now, do you have any other notes
or any other background on the movie?
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Yeah, I'll just tell you a little bit about it.
You might have mentioned it ran on December fourth, nineteen
seventy one, on ABC was the ABC movie the weekend,
So that was a one year project. I don't think
it lasted more than a year because the ABC movie
The Week was so popular, they spun off and started
showing movies on Saturdays, and one of the movies that
aired in the Saturday time slot was dual, so it
(39:00):
was kind of an interesting thing that happened and dueled
and do very well in the ratings. And it aired
the same year as this, by the way, and the
Develomas Era also did not get a lot of it
didn't get good ratings. It came at number one hundred
and six out of one hundred and sixty seven made
for TV movies to air that season, with a sixteen
(39:20):
point four slash twenty seven, which simply means that twenty
seven percent of people who were watching TV the night
this air tuned in to see The Devil miss Era.
And so even though that's considered a low Nielsen number
by seventy standards, we still have to remember that like
overcurd of the country watched this movie on the night
it originally aired. Black Noon also premiered in nineteen seventy one,
(39:44):
just a few weeks before this, in November, and it
did slightly better, coming in at ninety two with a
seventeen point oh slash thirty. It ran against on CBS
Funny Face, which I think was a Sandy Duncan TV show,
and then the New Dick Van Dyke Show and The
Marytiller Show. And on NBC it ran against a sitcom
called The Good Life which starred Donod Mills and Larry
(40:04):
Hagman before their Dallas and Out sending connection. And a
movie called One More Train to Rob which is a
western with George Propard, which you may know it did
play in the UK in the summer of nineteen seventy three.
And you mentioned Michael caffe And the only pieces of
trivia I really have about him is that he directed
the first ABC movie The Week, which is seven in Darkness,
(40:27):
which is a really great movie with Milton Burrell about
a bunch of blind people who find themselves stranded on
a mountain side and they have to find their way
to safety. I just rewatched that recently.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I love that movie. I saw it on hundred times
when I.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Was a kid. But the most interesting thing about Michael
Caffey for me anyway, is that his daughter is Charlotte Caffey,
the lead guitarist of The Go gos and so it's
a really interesting family they have there. I think you
mentioned everything that I had about Calvin Clements. I didn't
have much about Drames Drewey. I will say Harry On
Wolf is the director of photography on this. He also
shot a Cry in the Wilderness where he makes really
(40:59):
good use of the natural world and nature in general.
If you haven't seen that, that's about George Kennedy getting
bitten by a rabbit skunk, and so he chains himself
up to a like a pole in the barn and
he makes his wife join a pettit go for help
while he and while he's becoming rabbit, he's trying to
get his son to untie him. It's a really amazing film.
(41:20):
It's directed by Gordon Hessler. He also shot a movie
called A Little Game that I Love, which is a
horror film where I guess it's a thriller. And he
also did several Columbos and I thought it was kind
of interesting that newspapers originally reported the location as a
place called Page, Arizona, but they mix it up with
what is called I think I'll pronounce this right Pariah
(41:41):
Utah and other reports later would say it was shot
in and around Lake Powell, Utah. So other film shot
in this general location are all Westerns, al Lan Rosey, Wales,
The Cisco Kid, The Man, Love Cat, Dancing Duel at Diablo,
and several more. Newspaper said production began on October eleventh
and wrapped on the twenty first, which means that they
(42:03):
only had like a few weeks for post production, and
that is not uncommon for TV movies. They had very
fast shooting schedules and a very fast turnaround. Jim Barry
loved doing this, he said in interviews, quote, It's a
marvelous offbeat role and breaks away from everything I've done
on television. I enjoyed every minute of the role, even
getting up at five am and working in the desert.
(42:24):
He also felt that television was saving actors because the
kind of theatrical industry was moving to shoot a location
in other places and not really using as much as
they were from the technicians and all this stuff. The
Hollywood system was kind of he felt it was kind
of coming to a close at this point, and he
said that the thing about TV was that you had
to be more than just a big name. You had
(42:46):
to be a big name, and you had to have
really good material. And that's for I think mainly for
the episodic work that he was doing, and he had
done lots of it. He'd been on Batmsters in the
Name of the Game, and of course he was Amis
brokham Brook's Law, and so I thought it was also
interesting that for interviews for this film he mentioned he
was going to be making a movie with his son,
(43:07):
and in nineteen seventy four Michael Berry did indeed direct
a movie whiching Barry, which is called The Second Coming
of Suzanne, which I think is considered one of the
crazier films of the seventies. It's not one I'm seeing,
but it's one that I know a lot of people
who are into really bizarre b films really tend to
like that one. And then I wanted to talk about
some of the Westerns, so I was really surprised. So
(43:30):
I will say the second made for tv ABC movie
the week was The Over the Hill Gang Rights Again,
which is an Aaron Spelling movie, and it was supposed
to be the first one, but for some reason they
switched the schedule and Aaron Spelling was a little bitter
about that. He always wanted his to be the first
meet for our first ABC movie, The Week. But of
course we had Black Noon. But we had a lot
of female centric westerns.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
We had Wild and Wooly.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Which I don't know much about, but I think it's
about a band of women who are trying to stop
the assassination of a president. The Daughters of Joshua McCabe
out in nineteen seventy two. It had two sequels. There
was Missus Sundance with Elizabeth Montgomery, which is about the
girlfriend of the Sundance Kid. Then we had Wanted The
Sundance Woman with Catherine Ross, which is where the Sundance
(44:12):
Kid's widow at a place joins up with Poncho Villa.
There was something called Ransom for Alice, which takes place
in eighteen ninety Seattle, which is about a Deputy Marshall
and his female partner who set out to bust up
a ring that kidnaps girls and sells them into prostitution.
That had a Vet Momo and Gil Gerard. And then
this is not female centric, but I wanted to mention it.
(44:33):
There's something called Charlie Cobb A Nice Night for Hanging,
and I only mentioned it because it was written by
Levinson and Link, who created Colombo, but it was also
co written by them and a man named Peter S. Fisher,
and the three of them would create Murder, she wrote later,
So that might be of interest for people who like Colombo.
And that's pretty much all the background I have. But
I thought it was interesting that there are a lot
(44:55):
of female centric westerns, and I'm kind of curious now
to check these out and kind of see what they.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Do with the women in those films.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, definitely. Now, most of these are from seventy one, they're.
