Kolchak: The Night Stalker

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Kolchak: The Night Stalker was an American television series that aired on ABC in 1974. It featured a newspaper reporter — Carl Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin — who investigates crimes with mysterious and unlikely causes that the proper authorities won't accept or pursue. The series was preceded by two television movies, The Night Stalker (1972) and The Night Strangler (1973).

The series has been described as a predecessor to The X-Files (1993-2002). The X-Files creator, Chris Carter, has acknowledged that the show influenced him greatly in his own work. He paid tribute to Kolchak in a number of ways. A character named "Richard Matheson", named for the screenwriter of the pilot films, appeared in several episodes. Carter also wanted McGavin to appear as Kolchak in one or more episodes of The X-Files, but McGavin was unwilling to reprise the character for the show. He did eventually appear in several episodes as Arthur Dales, a retired FBI agent described as the "father of the X-Files".

[edit] The original incarnation

[edit] The original novel

The Kolchak character originated in an unpublished novel, The Kolchak Papers, written by Jeffrey Grant Rice. In the novel, Las Vegas newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak tracks down and defeats a serial killer who is really a vampire named Janos Skorzeny. Although the character in the novel uses the name "Carl," it's revealed in the book that his birth name was "Karel."

The novel was finally published by Pocket Books as a mass-market paperback original under the title The Night Stalker with a Darren McGavin photo cover to tie in with the movie.

[edit] The TV movies

Rice was approached by ABC who optioned the property, which was then adapted by Richard Matheson into a TV movie produced by Dan Curtis and directed by John Llewellyn Moxey. Darren McGavin played the role of Carl Kolchak. Also included in the cast were Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker, Claude Akins, Charles McGraw, Kent Smith, Stanley Adams, Elisha Cook Jr., Larry Linville, Jordan Rhodes, and Barry Atwater as the vampire Janos Skorzeny.

The Night Stalker aired on the ABC network on 11 January 1972 and garnered the highest ratings of any TV movie at that time (33.2 rating - 54 share). Matheson received a 1973 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best TV Feature or Miniseries Teleplay.

Impressed by its success, ABC commissioned Richard Matheson to write a second movie, The Night Strangler (1973), which featured another serial killer in Seattle who strangled his victims and used their blood to keep himself alive for over a century through the use of alchemy. The Seattle Underground City was used as a setting for much of the action, and provided the killer with his hiding place. Dan Curtis both produced and directed the second movie, which also did well in the ratings. Rice then wrote a novelization based on Matheson's screenplay, a reverse of the situation for the first movie. The novel was published by Pocket Books as a mass-market paperback original under the title The Night Strangler with a close-up of the monster's eye to tie in with the movie.

Simon Oakland reprised his role as the newspaper editor, and the cast also included Jo Ann Pflug, Richard Anderson (as the alchemist), Scott Brady, Wally Cox, Margaret Hamilton, John Carradine, Nina Wayne and Al Lewis.

Several scenes were filmed with George Tobias playing a reporter who recalled a series of murders that he had investigated during the 1930s. These scenes were cut from the version first played to air because of time constraints; however, Tobias' character and his scenes were restored prior to the film's DVD release.

[edit] The first television series

In late 1973, a script for an intended third television movie entitled The Night Killers was written by William F. Nolan. Kolchak, along with Simon Oakland as "Tony Vincenzo", would investigate a series of murders in Hawaii in which prominent citizens were replaced with androids. McGavin, who had frequently clashed with Dan Curtis, said that he did not like the script and refused to proceed.

After some negotiation, McGavin agreed to return as Kolchak and informally worked as the series producer (although Cy Chermak and then Paul Playdon were the producers appointed by Universal), in an ABC-commissioned weekly series; however, ABC failed to obtain the permission of Jeff Rice, and a lawsuit resulted. It was resolved shortly before the series aired in the fall 1974 season and Rice received an on-screen credit as series creator. The series was now named The Night Stalker (originally called Kolchak: The Night Stalker, but its title shortened to avoid confusion with a similarly titled series, Kojak; both shows were produced by Universal Studios).

