When Michael Calls is a made-for-TV horror movie that aired on ABC February 5, 1972.
It is based on a book by John Farris, who penned The Fury. The screenplay is written by James Bridges, who also wrote Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Paper Chase and The China Syndrome.
Let’s see how When Michael Calls. stacks up to other made-for-TV horror movies like The Intruder Within, Midnight Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, Satan’s Triangle, Killdozer, Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell , Invitation to Hell, Summer of Fear, Savages, Moon of the Wolf, The Initiation of Sarah, Crowhaven Farm, A Cold Night’s Death, Snowbeast, The Possessed, Chiller, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Full Eclipse and The Victim.
When Michael Calls
The movie starts with a shot of a rustic highway, like every made-for-TV horror movie. It makes one half believe made-for-TV movies were an excuse for Hollywood types to LARP in the countryside as common folk.
“Haha! Look at me, Buffy! I’m a douchebag…but in flannel!”
A little girl named Peggy has a tea party with dolls in a lakeside playhouse. She uses real cups. Poor girl never had a chance. She’s already programmed to be “help meat.”
A car pulls up, and Ben Gazzara exits. He orders a monster truck to destroy a car dealership. Just kidding. Gazzara is not in Road House villain mode. He is in doting-father mode. He hugs Peggy, and they enter a house. The house looks like it might have the The Brady Bunch imprisoned in its basement.
More characters are introduced:
Doc, played by Larry Reynolds (My Bloody Valentine), the maid, Elsa, portrayed by Marian Waldman (Black Christmas) and Elizabeth Ashley (Coma), Gazzara’s estranged wife.
Elizabeth is Gazzara’s estranged wife in the movie, not real life. Real life estranged wives for Gazzara include radio actress Louise Erickson and regular actress Janice Rule. Janice showed up in The Swimmer, reviewed here.
But wait, bonus marriage shenanigans! Elizabeth was married to George Peppard, and their divorce was rumored to have caused the cancellation of Banacek. George quit the show to keep Elizabeth from getting his paycheck. Cold-blooded.
Back to When Michael Calls. We also learn the name of Gazzara’s character: Doremus.
That sounds like the name of a vampire in an Italian ripoff of a Hammer film ripoff off a Universal film. “Attenzione Count Doremus! He is cattivo!”
When Michael Jackson Calls
The first thing Gazzara does is have a drink of booze and light a cigarette. In fact, Elizabeth pours a snort for everyone. Ah, the 70s.
Elizabeth is angry that Gazzara showed up unannounced. It ruined her weekslong plan to cook a pheasant dinner for Doc, Elsa and Peggy.
Where are the women who spend weeks planning a pheasant dinner for regular members of a household these days? I guess Mrs. Wrenage did spend weeks planning a dinner for me once. The trickiest part for her was establishing an alibi and getting the strychnine delivered to a dummy address. Well, that and getting the meringue to rise…
The family also has a handyman who mopes around with a dopey expression. He is played by Alan McRae, who appeared in two of the four 3 Ninjas films. What is worse? Being in a 3 Ninjas film or not being good enough to appear in all the 3 Ninjas films?
As an aside, I enjoy looking at cars in these movies. They have so much panache compared to modern car. It is similar to 1970s supermodels vs. 2020s supermodels. They have the same basic structure, yes, but no style.
The phone rings. Elizabeth answers. It is a boy named “Michael,” who tells her he missed the school bus and hangs up. Elizabeth looks as concerned as Captain Kirk being told the Enterprise will not have warp power until the last possible second.
The reason Elizabeth pulls a Shatner is because Michael is her nephew…that has been dead for fifteen years. Dun dun duuuuuun!
When Michael Knight Calls
Michael Douglas appears. Man, all these Michaels are going to get confusing. We will call Michael Douglas “MD.” He is a counselor who works with troubled children. It is hard to tell if MD is Elizabeth’s special friend or if he is friend-zoned. He kisses her on the cheek, so it could go either way at this point.
Then again, Elizabeth does complain about her ex, Gazzara, to MD, so he is definitely friend-zoned. Odds are MD has a Valentine’s Day date planned for her where he shows up with a dozen roses, a box of chocolates and a giant teddy bear, but he’ll have to pick her up from Gazzara’s apartment, and she’ll be wearing one of Gazzara’s hoodies.