Speaker 4 (45:05):
From the early to mids, some couple of late seventies,
so just that decade gotcha.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Very cool. Yeah, this is I think this is the
first made for TV like movie western that I've seen,
So yeah, it's something. It's a pretty much it's a
total blind spot for me, So I would definitely love
to check out more of them, for sure.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I think you'll like some of these. I'm guessing Missus
Sundance with Elizabethtgomery is pretty good because she was pretty savvy.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
About her film roles.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yeah, I think that's a pretty popular film. I'm really
fascinated by the Daughters of Joshua Ka because there's three
of them. Oh one I didn't mention, and I thought
it was on my list. I think it's called Pioneer Woman,
and that was meant to be a pilot, and that
starred j Wanna Pettitt, and she was a self proclaimed feminist,
and I think she had set an interview something about
that series being pretty female centric and about second wave feminism,
(45:57):
and so I've been wanting to look at that as well.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
All right, cool, Yeah, I mean that brings us pretty
much to the end of the show. Amanda. Do you
have any place on social media that you want to
mention or do you have any physical media releases or
anything you've contributed to coming out soon?
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (46:16):
I have so many things.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
I don't know what's coming out and what's been announced yet,
but I know recently brinnerger Syndrome announced two blu rays
that I did essays for, and that one is The Nesting,
which is a nineteen eighty horror film about a woman
who has this dream about a house, and of course
she's out for a drive and finds the house and
so she rents it and all this stuff happens, and
(46:38):
it's kind of a fascinating film. And then I also
wrote an essay for Lucio Fulchi's Murder Rock, which I
wrote about like kind of a history of dancing in
eighties horror films, and that was really fun. I did
a commentary that just got announced for a movie called Mikey,
which is a killer kid movie from the early nineties
with Brian Bonsall, who is a little boy on family
(46:59):
ties playing a killer kid.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
I love that movie.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
That was so much fun to do a commentary for that.
And I also recently wrote an essay that was announced
for something called The Class of seventy four, which is
an Arthur Marx exploitation film that's really kind of interesting,
and I just sort of wrote about the women in
that and how they're portrayed, and it is a really
(47:23):
interesting kind of It's an interesting movie and people should
see it.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
But I don't know how to explain the film. Really.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
It's kind of wild, and it's actually like a sequel
of sorts to an adult film, but it's also not.
And then it was followed by a sequel that's a
proto slasher, and so it's got this weird history. It's
a kind of fascinating movie and those are the ones
I can think of offhand that I know have been
announced recently.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
All right, excellent, all right, well a mana, this was
great fun. Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I hope you enjoyed this episode. I really enjoyed talking
with Amanda, and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity
to have this discussion with her. This is a pretty
obscure movie, but if you've seen The Devil and Miss Sarah,
what did you think of it? You can let me
know by emailing me at Tumbleweeds and Tvcowboys at gmail
dot com. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and
x All the links are in the show notes. Next week,
(48:21):
Dan Budnick is back and we're talking about episode seven
through nine of the first season of Gunsmoke. Until then,
if you're looking for more film related podcasts, please check
out other shows on the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 5 (48:37):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back to Tumbleweeds and TV Cowboys, a classic Western
film and TV podcast. My name is Hunter. This week
we're talking about a made for TV movie called The
Devil and Miss Sarah. Joining me in the discussion is
film history and Amanda Reyes. Amanda is a lot of
work in physical media special features, and she's the host
of a podcast that covers made for TV movies called
Made for TV Mayhem. She's incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about
(00:39):
made for TV movies and I'm so glad that she
was able to join me to talk about this obscure
but pretty interesting movie. Here's our conversation on The Devil
and Miss Sarah. Amanda, thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
I'm excited to talk about this movie that this is
kind of a new TV movie to me, so it's exciting.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. And for listeners
who may not be familiar with you, can you tell
us about yourself and your work in physical media releases
and your book and really anything else you want to mention.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
Sure, I guess the way I introduce myself is like,
I'm a film historian and an academic, and I concentrate
on made for TV movies and horror movies in general.
I have a book called Are You in the House Alone?
A TV Movie Compendia of nineteen sixty four to nineteen
ninety nine, which came out in twenty seventeen, which is
kind of a reference guide more than anything, to the
(01:28):
history of made for TV movies in that era, and
since then it's kind of grown, and so I lecture
on them, and sometimes I do commentaries for TV movies
and horror films when they come out, and I write
essays and I've actually been in documentaries and stuff like
it really blew up bigger than I ever thought it would.
But my heart is really with made for TV films,
(01:49):
particularly genre films. Although I love every TV movie imaginable.
They're all my babies, and I'm happy to promote them
and talk about them whenever I get the opportunity. And
this is we talked about this a little before the
recording when we were texting back and forth. And also
just now that Westerns aren't necessarily my genre. I know
a little bit about TV westerns, but not as much
(02:12):
as you do, so I'm kind of expecting you to
sort of guide me through this and then I can
give you a little background on the TV movie and
where it sort of fits into the landscape.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, excellent, Yeah, well definitely. And also we should talk
about your podcast, the Made for TV Mayhem Show.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Yeah, I've recorded so sporadically now that it's like I
kind of almost forget because I do like three podcasts
and they all kind of come out when I have opportunity.
And the Made for TV Mayhem Show, actually, I know
you've had Dan on here and we have another host
named Nate Johnson, and we have had a difficult time
(02:51):
rolling and actually the second to last episode we did,
I still haven't been able to get online because of
sound issues, and so I've been off. I don't think
we've done a new episode this year.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Oh geez. Yeah, well the last one you did it
was on I think it was like Made for TV
Vampire Movies. Yeah, I think is the last one I remember.
But you have covered a couple of made for TV westerns.
You did Black Noon and Into the bad Lands, and
I actually I tried to watch Black Noon and unfortunately
one of my kids woke up and they weren't very
(03:24):
interested in it, so I had to turn it off.
But but yeah, obviously Western TV series, you know, we're huge,
But were there were there a lot of made for
TV Western movies around this time?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I was actually really surprised because I know this one
and Black Noon, of course I know them best, probably
because they're genre Westerns, so like they're not just a Western,
they have like some occult sort of thing happening to them.
There was also The Hanged Man with Steve Forest, which
I know just because Steve Forrest.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Isn't it. I have not seen that one.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
And then there was a bunch and I kind of
feel like I want to talk about the list of Westerns.