The series version was set in Chicago and featured Kolchak as a reporter for the Independent News Service (INS). The series also featured Simon Oakland, again appearing as Kolchak's editor; Ron Updyke (Jack Grinnage) as a supercilious rival at INS; and Emily Cowles (Ruth McDevitt) as an elderly advice columnist (and the only character who is sympathetic toward Kolchak). Each week Kolchak investigated murders involving supernatural and science fictional creatures. The series was light-hearted black comedy and placed Kolchak in an office setting with quirky co-workers. Other recurring characters included Monique Marmelstein (Carol Ann Susi) as an intern whose father owned the INS, Gordy "The Ghoul" Spangler (John Fiedler) as a helpful morgue attendant who ran lotteries based on corpse statistics, and Captain "Mad Dog" Siska (Keenan Wynn), a Chicago officer who found his efforts to reign in his temper through group therapy constantly thwarted by Kolchak's abrasive nature. McGavin's wife and behind-the-scenes assistant, Kathie Browne, appeared in the final episode as Lt. Irene Lamont, who found herself forced to deal with Kolchak.

The show featured a wide range of guest stars, many Hollywood veterans, including: Ken Lynch, Charles Aidman, Scatman Crothers, Dick Van Patten, Jan Murray, Larry Storch, Jeanne Cooper, Alice Ghostley, Victor Jory, Murray Matheson, Julie Adams, John Dehner, Phil Silvers, Bernie Kopell, Marvin Miller, Jesse White, James Gregory, Hans Conreid, Mary Wickes, Henry Jones, Carolyn Jones, Jackie Mason, Stella Stevens, Abraham Sofaer, David Doyle, Jim Backus, Kathleen Freeman, John Hoyt, and Dwayne Hickman. Other actors that would go on to subsequent popularity included: Eric Braeden, Tom Skeritt, Erik Estrada, Jamie Farr, Pat Harrington, Jr., Larry Linville, and Richard Kiel.

The series was canceled after one year due to mediocre ratings and at the behest of McGavin himself, as he had been unhappy with the "monster of the week" direction the program took, as well as with the exhausting filming schedule. McGavin has been quoted numerous times stating that he did, however, like and encourage the series' emphasis on comedy and its quirky family of office characters. Ultimately, however, McGavin asked for a release from his contract with two episodes left to be filmed, a request that the network granted in light of the show's dwindling ratings.

Two television movies, The Demon and the Mummy and Crackle of Death, were cobbled together in 1976, with each new movie being composed of two previously screened episodes from the series. A voice-over provided by McGavin allowed for some continuity in the narrative. Due to this reediting, the four actual episodes were removed from the syndication package and were unavailable in their original format until Columbia House released them on VHS.

The series is now occasionally rerun on the Sci-Fi Channel with its original expanded title, Kolchak: The Night Stalker.

The series provided the first professional writing credit for Bob Gale (story for the episode "Chopper").

David Chase, creator of The Sopranos, worked on the series as a story editor, his first regular crew position in Hollywood. He is credited for eight episodes but as story editor helped in the rewriting of the remaining 12, and McGavin and others attribute much of the show's quirky humor to his creative input.

The series is now available on DVD.

[edit] The characterisation of Carl Kolchak

In The Night Stalker, Carl Kolchak is described by his editor, Tony Vincenzo (Simon Oakland), as "a has-been big-city reporter". In the same film, his girlfriend Gail Foster (Carol Lynley) recounts the number of times Carl has been fired:

Foster: "Let's see, how many times has it been... uh, twice in Washington, three times in New York, twice in Chicago, and once — or was it twice — in Boston?"

Kolchak: (holds up three fingers)

Foster: "Oh."

At the conclusion of The Night Stalker, Kolchak finds himself out of a job once again, and blackmailed by the Las Vegas police never to return to Las Vegas. Kolchak is told that his girlfriend Gail has also been "asked to leave town". Carl exhausts his savings placing personal advertisements across the country in an attempt to find her: he is unsuccessful, and Gail does not make an appearance in The Night Strangler or any of the television episodes which followed.

