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The ABC Movie of the Week: Big Movies for the Small Screen Michael McKenna. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2013.
American television networks began producing and airing made-for-television films in 1962, but the ABC Movie of the Week made them a fixture of American broadcasting. The "series" offered viewers a new ninety-minute film each week in its first two seasons (1969-1971) and two different films each in its next four (1971-1975): a total of 243 films by the time it left the airwaves. Movie of the Week productions resembled the "B" features produced by Hollywood to fill the bottom halves of double bills: genre-bound films with compact running times, small casts, low budgets, and limited ambitions. Most were little more than formula entertainment, designed to be enjoyed once and quickly forgotten, but a surprising number resonated beyond their initial airings. A few-including Duel (1971), The Night Stalker (1972), and Bad Ronald (1974)-were hailed as genre classics. Others served as pilots for successful ABC television series, such as Alias Smith and Jones, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Starsky and Hutch. A third group dramatized the divisive social and cultural...