I maybe towards the end, because I have some my
thoughts about this film and particularly miss Sarah okay, and
so I'll talk a little bit about women in the
Westerns what little I know about them. But there was
a bunch. So I just I pulled up a list
and I couldn't believe how many there were, and I'm shocked,
(04:20):
and I feel like it's a real void in my knowledge.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And that's partially because.
Speaker 4 (04:25):
And I'm just going to put it out there, and
I think I talked about it on the episode I
did where we covered Black Noon and into the bad Lands.
So my parents were really big western fanatics and spaghetti westerns,
John Wayne, you name it.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
They loved it.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
And I remember being a kid and watching westerns with them,
and all I could think was how gross everybody was,
Like they just look like they haven't bathed, and like
they watched all those spaghetti westerns, and I was like,
this is too greasy for me, and everybody was really
mean to each other, and for some reason, it kind
of just like created a wall for me in a
lot of these movies, and I didn't really seek them out.
(04:59):
Later I have seen a few, like I saw True
Grit for the first time maybe five years ago, and
I loved it.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
It was great.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
I sort of discovered the show Laredo by accident because
it was on like me TV or something, and Phil
Carey is one of the stars of it, and I'm
a big one Life to Live In and he played
Ac Buchanan and I had never seen him on another show,
you know where. He starred on it, and I started
watching it and I felt, I just think I've seen
almost every.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Episode of Laredo.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I do really like Laredo, and I've kind of casually
drifted in and out shows like Bonanza and stuff like that.
But and I've listened to the radio is it Gunsmoke?
Is that the one that William Conrad was the voice of.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Yes, Yeah, I've listened to some of those.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Those are really good, so I have a little bit
very casual knowledge of them. But it's just I think
it was those early years with my parents, like they
watched crazy stuff. I mean I could talk for hours
about the stuff that they watched that just like The
Prisoner freaked me out because it had that Rover with
people up.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And I've not been able to watch.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
The Prisoner since I was a kid, you know, Like
they watch a lot of things that traumatized me, and
I just I never went back and revisited it.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Oh yeah, I have the exact opposite, like I Actually,
I did grow up watching a lot of classic Hollywood westerns,
not so much spaghetti westerns. So my parents, I didn't
really see anything that traumatized me. When I was young.
I watched a lot of more safe, really stuff that
was before nineteen sixty. I didn't watch a lot of
(06:29):
movies that came out after nineteen sixties growing up. But
you did mention. You mentioned The Hanged Man, and I
think that that was actually directed by Michael Caffey, who
directed The Devil Miss Sarah. But yeah, but let's go
ahead and get into kind of our main discussion now.
I think Michael Caffey he only ever worked in TV,
and he worked on a bunch of different series and
(06:50):
made some TV movies as well. But he directed eight
episodes of one of my favorite shows, The Virginian Yes,
which also starred which starred James Drewy who plays Gill
in this and it's written by Calvin Clements Junior. And
he mostly has TV credits as well. I know he
actually wrote some episodes of Laredo, and he wrote some
(07:11):
episodes of The Wild Wild West, and wrote seven episodes
of gun Smoke, and he actually saw on IMDb. He
currently has a couple things in development, which kind of
surprised me. But Jean Barry plays Rankin and he worked
in television a lot, but he's in a couple pretty
big movies. He's the star of the original War of
the Worlds and he was in Forty Guns, which is
a great Sam Fuller western and he was the lead
(07:32):
in a couple series Bat Masterson and also Burke's Law.
And then Janis Rule plays Sarah, and she has a
pretty interesting filmography. She worked in TV a lot. She's
in a couple episodes of Burke's Law, which you know,
the Jean Barry series, and she was in an episode
of Wagon Train and of Have Gun, Will Travel. But
I think where I know her from is Bell Booken Candle,
(07:54):
like the movie with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. But
she was also in The Swimmer and Three Women. But
at this point, I think I'll go ahead and get
into I'll go and read the synopsis on letterbox and
then we can get into our thoughts on the movie.
A notorious outlaw being escorted to prison by a homesteader
and his wife turns out to have Satanic powers. He
uses them on the man's wife to try to possess
(08:15):
her and help him escape. Amanda, what did you think
of The Devil, Miss Sarah?
Speaker 4 (08:20):
Okay, Well, I have some mixed feelings about it. I
was very excited to check it out because it's got
kind of an interesting reputation in the TV movie world.
It was until recently pretty hard to find, and it
was one of those movies that I think was on
a lot of people's lists for must see TV movies.
(08:40):
A lot of people in the TV movie world. We're
not a huge amount of us, but we're kind of sinophiles,
and there's a certain list of films that are really
interesting to us, generally movies that are like have a
horror bent on them. And I know that this has
come up in different circles where people have asked about
it or remember seeing it, and people who are curious
(09:00):
about finding it. So I was I was really excited
to sit down with it. I thought it was really
cool to see Jean Barry in this kind of role.
That was a super unexpected kind of move on his part.
I'm used to him as like, you know, Amos Burke
on Burke's Law and those kinds of characters, and here
he's very dark.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
It's it's different.
Speaker 4 (09:22):
I think critics called it offbeat, and I would agree
it was.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
It was certainly not.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
The way I was used to sing Jean Barry, even
though I know he plays the original killer in the
first Colombo and all that stuff, but.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Just different. Different.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
The mustache was different, everything was different, and he's really
powerful and it's a really quietly strong performance.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And it's an interesting story.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
But I was kind of dismayed by Miss Sarah in
that she is clearly the most compelling character in the film.
She's clearly the who knows what's going on the most.
She's clearly the most interesting thing about it, and it's.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Not her story.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
It becomes about her husband, and that really bothered me,
particularly when we get to the end. And this was
a really weird time for me to be watching a
TV movie that takes this route. But to be honest,
Black Noon, I think also mistreats its female characters. So
now you haven't really had a chance to see that,
(10:30):
and I've softened over the years towards it. It's much
better than when I originally saw it. I originally saw
it to write about from my book, and I was
pretty not pleased with the depiction of women in that,
because it's got these two women and their sort of
binaries of each other.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
It's like.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
One is the beautiful mute, she never speaks, but she's
everybody's fantasy. And then we have the other woman who's
the wife who can't have children, and she's this obnoxious,
like kind of very unlikable character and it really felt
like really badly drawn women and ended upset me. And
so Miss Sarah is very well drawn and Jennis role
(11:09):
is terrific in the part. But I don't like when
I see movies that should be about women.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
I mean, her name is in.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
The title, but it becomes about her husband, and that
really bothered me.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
I will say I enjoyed The Devil and Miss Sarah.
