Screen Time

Following in the footsteps of ‘ The Night Stalker’

Craig S. Semon

Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK

Earlier this week — Tuesday, Jan. 11, to be precise — marked the 50th year anniversary of the premiere of “The Night Stalker.”

Produced by Dan Curtis (best known for the gothic soap opera “Dark Shadows” and the horror classics “Trilogy of Terror” and “Burnt Offerings,” both starring Karen Black), “The Night Stalker” chronicled the exploits of a seasoned investigative reporter hot on the trail of a modern-day vampire draining the blood out of his unsuspecting victims on the Las Vegas strip.

First airing as part of ABC’s “Tuesday Movie of the Week,” “The Night Stalker” stabbed a stake right in the heart of the Nielsen Ratings, becoming the highest-rated original TV movie on U.S. television up to that point.

“The Night Stalker” was excellent. The teleplay was written by Richard Matheson, the same man who wrote “I Am Legend,” which has been adapted for the screen three times, including “The Last Man on Earth” (with Vincent Price), “The Omega Man” (with Charlton Heston, one of my personal favorites) and “I Am Legend” (with Will Smith). Matheson also wrote “The Twilight Zone” episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” (with William Shatner) and “Duel,” which was one of Steven Spielberg’s early directorial triumphs.

The initial success of “The Night Stalker” inspired a TV movie sequel “The Night Strangler” (featuring Richard Anderson as a Civil War Union Army surgeon-turned Jack the Ripper-type serial killer who hides in the Seattle Underground) and a 20-episode series called “Kolchak: The Night Stalker,” which ran on ABC between 1974 and 1975.

Not only has it been cited by Chris Carter as the inspiration behind “The X-Files” (especially in the show’s monster-ofthe-week variety episodes), “The Night Stalker,” more specifically, Carl Kolchak (as played by veteran character actor Darren McGavin), was my chief inspiration to become a newspaperman. No kidding.

However, the show was doomed from the start. Not only was it put on the ratings death hour of 10 p.m. Fridays, the premiere episode was pitted against CBS airing for the first-time on television broadcast of Robert Altman’s “M*A*S*H*.”

You have to realize back in the ‘70s there was no streaming, no Blu-Rays, no DVDs, no VHS, no Beta. HBO was fairly new (launching in November 1972) and first-run movies were usually a year-and-a-half to two years old by the time they got on the premiere premium (and pricy) channel. So back then, a cut-up, commercial-interrupted theatrical movie on television was a big deal.

So that night I was huddled in my room with a portable black-and-white TV the size of a shoebox watching “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” while everyone else in the house was watched Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould and Sally Kellerman in the den.

“Kolchak: The Night Stalker” was a good show. Yes, there were a few episodes that were clunkers, but McGavin and company always sold the material, and some of the scripts were top-notch, especially the six co-written by David Chase, the creator of “The Sopranos.”

My favorite of the Chasescripted episodes is the “Zombie” episode, which actually had an underlying mob plot. Not only was it spooky, it had one of the best pieces of dialogue — a hilarious, three-way conversation with Kolchak talking, in person, to the local coroner (aka Gordy the Ghoul, play by character actor John Fiedler) at the morgue while talking to his editor Antonio Albert “Tony” Vincenzo (the always great Simon Oakland) on the phone.

However, my favorite scene pops up in “The Ripper” episode when fellow INS reporter Ron Updyke, filling in for Kolchak (who has to ghost-write the newspaper’s popular “Miss Emily” advice column), has to do lead on a crime story. In the scene, Updyke (who Kolchak nicknames “Up Tight”) shows his press badge at a crime scene (which happens to be a seedy massage parlor), strolls right in, trips over the victim’s body and excuses himself before he abruptly vomits, totally contaminating the crime scene. This is something that would never happen in real life.

But it wasn’t the horror or the monsters that I liked as much as I liked Kolchak, or should I say, McGavin’s portrayal of the character.

Wearing a blue seersucker suit with a straw porkpie hat, square dark tie and a pair of sneakers (a must to run away from the monsters), McGavin had a look and swagger all his own.

I loved the fact that that Kolchak was a police scanner junkie who often arrived at a crime scene before the police.

I loved that he would go to great, life-risking lengths to uncover the truth of a story, no matter how fantastical and unbelievable and unprintable it sounded.

I loved that he was always equipped with a bulky Sony TC-55 cassette recorder, Rollei 16S Submini camera with a blinding flash and interchangeable arsenal of weapons that included crosses, wooden stake with matching mallet, holy water, candles, salt, nee-

Craig S. Semon cosplays as Carl Kolchak at the NorthEast Comic Con in November.

CHERYL ROSEN PHOTOGRAPHY