At the beginning of The Night Strangler, Kolchak encounters his former editor Vincenzo at a bar in Seattle, where Kolchak is trying in vain to use his old news clippings to convince someone that vampires exist. Although Vincenzo does not appear happy to see Carl, he hires Kolchak as a reporter for The Daily Chronicle, where Vincenzo now works as an editor.

History repeats itself:

Vincenzo: "I came to Seattle for some peace and quiet, and what do I get? You again, and another crazy story!"

Kolchak recruits exotic dancer/pre-med student Louise Harper (Jo Ann Pflug) to assist him in tracking down the eponymous strangler, but he confesses to his tape recorder (Sony TC-55) that his interest in her is not limited to the story.

Kolchak: "I telephoned my belly-dancing undergraduate friend, and asked her to attend an afternoon tour of the underground with me. Confession of news man, chapter one: her being with me had nothing to do with the story."

Despite this confession, there is no evidence that the relationship between Kolchak and Harper is anything other than platonic (although Jeff Rice introduced a romantic relationship in his novelization of Matheson's script). At the conclusion of The Night Strangler, Kolchak is once again out of a job, but this time he is accompanied by Vincenzo, who has been fired for attempting to print Kolchak's story. The pair are last seen driving to New York, with Harper in the back seat; all three are arguing.

In the Moonstone short story collection, Kolchak: The Night Stalker Casebook, one story, "Until Tomorrow" by Joe Gentile, establishes that Louise was shot in a convenience store holdup and that she and Carl were married at the time. The story has the note, "The following is based on notes from Kolchak's original chronicler Jeff Rice..."(page 253), making it canon. Another story in the collection, Mark Dawidziak's "Cancellation," establishes that Louise died in Chicago, presumably just prior to the events of the TV series.

[edit] The 2005 television series

Main article: Night Stalker (TV series)

While Jeff Rice Rice retains the rights to written Kolchak works, and Universal owns the rights to the TV series, ABC maintained ownership of the two TV movies and began airing a new Night Stalker series on September 29, 2005, with the character Carl Kolchak portrayed by Stuart Townsend. This 2005 lacked the humour of the 1974 series. On November 14, 2005, the network and creator Frank Spotnitz announced the cancellation of the new series, due to low viewership. The lack of interest may have due to the more dramatic tone of the new series, or the more youthful/pop oriented style and setting meant to appeal to a different demographic than fans of the original program. Also, ABC only owned the rights to the two TV movies, restricting their access to the better known minor recurring characters in the TV series. Superficial similarities to Spotnitz's previous work on The X-Files (a male believer as the protagonist and a female skeptic as his partner, the generally darker tone, an unseen conspiracy) were also cited.

In the pilot episode, there is a brief (about three seconds) shot of Darren McGavin in the newsroom (taken from the original TV movie) as the new Kolchak (Townsend) is walking through it. Inserted digitally, McGavin is dressed in the same frumpy clothes he wore as Kolchak in the original series and smiling a knowing smile while fondling his hat. In another shot, when fellow reporter Perri Reed (Gabrielle Union) is searching through Kolchak's room, the hat that Darren McGavin wore in the original series is hanging on a coat rack. Other names of character from the TV movies are referenced in various episodes, and one episode ("Timeless") used much of the plot of the TV movie The Night Strangler. The 2005 series is available on DVD.

[edit] Other projects

In 1991, author Mark Dawidziak wrote Night Stalking: A 20th Anniversary "Night Stalker" Companion detailing the production of the movies and TV series.

In 1994 Dawidziak worked with author Jeff Rice and produced the first official "Kolchak" material since the end of the TV series. The novel, Grave Secrets, moved Kolchak from Chicago to Los Angeles where he obtained a job at the Hollywood Dispatch (nicknamed the "Disgrace"). Most of the recurring characters from the TV movies and series also appeared. Kolchak becomes involved with a ghost-guardian killing those responsible for the destruction of its Ohio cemetery.