I think that it is pretty well paced. It's definitely
more of a psychological Western, but there is some action
in it as well. I think the characters are a
little more complex actually than what I was expecting going
into it. And the dynamic I think between the three
(11:43):
main characters, Gil, Sarah, and Rankin is something you see
in a number of Westerns where there's a couple and
then there's a man who's maybe a little more macho
or maybe more well suited to thrive like in the West.
He'll come into this scene and make the husband either
feel and secure or feel like he has to prove
(12:03):
to his wife how much of a man he can be.
And of course, like what sets us apart from those
is there is this supernatural element, which I think is
pretty fun in a Western setting, And I think the
performances are good, and it's got a pretty strong supporting cast,
Like I love Charles McGraw and so I thought it
was cool that he showed up as the marshal in this. Yeah,
(12:25):
and Donald Moffatt is in this slim Pickens Like I
think overall, it's a solid cast, and I like the score.
I thought it was like pretty eerie and ominous in
places and kind of added to the overall tone of
the movie. So Yeah, it's entertaining. I would recommend it.
I get the criticism of the treatment of Sarah because
(12:48):
I do think it is her movie, and I kind
of I agree that. I also don't like that it flips,
even though I absolutely love James Drewy, because I mean,
The Virginian is like one of my favorite shows ever,
and I thought his character kind of wrote a fine
line of being someone you sympathize with while also being
(13:10):
slightly frustrated with some of his decisions. But what did
you think of his character and his arc in this?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Well, it's so interesting that you asked that question, because
I don't like it. I don't I think it bothers.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
I don't know when we get to the end of this,
but like that the part of the amory is like
I'm gonna be a real good husband now, was like, okay, really,
this is like it just bothers me when women get
the narrative taken away from them. And then I agree
with you on a lot of things. So, first of all,
it's a very well made movie. It's really beautiful to
look at. Even in the not great quality copy that
(13:50):
we watched, it's clear that it's stunning photography. And I
like the landscape a lot, and I do like the
isolation of it, the way it feels. And as I
mentioned earlier, Gene Barry is just fantastic in this in
a really unexpected kind of turn. And he loved doing
this part, by the way, and he wanted to make
(14:13):
it into a series. He loved the character that much.
But he said he couldn't understand how they would be
able to sustain that character in a series, but he
just loved it. It was just this great opportunity for him,
and he had talked about it's very common for actors
who played leading roles on television series to get kind
of frustrated because a lot of actors that play the
(14:33):
supporting characters on TV series are allowed to have growth,
but the made protagonst should always stay the same. He's
like the anchor of the show, and so they don't
get that sort of joy and a lot of I
think it's different now, but back then it was like
he's the hero. He has to say the hero, he's
got no flaws. This happens and you just go from
point A to B and there's no there's nothing in between.
(14:55):
And so I think he saw all the gray in
this error in this character and chance to really play
something dynamic that he wasn't able to do, and I
feel like he really sunk his teeth into it and
he loved doing it.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
And you can kind of tell for James.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Drewery this is probably I don't know that I've seen
him in a lot of stuff. I thought he was
really good. He wasn't the problem so much as the
character was. But it is interesting because he's being told
by all these different people just let this guy go,
and he refuses to do it, and there's definitely this
like machismo thing that's going on. He really feels like
(15:28):
he has to make a stand, and I don't know,
because there's an interesting kind of side story where Sarah
talks about how she had a miscarriage and she feels
like her husband has been holding it against her, even
though he hasn't said anything, and I kind of wonder
if they're both sort of misreading the room in their relationship,
and maybe he's thinking he has to be more exciting
(15:49):
for her, and I think he does talk about that
because he's just this farmer and he's constantly moving them
from place to place when the land dries up and
is no good, and he thinks she deserves better, and
I think she doesn't necessarily feel that way, but she
thinks that he's blaming her for the loss of their child,
and so they've ended up in this position where they
don't really know what the other one is thinking about
(16:09):
that person in the relationship, and so he's kind of
going all out to prove that he can be this exciting,
heroic kind of guy, to the point where he's putting
a lot of other people in danger and including him
and his wife. And I found that to be really
interesting and frustrating, and at the same time, again, I
(16:32):
think it all hinges on the end because I was
reading some newspaper articles where they were like, it's clear
what Chean Barry is, but I don't know if it
is clear. Did you get a firm understanding of whether
or not he was actually evil?
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Well, the one thing that I do think points to
him actually being evil is there are there's one moment
where it seems like he's communicating to Sarah, like telepathically.
There's like really close up shots on just their faces,
and you can see in her reaction to him that
(17:07):
it seems like he is communicating something to her. Now,
that doesn't necessarily mean that he's has satanic powers, but
there's definitely something odd going on with him. But I
don't but is he like pure evil? I don't know
if it definitively says that.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Yeah, that's how I felt.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
And I'm really glad you mentioned the eye close ups
because one of the notes I took was like, I
was like, this is like Lucio Folci directed this, because yeah, yeah,
it's really into the eyes and I love that, And
I love that on the small screen because theatricals play
so differently, you know, than they than the small screen does.
And they did some really they had some interesting choices
to kind of convey emotion and stuff in this and
(17:52):
that's one of the things that I really liked about
this film. Yeah, I was like, I'm not real sure
because he was easy to take down ultimately that I
felt like, well, maybe.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
He was just a guy.
Speaker 4 (18:05):
And I actually read somewhere I don't know if it
was an overview on IMDb or not that really struck me,
but somebody said it was Manson inspired and I never
thought about that, and I was like, you know what,
that sort of makes sense to me. You know that he's,
like you, cult leaders have a way about them where
they get people to do things that they don't normally
(18:25):
think that they would do, and he's sort of embodying that.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And then that made it even.
Speaker 4 (18:29):
More great to me because it's like, well, if he's Manson, like,
then he's not supernatural, you know, he's just like really
he's a powerful person and he's good at reading people,
you know, And so I found that really interesting.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, I definitely got the Manson kind of vibe because
he is someone who is He meets Sarah and he
kind of builds her up at first and says that
she he like knows she has a special power, but
he all, but he could also be doing that knowing
that maybe she is I don't want to say week,
(19:08):
but knowing that he is somebody that she is, somebody
that he can kind of like pray on, if that
makes sense.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, well he certainly listens to her more than her
husband does, because she has this thing at the beginning
where she knows something's coming and then something comes. Right,
they show up Jean Barry and the sheriff, and it's like,
you know, she's been doing this since you guys have
been married. You know, maybe she should pay attention to
(19:34):
this premonition stuff that she has, and he does it.
