IN DEFENSE OF A MARRIED MAN.
That's a 1990 TV movie starring Judith Light.
But it is not a LIFETIME movie.
Our friend, an actress, was born in the mid-seventies.
But to her way of thinking, any TV movie starring a woman must be a LIFETIME movie.
TV movies really took hold in the sixties.
We'd argue a point few make, this has to do with the move from live to taped.
In the fifties, for examples, live TV had little need for made-for-TV movies.
They had, for example, plays performed live.
But as live TV dwindled, a need developed.
ABC aired THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK starting in 1969.
The TV movie could be any sort of fair.
It might allow Tuesday Weld to remake DIABOLIQUE (as REFLECTIONS OF MURDER) or Lee Remick to star in THE WOMEN'S ROOM or Susan Blakely to star in A CRY FOR LOVE.
Eve Plumb might be able to show there was more to her than Jan Brady by starring in DAWN: PORTRAIT OF A TEENAGE RUNAWAY.
Some actresses might stay with the movie of the week genre for a series of films -- Mare Winningham, Donna Mills, Elizabeth Montgomery, Victoria Principal and Lindsay Wagner, to cite a few.
It was a genre actresses could make a mark in with defining performances delivered by Farrah Fawcett in THE BURNING BED, SMALL SACRIFICES and BETWEEN TWO WOMEN; Marlo Thomas in THE LOST HONOR OF KATHRYN BECK and NOBODY'S CHILD; Jane Fonda in THE DOLLMAKER; Angela Bassett in THE ROSA PARKS STORY; Glenn Close in SOMETHING ABOUT AMELIA and SERVING IN SILENCE: THE MARGARETHE CAMMERMEYER STORY; Diana Ross in OUT OF DARKNESS; Ann-Margaret in WHO WILL LOVE MY CHILDREN? and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE; Cicely Tyson in THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MISS JANE PITTMAN; Bette Davis in WHITE MAMA; Vanessa Redgrave in PLAYING FOR TIME and SECOND SERVE; Alfre Woodard in UNNATURAL CAUSES, THE PIANO LESSON, MISS EVERS' BOYS and A MOTHER'S COURAGE: THE MARY THOMAS STORY; Barbara Hershey in A KILLING IN A SMALL TOWN; Halle Berry in INTRODUCING DOROTHY DANDRIDGE and THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD; Jessica Lange in NORMAL; Liza Minnelli in A TIME TO LIVE; Lynn Whitfield in THE JOSEPHINE BAKER STORY; Sigourney Weaver in PRAYERS FOR BOBBY; Natalie Wood in THE CRACKER FACTORY; Queen Latifah in BESSIE; Mary Tyler Moore in LIKE MOTHER LIKE SON: THE STRANGE STORY OF SANTE AND KENNY KIMES; Elizabeth Taylor and Carol Burnett in BETWEEN FRIENDS; and Cher, Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek, Anne Heche and Jada Pinkett in IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK.
That's not a complete list but the list may have you noticing that the more recent TV films tend to be on cable.
Cable and streaming tend to be where they air now.
The streaming service CRACKLE, for example, offered their first TV movie in 2013 (EXTRACTION) and this year offered the comedy MAD FAMILIES starring Charlie Sheen and Leah Remini.
The better known streaming service NETFLIX got started making TV movies two years after CRACKLE in 2015. But if you count their documentaries, they started a year before CRACKLE -- in 2012 with ART OF CONFLICT: THE MURALS OF NORTHERN IRELAND.
Documentaries are the strongest TV movies these days and HULU has had two of the best.
BATMAN & BILL is Don Argott and Sheena M. Joyce's look at how Bill Finger was denied his creating credit on the character Batman (among others) and how, decades after his death, he finally got the credit he deserved.
It's an involving story that holds your interest to the very end even if cheats little.
How?
The money settlement is never acknowledged.
Will it ever be?
Who knows but the film offers a heroic pursuit of the truth.
It also offers a clear villain.
The most obvious one would be the corporation itself but since WARNER BROTHERS produced the documentary with HULU, is it a surprise that the corporation is seen as kind and loving?
