12/12/1972: Disco-Vision and Doctors on TV

December 12, 1972  (Tuesday)

Even as early as 1972, the home video format was still in development.  Earlier in the year, the first home videocassette format, "Cartrivision," was introduced to the American public.  And the early pre-cursor to the DVD -- the videodisc -- had already been developed.  Unlike the more compact DVD, however, the videodisc was the size of an LP record.

Back in September, RCA had introduced their SelectaVision video disc system, and on December 12, MCA publicly unveiled Disco-Vision, which was intended to rival RCA's system. It was the first system to use a laser and reflective optical techniques to play back videodiscs. The public demonstration consisted of 7 minutes of material from 22 movies.  However, the picture quality was poor, and because of this, the system was not yet ready to hit the market. 

Around the same time, Philips was also developing an optical disc system very similar to Disco-Vision in Europe, and after MCA's demonstration, the two companies decided to merge their efforts. When Philips reps saw the MCA demo, they were sufficiently impressed and called up MCA.  Disco-Vision would eventually reach the market in late 1978.

MCA Disco-Vision -- now available in an antique store near you
... right next to the 8-track players

In the meantime, people continued to watch films the same way they had for decades -- on the big screen.  And there was no shortage of new and recent releases in theaters, including the movie that opened today:  Child's Play.

No relation to the 1988 horror film that first introduced the world to Chucky, Child's Play is a drama-mystery starring James Mason, Robert Preston, and Beau Bridges, and directed by Sidney Lumet.  The film centers on the rivalry between two faculty members (Mason and Preston) at an exclusive boarding school, the new gym teacher (Bridges) who gets caught in the midst of their escalating war, and the seemingly senseless acts of violence perpetrated by some of their students.

The film received mixed reviews upon its release.  Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "silly" and stated that everything in the film seemed to be "rather cheaply tricky," whereas Variety praised the performances by the two leads, Mason and Preston. Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide (my personal bible) gives the film two-and-a-half stars out of 4, calling the film "well-acted but somber and confusing."

My opinion of the film echoes Maltin's.  The lead performances were fantastic, but too much of the film is left murky and unexplained.  Generally I dislike movies that spell everything out for the audience in detail.  It shows little faith in the viewer's intelligence.  But it's also frustrating when too much is left unexplained.  In this case, the true nature of one of the principle characters is left vague. That ambiguity affects the entire movie; throughout most of the film, there are supernatural overtones, but the payoff is a rather conventional, Freudian ending.  As a result, we're left uncertain as to exactly what was going on in that school or even what kind of movie we've just watched.  

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On TV were new episodes of the usual Tuesday night primetime line-up, most of which seemed to feature a whole lot of doctors.  

On NBC was The New Doctors (this week's episode featuring a very young Don Johnson), and, on ABC, was Marcus Welby, M.D., starring Robert Young and James Brolin (and guest-starring William Shatner).  

ABC also aired the latest episode of its new sitcom Temperatures Rising.  Debuting on September 12, 1972, the show was set at Washington, D.C.'s Capitol General Hospital and starred James Whitmore, Cleavon Little, Joan Van Ark, Reva Rose, and Nancy Fox.  This week's episode (#13) was entitled "The New Head Nurse."

Top row:  Joan Van Ark, James Whitmore, Cleavon Little;
bottom row:  Nancy Fox, Reva Rose

According to numerous TV databases, the show was low-rated but was well-liked by those who did watch it, and ABC had a good deal of faith in the series and did everything they could to avoid its cancellation.  Like The Rookies (see previous blog), this was a show I had never heard of until I began researching this blog.  I've never seen it in syndicated reruns and, as of 2015, Temperatures Rising has never been released to DVD.

Also of note on ABC was an original made-for-TV movie entitled Pursuit, which was based on Michael Critchton's novel Binary and directed by Crichton himself.  Starring Ben Gazzara, E.G. Marshall, William Windom, Joseph Wiseman, Jim McMullan, and Martin Sheen, the plot involves government agents in pursuit of a political extremist planning to unleash stolen nerve gas in a city where a political convention is being held.  The film was Crichton's directorial debut.

And, on late night TV, Johnny Carson's guests on The Tonight Show were film actor Charlton Heston, comedian George Carlin (whose latest album, Class Clown, was rapidly rising the Billboard album charts), and musical guest Kenny Rankin.

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Meanwhile, in the real world, a boat carrying 65 mostly-black Haitian refugees landed on the coast of Florida, the first of the so-called "boat people" to flee from Haiti to the United States. There would continue to be more, sporadic landings over the next few years until 1978, when thousands of Haitians fleeing the Duvalier regime would begin seeking sanctuary in the U.S.

On December 12, I was four days old.