And so when when Rankin is like, you know, I
see these things you can do. That probably made her
feel seen, you know, and understood to some degree. So
I can see that aspect of it.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Yeah, definitely. And yeah, now let's talk about Janis Rule
a little more because I mean, I agree with you.
I think she has the most difficul character to play,
and you know, she has these premonitions and yeah, people
obviously think that she's crazy. And at one point she
even tells Rankin that she left her husband and then
(20:13):
he pursued her and brought her back, and she doesn't necessarily,
I wouldn't say she clearly states it was completely against
her will, but I do think that that is implied.
And it seems like, you know, her husband, you know,
really wants to you know, control her, and he is
doing this for what he thinks is for her own good.
(20:36):
And then all of this leads to her, uh, you know,
with meeting Rankin, and I feel like he's found somebody
that he thinks he can easily manipulate. But I thought
her performance like I would kind of describe it as
being sedated, like I don't know of another way to
describe it, but I think it works perfectly for the character.
(20:58):
But what did you think of her? And kind of
like the way Rankin like slowly like seduces her.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Well, it's interesting because she constantly, like not constantly, but
there are scenes where you can tell that she is
maybe not stronger than him, but is a good adversary
because there's that part where he says, shoot your husband,
and then she does and she shoots. I can't remember
what happens. She shoots the gun at something else and
(21:29):
he can't until the Andy can't really get complete control
over her, you know. And I like the character and
it's so interesting because I was thinking about this movie
called Ghostkeeper that is a Canadian horror film from the
very early eighties and years ago I wrote a review
of it and I wrote that the lead actress was
either wooden or really good in the role. And then
I kind of regretted writing that because I revisited the
(21:51):
film and she is really good in the role. But
it's like a very quiet performance, and it's about a
character in that film that's sort of in a position
where she's not very happy in her relationships, her husband
or a boyfriend, has kind of a wandering eye, and
there's this other woman in the film and it's clear
something might happen between them, and also she's dealing with
(22:12):
like a past with an insane mother, and so everything
about her has to be sort of like I have
to look before I react kind of thing, and it
makes sense in the universe of the film, and I
kind of feel like Janis Rula is using the same approach,
obviously with different motivations, but that first of all, she's
(22:33):
a woman out in mill of nowhere, you know, and
in this kind of world that's very male driven, and
she is being highly disregarded for this gift that she has,
and I kind of feel like everything is like, look
before you leap, and so her performance is more about
taking in her surroundings and then figuring out how she
(22:56):
can fit into them than it is about her reacting
openly to them, if that makes sense. And so I
think she's great in it. I think it's a really
under the radar kind of performance and it works really
well because Jean Barry is also really under the radar
in a lot of ways because he's very casual about
these things that he's going to do to these people,
(23:17):
and he's been pretty successful along this journey where he's
being hopefully taken to justice, but where he's got this
band of American Indians that have been following and they're
causing a lot of havoc here and there, and yet
he never overplays his hand, he never gets overexcited, he
never gets under excited. He just has this very kind
(23:38):
of interesting demeanor and she sort of matches him, and
really the excitement is happening around all the other people
who can't figure out exactly what's happening. So it's like
It's like these two people know that they have power,
and they know that the power is strong enough that
they don't really have to express it in a big way,
and they just have to figure out where each other
stands in this kind of standoff, and then what are
(24:00):
they going to do about it? So I think it's
a really great sort of quiet performance.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, now you mentioned the Native Americans, and I actually
I meant to talk about this movie. We talked about
James Drewy, But one thing that I wish that they
maybe could have done a little bit better because, like you,
like you talked about, there are you know, there's like Sarah,
and then there's the supporting characters who are all trying
(24:27):
to get James Drewy to just let Rankin go. But
there are these Native Americans, you know, like following them,
and I kind of think if they had sold a
little bit more that like keeping Rankin was helping keep
all of them alive. Yes, if they had done that,
(24:52):
I think that the movie would be a little bit better.
But I don't remember there being like a line of
dialogue of of like James Drewy saying like, well, we
have to hold on to him because he's like like
our get out of jail card basically. But yeah, that
was one thing I meant to mention earlier but did
(25:14):
because I mean, you didn't feel like they were using
him as that, did you?
Speaker 4 (25:19):
I actually did, okay, And I don't know if that
was just an assumption on my part, but it did
feel like, like you said, they get out of jail card.
That's kind of the impression I got when I was
when I was watching it. But at the same time,
it was really frustrating because it was like, he's nobody
to you, you know, and I don't do they even
(25:40):
know what he supposedly did. And it's like, maybe just
let him, you know, do what he needs to do.
He's out in mill of nowhere, you know, and you
never have to see him again, and he's and it's
interesting because so maybe we should talk about the opening
of the film. One of the most striking images of
the film is that when they are bringing him to justice,
originally they have him his head covered, yes, and it
(26:01):
looks like they're going to hang him or something, you know,
And and the whole point is is that the sheriff
knows you don't want to look into this guy's eyes.
Because the second you do that, he's going to take
control of you. And I'm kind of surprised that he
removed the sack at all, you know, And I was
kind there are things he could have done here, you know,
to like make it a little better, but he didn't.
(26:22):
And then the American Indian thing was like, so I
have to remember, you know that a lot of these
things are very of their time, and this whole idea
of like the hoopy Juopy thing being like this so
overpowering that the indigenous people like will just follow him
is like, that's very I don't know that that would fly.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Today, you know.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, And at the same time it's fine. I mean,
I don't watch these movies and I get offended or anything,
but I do think, oh yeah, I'm kind of glad
we don't do that anymore, right, But it is an
interesting element, and I think in the universe of the seventies,
in the universe they've set up in the Western it
sort of works because the indigenous people were known for
(27:06):
being at one with the land, and I feel like
what he's dealing with in the supernatural world is all
part of like an American Indians like their belief system,
and so it sort of works in that way, and
he needs like a band of merriment anyway to kind
of like push that part forward.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
But it's also like, Okay, I don't know, maybe there's
something else we could have done.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
You know.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
It's a complicated film. That's the thing about the seventies.