In 1996, Dawidziak's 1991 book was re-released as The Night Stalker Companion: A 25th Anniversary Tribute with additional material added to the 1991 book.

A comic book based on the property was published in 2003 by Moonstone Books with some commercial success. Moonstone continues to publish both a bimonthly serial magazine and a series of original graphic novels featuring the characters to this day. Moonstone also adapted Jeff Rice's original script of The Night Stalker as well as two unfilmed scripts for the TV series: "The Get of Belial" and "Eve of Terror".

In 2006 Moonstone published a short fiction anthology, The Night Stalker Chronicles, with short stories contributed by writers such as Peter David, Mike W. Barr, Stuart Kaminsky, Richard Dean Starr, and Max Allan Collins. A second volume, Kolchak: The Night Stalker Casebook, was published in January 2007 featuring new short fiction by authors including P. N. Elrod, Christopher Golden, Richard Dean Starr, and Elaine Bergstrom.

[edit] Pop culture references

• As part of their "Flashback" series in 1997, Marvel Comics published a one-shot comic book called Venom: Seed of Darkness Minus 1. In this story about the Spider-Man comics characters, reporter Eddie Brock investigates a series of strange cases with possible supernatural ties. In one scene he goes to a bar and meets with a very Kolchak-like reporter who bemoans that his career was ruined by investigating stories that were out of the ordinary. He warns Brock that he is heading down the same path.

• An episode of the animated television series Justice League Unlimited (Season 3) called "Fearful Symmetry" had a reporter named Jerry appear in a coffee shop and start asking questions of another character; the reporter looked like Kolchak, with a light blue suit and straw hat, and talked in the "Kolchak" style.

• The 1987-1988 Fox network television series Werewolf featured the adventures of Eric Cord (played by John J. York), a reluctant werewolf on a quest to rid himself of his curse by killing the originator of his "bloodline." The show's recurring werewolf villain, Janos Skorzeny (played by Chuck Connors), was named after the vampire encountered by Carl Kolchak in the original Kolchak TV movie The Night Stalker.

• In a recent TV Guide article, Nicholas Cage attributes Kolchak: The Night Stalker for his inspiration in producing the new TV series, The Dresden Files, about a private detective/wizard who investigates crimes involving the supernatural.

• In the miniatures game Mechwarrior: Age of Destruction, a pilot with the surname "Kolchak" is shown as piloting a 'Mech called a "Night Stalker."

• In the Corner Gas episode "All My Ex's", Hank refers to Lacey's ex-fiance as Kolchak, implying he is a stalker.

• In the MMORPG Shadowbane, the founder of the Nighstalker order is a man called Colshak.

• A "regulation Paranormal Investigation Hat" appears throughout the nonfiction Encyclopedia Horrifica, in which the author investigates real-life sightings of "vampires, ghosts, monsters, and more." The hat is similar to Carl Kolchak's trademark raffia porkpie hat.

• Kolchak makes a brief appearance in Scarlet Traces: The Great Game, investigating rumors of a vampire in Britain.

[edit] DVD Releases

The 2 TV movies were released on DVD by MGM Home Video on August 24, 2004. (an earlier DVD release of the two films by Anchor Bay Entertainment is out of print). The subsequent TV series was released on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time by Universal Studios Home Entertainment on October 4, 2005.

[edit] External links

• The Night Stalker (1972 TV movie) at the Internet Movie Database
• The Night Strangler at the Internet Movie Database
• Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974 TV series) at the Internet Movie Database

• Darren McGavin (authorized website)
• Jack Grinnage (played "Ron Updyke")
• The Kolchak DVD Official Universal Studios Site
• Kolchak: The Night Stalker at TV.com
• Big Light Productions, production company for the 2005 Night Stalker series
• The Kolchak Journals, a print media fan magazine.
• Pomegranate Press Publisher of The Night Stalker Companion: A 25th Anniversary Tribute by Mark Dawidziak
• Moonstone Books Publisher of Kolchak comics and novels.fr:Dossiers brûlants

it:Night Stalker ja:事件記者コルチャック