The villain becomes Bob Kane.
Kane asked for Bill Finger's help in creating Batman.
But he refused to share credit.
And, as the years went by, he lied.
He even, apparently, tried to pass off an after-the-fact drawing as something he'd done years before he met Bill Finger.
There's a story that gets noted but not explored: How a lie that you back yourself into can consume you and destroy your legacy.
That subplot is as important as the granddaughter pursuing the truth for her dead father and grandfather.
HULU's other documentary this month is BECOMING BOND.
Directed by Josh Greenbaum, the film is TV movie at its worst.
Greenbaum's never been strongly connected to the truth throughout his brief career.
He refuses to let it hamper him here.
George Lanzenby is the subject.
The Australian's claim to fame is playing James Bond in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.
The documentary tells a cute little tale that doesn't hold up with the Broccoli family which may explain why -- despite casting many actors to recreate various scenes -- Cubby Broccoli doesn't show up as a character in the documentary.
Sadly, Josh Lawson shows up repeatedly.
He plays George Lazenby as an adult so he's in easily half the film.
Josh is 35 and looks 42.
This isn't a minor detail when Lazenby is known for being the youngest actor to play James Bond (he was 29-years-old).
Josh doesn't look like Lazenby either.
The film goes from present day Lazenby to Josh playing him to a scene from the film ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE with Lazenby from decades ago.
And it's jarring for so many reasons.
The Bill Pullman hair cut is off putting as it the dull brown color.
It's not the way Lazenby wore his (black) hair in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.
It brings out all the chubby in Josh Lawson's face.
And demonstrates that he would never have been a successful male model.
As an actor, he skims the surface repeatedly.
Jane Seymour plays Maggie Abbott in the film.
The former Bond girl (LIVE AND LET DIE) gives a great performance but you wonder about a scene where Maggie's on the phone and the false eyelashes on her left eye go astray.
Why didn't director Greenbaum call for a reshoot?
Did he not notice?
He appears to miss a lot and to hope that the viewer misses even more.
For example, it wasn't just the beard and long hair that the producers objected to.
In fact, they didn't object to the beard all that much.
They wouldn't want to film Bond in a beard but a beard on the male model might make him less suspect to the press.
What bothered the producers of the Bond film was the long hair and ear ring.
Strangely, the ear ring's never mentioned.
The ear ring, like hanging with Barbra Streisand, didn't come off Bond-like to the money men.
The documentary never notes Streisand or Lazenby's affair with Joanna Lumley.
It also fails to provide any real context.
When he's being advised to turn down follow ups in the James Bond franchise, it's said that Bond will be uncool and out of step. Some brief remarks about films are mentioned but there's nothing about Harold Wilson or the problems Labour is experiencing. (Exactly six months after the film ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE is released, Wilson will be voted out as prime minister and Labour will see the Conservative Party take control of Parliament.)
Vietnam as an international issue and Ireland as an issue in England were issues that Lazenby cited in real time but they're issues that don't appear anywhere in the documentary.
The documentary also wants you think the studio feared Lazenby might be gay due to being a male model.
While the press loved to run with that (and THE MELODY MAKER would spend so much of the 70s and 80s still running with homophobia and THE LONDON EVENING STANDARD would carry Dusty Springfields' remarks about bisexuality in 1970, creating a stir), the reasons the producers worried are in the documentary even if director Greenbaum doesn't want to acknowledge it.
Scenes and talk of three-ways, Lazenby, a woman and another man.
Was this a bromance or something heavier?
Greenbaum never asks that question.
Or question Lazenby's decision to have sex with a woman in a hotel room while a man sits in a chair and watches.
BECOMING BOND is beyond superficial.
As firmly as Colin Hanks' ALL THINGS MUST PASS is rooted in reality, BECOMING BOND is rooted in fantasy. (ALL THINGS MUST PASS is currently airing on SHOWTIME, FYI.) Forget a fact check, it doesn't even hold up to the commentary on the disc of ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE.
The TV movie will be tested yet again this Wednesday when ABC airs their remake of DIRTY DANCING.