And it's interesting because a lot of these movies I
can go into and just kind of cheerly blindly, and
I do it, you know, But like some of these
movies I feel are maybe a little more complex, and
maybe this one deserves to be watched again, and maybe
I need to know more about the Westerns. I feel
like that's my feeling on it, because I think a
(27:54):
lot of these things. You probably run into a lot
when you're watching these old Westerns, the way the American
Indians are portrayed, maybe the way that women are portrayed,
and and you can see it in the context of
its time and also in the context of the Western,
where women obviously didn't have a lot of rights in
the eighteen hundreds and and American Indians were sort of
treated the way that they're treating a lot of these shows.
(28:15):
And and so I'm trying not to get too heavy
on him.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
But there are things that stick out to me.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Yeah. Now, one other kind of complex, uh, like with
the characters. That one kind of complex element that I
thought was interesting with James Drewry's character is there is
a scene where he's talking to Sarah and he he
actually says like, I don't I don't think I'm trying
(28:43):
to prove anything, and and then and then he tells
her I am afraid of him, and then and then
he says, I don't know where I was going with that.
Do you remember that scene?
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I do, vaguely.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
And you know what, that's a very honest I'm really
glad to said that, because that's that's what you would
hear in an everyday conversation, you know, like I don't
know where I'm going with this purpose and you know,
but like I do feel like he's trying really hard
to prove that he can be a leader, you know,
and it just keeps getting worse and worse as they
keep going farther and farther into this trip. And maybe
that was part of Rankin's plan, you know, if he
(29:18):
is this kind of supernatural creature, maybe not Satan, but
some minion of his or something somebody who's in touch
with that. That part of it was about like sort
of diminishing, like finding out where somebody's weaknesses and then
really pushing that button.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Yeah, you know, and that and that would make.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Sense that he would be afraid of him and not
fully know why he was saying that or where it
was going. But it did seemed to me too that
he was trying to prove something, at least to his
wife through a lot of this film.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Yeah, definitely, No, I agree completely. Now, I do think
I think we should talk about the the ending. So
by the end, like Sarah is basically like under Rankin's
spell or control, and Gil is trying to kill Rankin
while Rankin and his wife are like mocking him and
(30:13):
Rankin is laughing at him. And this kind of calls
back to something Sarah tells Gil earlier in the earlier
in the movie is she sees, you know, her husband
dying and Rankin laughing, And so it seems like one
of her premonitions is playing out. And there's this there's
(30:35):
this idea that I'm not sure is completely successful visually,
where Rankin says that he's positioned Gil where he's at.
So that his eyes would be looking directly in the
sun's right. Yeah, and and and Gil, I think he
does get shot in the leg here, but he's still
able to like maneuver around. And then he does eventually
shoot Rankin and it seems like he's greatly under underestimated
(30:59):
Gil and is shocked by the outcome. And then Sarah
like snaps out of Rankin's control, and it's more kind
of how we've seen her throughout the movie. And then
this brings you reference this already, but Gil apologizes for
not listening to her and says he's going to change now.
I know you said you didn't like that aspect of it,
(31:21):
but what did you think of the ending overall?
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Well, that was what frustrated me. So I think Sarah
should have saved herself, and it really bothers me that
she didn't. And it made me think about a couple
of TV movies, one which course I can't remember the
name of, but I recovered it on the podcast and
it was with Ralph Waite from The Waltons, whom I love,
and his daughter gets raped and then the movie somehow
at the end becomes about his response to it. But
(31:47):
I was like, well, what about your daughter, Like, you've
just totally stolen the narrative of the person that was
survived a rape, right. And there's another movie called Revengeful
Rape with Mike Honors where he's I don't know if
he's on his honeymoon or not, but he's with his
wife and a small town and she gets attacked and
(32:08):
then it becomes about his revenge, and then it's got
this really craptastic ending where I'm just gonna spoil it.
She had misidentified a rapist, I believe, and it's like,
oh my god. So first of all, she's an hysterical woman,
and now it becomes about the man, and then at
the end he hurt somebody that didn't actually attack his wife, and.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
It really bothered me.
Speaker 4 (32:29):
And I feel like we're at the okay, So it's
important for me to give a little context here. So
TV movies have lots and lots of different things happening,
and then they are very male centric TV movies. The
Night Stalker, of course, is a good example of that.
But the general demographic for television in this era and
to this day is women age eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
I talk about this a lot on my podcast and.
Speaker 4 (32:54):
That was because women in this era were housewives, and
we're the largest consumer in the household. So people who
advertise their product on TV wanted their stuff shown on
programs they knew women would be watching, and so a
lot of TV movies cater to women. And of course
TV movies were born at the era, at the beginning
of the second wave feminist movement, so a lot of
(33:15):
these TV movies reflected this kind of growing agency that
women were coming into in the late sixties and early seventies,
and it's everywhere, you know, And some movies don't have it.
Some movies just have their action and adventures and they're great.
But then there's movies like this, where as I mentioned before,
we have the female protagonist's name in the title and
(33:36):
it should be about her, but somehow they take that
away from her to the point where at the end
where she has to be saved by her husband, and
that just itches me the wrong way. So the showdown
is great, and it's fine, and you know, good one
or whatever, But I thought while I was watching, and
I kept thinking, is she going to like take an
axe and hit him in the back when he's not looking,
(33:58):
or is she going to do something where she actually
is her own savior, and she never does, and it
just sat with me so wrong, and I feel like
I'm giving you such a bad episode. I feel like
I should be like because I feel like a lot
of people that like Westerns.
