Movies - Kolchak: The Night Stalker

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	Movies - Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Kolchak: The Night Stalker is a television series that aired on ABC in 1974, about 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 and The Night Strangler, in which McGavin as Kolchak tracked down serial killers who turned out to be respectively a vampire and a 19th century alchemist.

The series has been described as a predecessor of The X-Files, and X-Files creator Chris Carter has acknowledged that the show influenced him greatly in his own work. One character on The X-Files was named Richard Matheson after author Richard Matheson because of his involvement in the TV movies, and Darren McGavin, although unwilling to reprise his Kolchak character, played an FBI agent who was described as the "father of the X-Files".

The original incarnation

The original novel

The Kolchak character originated in a novel, The Kolchak Papers, written by Jeffrey Grant Rice. In the novel a Las Vegas newspaper reporter, Karel Kolchak, tracks down and defeats a serial killer who is really a vampire named Janos Skorzeny. In the novel, Kolchak explains that his first name is pronounced like "Carl" despite the ethnic spelling; the spelling was changed to the English version for the adaptations.

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 1972-01-11 and garnered the highest ratings of any TV movie at that time (33.2 rating - 54 share).

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. Simon Oakland reprised his role as the newspaper editor, and the cast also included Jo Ann Pflug, Richard Anderson, 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.

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