After eight seasons, 254 episodes, and five Emmy nominations, Elizabeth Montgomery left BEWITCHED and began starring in dramatic made-for-TV movies. The actress collected a hefty (by early 70s TV standards) paycheck for her first post-sitcom project: THE VICTIM. The thriller aired on THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK on November 14, 1972, four months after the network presented the final BEWITCHED episode.
In THE VICTIM Montgomery travels in a rainstorm to visit the remote home of her soon-to-be divorced sister. Unknown to Montgomery (but not to the audience), her sister’s open-eyed corpse has been hidden in the basement. Before long, somebody with black leather gloves cuts the phone line and turns off the power, leaving Montgomery in the dark. When she tries to flee¾surprise¾her car won’t start. Director Herschel Daugherty and crew used POV shots, lots of zooms, a lackluster rain machine, and red-gelled lights to made a decent thriller for the 90-minute time slot. The atmosphere is similar to that in the fondly-remembered HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS, which turned up on THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK the following year. The lovely Montgomery spends a lot of time looking scared and saying “Who’s there?” but her character is also smart and brave. The ending is disappointing and rushed but the final, freeze-frame shot is chilling. The movie and the promo spots were disturbing for young BEWITCHED fans who were confused by seeing Samantha in this environment. With Eileen Heckert as the kooky housekeeper, Sue Ane Langdon as the gossiping friend and “Special Guest Star” George Maharis as the suspicious brother-in-law. Based on the heavily-anthologized 1944 short story “The Storm” by crime novelist MacIntoch Malmar (aka Malmar McKnight). “The Storm” had already been a 1962 THRILLER episode also directed by Daugherty, a tireless TV workhorse with endless credits.
The next year, Montgomery was back on THE ABC MOVIE OF THE WEEK in MRS. SUNDANCE, an official sequel to BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID. She continued with off-beat TV-movie roles and got more Emmy nominations for projects like the highly-rated A CASE OF RAPE (1974) and THE LEGEND OF LIZZIE BORDEN (1975), which remain two of the best TV movies ever made. She never returned to comedy after BEWITCHED and died of cancer in 1995.
THE VICTIM later turned up in syndication packages and was released on VHS and Beta in the 80s in an oversized box with the tagline “The phone isn’t the only thing that’s dead in Susan’s house.” Highly unlikely to get a DVD release, THE VICTIM doesn’t even turn up for sale from grey-market dealers that carry 1970s-era TV movies, but it is heavily-traded among Montgomery fans.