Speaker 3 (34:18):
Will like this, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:19):
I don't think that he's going to be sitting here
being like oh yeah, and a lot I know sometimes
when I mentioned second feminism, so people get, oh my god,
what is she doing? But this stands out to me
as a woman watching these things, and it's with so
many TV movies where women are really defining their roles
in really strong ways and taking their lives into their
(34:42):
hands and doing wonderful things with them. It's hard for
me to see a woman not do it in a
TV movie, you know.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
And so.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
For all of its merits, I do think that it
has some negatives too, And one of them was the
way this ended. So that and then and then when
he's just like, you know, you're right, I'm going to
be a much better husband. You know, I'm gonna pay attention,
and it's like, okay, okay, is that supposed to be
the compromise? Because it's I still feel like everything has
(35:09):
been really unfair to her throughout this whole film.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, I agree, I wish. I almost wish, because, yeah,
there is the scene. I don't think we talked about this,
but there's the scene where Rankin kisses Sarah and she
like really lights up and it's like the first time
in the movie where kind of her I'm not sure
(35:38):
how to say it, she almost like takes a It's
almost like she's taken a mask off, Like she's been
wearing this like depressed kind of mask the whole movie
and it completely comes off, and she looks like a
different person almost, And it almost would have been more
interesting to see her truly have aligned with Rankin and
her actually harm her husband. Now I don't think they
(36:02):
ever would have done that, but I do think that
that could have been an interesting way to end it,
because yeah, it does feel kind of like, oh, really
this is how it ends. He's going to be a
better husband.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
Now. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
So I'm thinking about what you're saying, because at first
I was like, well, but that that would be a
really radical way for her to reclaim her story, and
I don't think it would have worked on television. It
might have worked like in a theatrical but I don't
know that it would have worked here, But that would
have been a really kind of cool ending. The more
you I think about what you said, the more I'm
(36:39):
kind of drawn to it.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
It's almost like seeing a movie where almost like, I mean,
this is a much more recent movie and a horror movie,
but like The Witch, like she the Anya Taylor, Anya
Taylor Joy, I think so. I think, yeah, like at
the end, she kind of like joyfully becomes a witch,
(37:05):
and so it could have been something like that, obviously
played with a very different tone and aesthetic, but yeah,
I think that that. I agree. I don't see that
happening in it made for TV movie necessarily, maybe in
a theatrical release, but yeah, it could have. That could
have been an interesting approach though.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
That actually works because The Witch is such a great
comparison because you know those women that were you know,
put on trial and executed, like they were called witches
because they were women who were like independent and like
took care of themselves and like they scared people. Their
power was the fact that they could take care of
themselves almost.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (37:45):
And that's where she kind of came to it's like
she broke away from like this very traditional sort of
makeup and where she was living. And it's been a
while since I've seen The Witch. I'd have to rewatch it.
But this idea of becoming a witch now it's been
kind of reclaimed, you know, by women, and the idea
of the witch now is that you are powerful, and
that would have been so for her to do that.
(38:05):
So she's not becoming a witch, but like to sort
of give into this other side is not necessarily her
turning evil, but it's her kind of reclaiming herself in
a way. I think they could have another film could
do that, you know what I mean with this kind
of storyline and that ending for sure, But yeah, for
TV movies, I don't know that the audience would have
been like they would have been like what am I
(38:26):
looking at?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
I think? Yeah, but that I really like that.
Speaker 2 (38:31):
Well, Yeah, that is pretty much all of the notes
that I have. Now, do you have any other notes
or any other background on the movie?
Speaker 4 (38:38):
Yeah, I'll just tell you a little bit about it.
You might have mentioned it ran on December fourth, nineteen
seventy one, on ABC was the ABC movie the weekend,
So that was a one year project. I don't think
it lasted more than a year because the ABC movie
The Week was so popular, they spun off and started
showing movies on Saturdays, and one of the movies that
aired in the Saturday time slot was dual, so it
(39:00):
was kind of an interesting thing that happened and dueled
and do very well in the ratings. And it aired
the same year as this, by the way, and the
Develomas Era also did not get a lot of it
didn't get good ratings. It came at number one hundred
and six out of one hundred and sixty seven made
for TV movies to air that season, with a sixteen
(39:20):
point four slash twenty seven, which simply means that twenty
seven percent of people who were watching TV the night
this air tuned in to see The Devil miss Era.
And so even though that's considered a low Nielsen number
by seventy standards, we still have to remember that like
overcurd of the country watched this movie on the night
it originally aired. Black Noon also premiered in nineteen seventy one,
(39:44):
just a few weeks before this, in November, and it
did slightly better, coming in at ninety two with a
seventeen point oh slash thirty. It ran against on CBS
Funny Face, which I think was a Sandy Duncan TV show,
and then the New Dick Van Dyke Show and The
Marytiller Show. And on NBC it ran against a sitcom
called The Good Life which starred Donod Mills and Larry
(40:04):
Hagman before their Dallas and Out sending connection. And a
movie called One More Train to Rob which is a
western with George Propard, which you may know it did
play in the UK in the summer of nineteen seventy three.
And you mentioned Michael caffe And the only pieces of
trivia I really have about him is that he directed
the first ABC movie The Week, which is seven in Darkness,
(40:27):
which is a really great movie with Milton Burrell about
a bunch of blind people who find themselves stranded on
a mountain side and they have to find their way
to safety. I just rewatched that recently.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
I love that movie. I saw it on hundred times
when I.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Was a kid. But the most interesting thing about Michael
Caffey for me anyway, is that his daughter is Charlotte Caffey,
the lead guitarist of The Go gos and so it's
a really interesting family they have there. I think you
mentioned everything that I had about Calvin Clements. I didn't
have much about Drames Drewey. I will say Harry On
Wolf is the director of photography on this. He also
shot a Cry in the Wilderness where he makes really
(40:59):
good use of the natural world and nature in general.
If you haven't seen that, that's about George Kennedy getting
bitten by a rabbit skunk, and so he chains himself
up to a like a pole in the barn and
he makes his wife join a pettit go for help
while he and while he's becoming rabbit, he's trying to
get his son to untie him. It's a really amazing film.
(41:20):
It's directed by Gordon Hessler. He also shot a movie
called A Little Game that I Love, which is a
horror film where I guess it's a thriller. And he
also did several Columbos and I thought it was kind
of interesting that newspapers originally reported the location as a
place called Page, Arizona, but they mix it up with
what is called I think I'll pronounce this right Pariah
(41:41):
Utah and other reports later would say it was shot
in and around Lake Powell, Utah. So other film shot
in this general location are all Westerns, al Lan Rosey, Wales,
The Cisco Kid, The Man, Love Cat, Dancing Duel at Diablo,
and several more. Newspaper said production began on October eleventh
and wrapped on the twenty first, which means that they
(42:03):
only had like a few weeks for post production, and
that is not uncommon for TV movies. They had very
fast shooting schedules and a very fast turnaround. Jim Barry
loved doing this, he said in interviews, quote, It's a
marvelous offbeat role and breaks away from everything I've done
on television. I enjoyed every minute of the role, even
getting up at five am and working in the desert.