“It’s so wonderful to have a friend like you, MD. By the way, can we stop at Woolworth’s quick? I couldn’t find my underwear…”
Meanwhile, Michael continues to call Elizabeth, and the calls continue to get a bit scarier. Is Elizabeth going insane? Is Michael a ghost? Stay tuned to find out!
Also, we get clarification on MD’s status. He is Elizabeth’s nephew, and Michael was his brother. Michael died when he ran away from home and got lost in a blizzard. I preferred my “friend zone theory.”
A surprising amount of story has already happened. We are only twenty minutes in, and everything is nicely laid out. That Silent Generation (1928-1945) knew how to write. People raised on poverty and rationing understand efficiency.
Speaking of WWII, Elsa’s accent makes one wonder if she isn’t on a Mossad list. Nazi secretaries got tried for war crimes, too. They kept the death machine running smoothly via the paperwork. That makes sense. Watch what happens when your boss’s secretary is absent for any length of time. Things fall apart. The center cannot hold.
When Michael Calls Collect
Right on cue, the stakes are raised. Death enters the equation. Doc is a beekeeper and is swarmed to death when he puts banana-smelling liquid on his bees instead of nail polish smelling liquid. I’m not going into it. It’s a whole thing.
Suffice it to say, the ghost of Michael is blamed. A blond boy child is even spotted at the scene of the crime.
Meanwhile, Al Waxman pops into the film as a yokel sheriff. He got to be in a Chuck Norris movie (The Hitman), an Iron Eagle movie (the fourth one) and provided a voice on Heavy Metal. He even has a statue in Kensington Market because Canada needs heroes beyond Bob and Doug McKenzie.
Despite the weird things happening, the town decides to hold its annual fall festival regardless. Good idea. These kind of events always go well in horror films. Said festival seems to mostly consist of kids throwing pies at MD’s face.
Yet, my favorite festival moment is when Gazzara play acts strangling Peggy and comes off more serious than joking, like he genuinely hates that kid. Meanwhile, Elizabeth looks on like she is falling in love with Gazzara all over again.
Gazzara’s demeanor is not one of warmth and cuddles. He looks like someone netted a redneck, dragged him to a city and taught him to wear nice cloths to teach urban dwellers that rural folk can be human, too.
Then Gazzara rips off his shirt, shotguns a Schlitz and asks a woman who volunteers at a law firm representing homeless people to watch NASCAR with him.
At that point, he is euthanized, for propriety’s sake…
When A Stranger Michael Calls
Oh yeah, remember Sheriff Waxman? He is killed by “Michael” at the fall festival. His corpse swan dives onto the jack-o-lantern display for the grand finale.
Don’t be sad. I’m pretty sure that’s how he wanted to go…
Lore is dispensed. Apparently, Michael and MD’s mom had mental problems. Doc and Waxman helped put her in a mental institution, where she died. That is why Michael and MD ended up in the care of Elizabeth.
Red herrings get tossed about like blame at a [pick your celebrity] trial. It seems even the movie grows confused about whether or not the killings are done by a ghost, a human agent or bees yearning to be free.
It all culminates in a climax that reveals MD as the killer. He is in a weird psychological grooming dynamic with one of his boy patients at an institute for troubled children. MD suffers from a combination of watching his mother die and guilt for telling Michael to run away and die in a snowstorm. Or something. He also hypnotized the boy to make phone calls even though the boy is a mute. Just don’t think too much. You’ll be fine.
When Michael Douglas Calls
When Michael Calls started out strong but dried up on the vine as it went along. The best part was watching a young Michael Douglas spread his wings. Douglas had a heck of a run in the 1980s and beyond. He seamlessly shuffled between comedy, adventure, action and grown-up films. I especially miss his grown-up films like Basic Instinct, The Perfect Murder, The Game and Falling Down.
What is often overlooked is that Douglas produced a lot of films, as well: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Flatliners, Radio Flyer and Face/Off. He even produced the Jean Claude Van Damme film, Double Impact.
Despite Michael Douglas’s presence, the best thing to do When Michael Calls is take a message…