(42:24):
He also felt that television was saving actors because the
kind of theatrical industry was moving to shoot a location
in other places and not really using as much as
they were from the technicians and all this stuff. The
Hollywood system was kind of he felt it was kind
of coming to a close at this point, and he
said that the thing about TV was that you had
to be more than just a big name. You had
(42:46):
to be a big name, and you had to have
really good material. And that's for I think mainly for
the episodic work that he was doing, and he had
done lots of it. He'd been on Batmsters in the
Name of the Game, and of course he was Amis
brokham Brook's Law, and so I thought it was also
interesting that for interviews for this film he mentioned he
was going to be making a movie with his son,
(43:07):
and in nineteen seventy four Michael Berry did indeed direct
a movie whiching Barry, which is called The Second Coming
of Suzanne, which I think is considered one of the
crazier films of the seventies. It's not one I'm seeing,
but it's one that I know a lot of people
who are into really bizarre b films really tend to
like that one. And then I wanted to talk about
some of the Westerns, so I was really surprised. So
(43:30):
I will say the second made for tv ABC movie
the week was The Over the Hill Gang Rights Again,
which is an Aaron Spelling movie, and it was supposed
to be the first one, but for some reason they
switched the schedule and Aaron Spelling was a little bitter
about that. He always wanted his to be the first
meet for our first ABC movie, The Week. But of
course we had Black Noon. But we had a lot
of female centric westerns.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
We had Wild and Wooly.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Which I don't know much about, but I think it's
about a band of women who are trying to stop
the assassination of a president. The Daughters of Joshua McCabe
out in nineteen seventy two. It had two sequels. There
was Missus Sundance with Elizabeth Montgomery, which is about the
girlfriend of the Sundance Kid. Then we had Wanted The
Sundance Woman with Catherine Ross, which is where the Sundance
(44:12):
Kid's widow at a place joins up with Poncho Villa.
There was something called Ransom for Alice, which takes place
in eighteen ninety Seattle, which is about a Deputy Marshall
and his female partner who set out to bust up
a ring that kidnaps girls and sells them into prostitution.
That had a Vet Momo and Gil Gerard. And then
this is not female centric, but I wanted to mention it.
(44:33):
There's something called Charlie Cobb A Nice Night for Hanging,
and I only mentioned it because it was written by
Levinson and Link, who created Colombo, but it was also
co written by them and a man named Peter S. Fisher,
and the three of them would create Murder, she wrote later,
So that might be of interest for people who like Colombo.
And that's pretty much all the background I have. But
I thought it was interesting that there are a lot
(44:55):
of female centric westerns, and I'm kind of curious now
to check these out and kind of see what they.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Do with the women in those films.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Yeah, definitely. Now, most of these are from seventy one, they're.
Speaker 4 (45:05):
From the early to mids, some couple of late seventies,
so just that decade gotcha.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Very cool. Yeah, this is I think this is the
first made for TV like movie western that I've seen,
So yeah, it's something. It's a pretty much it's a
total blind spot for me, So I would definitely love
to check out more of them, for sure.
Speaker 4 (45:28):
I think you'll like some of these. I'm guessing Missus
Sundance with Elizabethtgomery is pretty good because she was pretty savvy.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
About her film roles.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yeah, I think that's a pretty popular film. I'm really
fascinated by the Daughters of Joshua Ka because there's three
of them. Oh one I didn't mention, and I thought
it was on my list. I think it's called Pioneer Woman,
and that was meant to be a pilot, and that
starred j Wanna Pettitt, and she was a self proclaimed feminist,
and I think she had set an interview something about
that series being pretty female centric and about second wave feminism,
(45:57):
and so I've been wanting to look at that as well.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
All right, cool, Yeah, I mean that brings us pretty
much to the end of the show. Amanda. Do you
have any place on social media that you want to
mention or do you have any physical media releases or
anything you've contributed to coming out soon?
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (46:16):
I have so many things.
Speaker 4 (46:17):
I don't know what's coming out and what's been announced yet,
but I know recently brinnerger Syndrome announced two blu rays
that I did essays for, and that one is The Nesting,
which is a nineteen eighty horror film about a woman
who has this dream about a house, and of course
she's out for a drive and finds the house and
so she rents it and all this stuff happens, and
(46:38):
it's kind of a fascinating film. And then I also
wrote an essay for Lucio Fulchi's Murder Rock, which I
wrote about like kind of a history of dancing in
eighties horror films, and that was really fun. I did
a commentary that just got announced for a movie called Mikey,
which is a killer kid movie from the early nineties
with Brian Bonsall, who is a little boy on family
(46:59):
ties playing a killer kid.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
I love that movie.
Speaker 4 (47:02):
That was so much fun to do a commentary for that.
And I also recently wrote an essay that was announced
for something called The Class of seventy four, which is
an Arthur Marx exploitation film that's really kind of interesting,
and I just sort of wrote about the women in
that and how they're portrayed, and it is a really
(47:23):
interesting kind of It's an interesting movie and people should
see it.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
But I don't know how to explain the film. Really.
Speaker 4 (47:30):
It's kind of wild, and it's actually like a sequel
of sorts to an adult film, but it's also not.
And then it was followed by a sequel that's a
proto slasher, and so it's got this weird history. It's
a kind of fascinating movie and those are the ones
I can think of offhand that I know have been
announced recently.
Speaker 2 (47:52):
All right, excellent, all right, well a mana, this was
great fun. Thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:01):
I hope you enjoyed this episode. I really enjoyed talking
with Amanda, and I'm so grateful I had the opportunity
to have this discussion with her. This is a pretty
obscure movie, but if you've seen The Devil and Miss Sarah,
what did you think of it? You can let me
know by emailing me at Tumbleweeds and Tvcowboys at gmail
dot com. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and
x All the links are in the show notes. Next week,
(48:21):
Dan Budnick is back and we're talking about episode seven
through nine of the first season of Gunsmoke. Until then,
if you're looking for more film related podcasts, please check
out other shows on the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 5 (48:37):
The audio commentary It's a dying art forum, but here
at one track, mind I your wonky at affable host
Brian Luis Rodriguez analyze film through the prism of these
embryonic forms of podcasting, one audio commentary at a time. Masterpieces,
crapster pieces, live action animation, cult classics, films literally no
(49:01):
one has ever heard of. No track is too small,
and no Track is too big. Join me and my
guests from the entertainment world as we keep these features
alive every other Tuesday. Hey, who else is going to
discuss Bill and Ted's bogus Journey one week and Citizen
Kane the next us that's who Sure, you have to
(49:22):
put up with my voice, but there's a certain give
and take in this industry. That's one track mine, part
of the Someone's Favorite Productions family and available wherever you
get your podcasts.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
Thank you for listening to hear more shows from the
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