Rachael, Sweet Rachael

i have a fond memory of some old (made-for-TV?) movie from my ute named, i thought, Rachael Sweet Rachael. that googles up naught, so i obviously have that wrong.

additionally, i thought it starred Karen Black, but nothing in her filmog looks at all close. she was the scream queen of the era, however, so it's possible my memory is dragging her in willy-nilly. between her being the star and the title being as above, i'd have more confidence in the title, frankly. (have tried googling "Rachael Dear Rachael", "Rachael My Rachael" and a few other as well, but...)

best as i can recall, it involved a tormented girl committing suicide off a high cliff into the ocean. or being pushed. or going missing and people reconstructing whether she had jumped, been pushed, or what. may have been a creaky old house atop the cliff, i don't know. but it definitely involved high cliffs and a girl falling into the crashing ocean. like "dark shadows" with a jumper.

i suspect it was in color, but still had a very "dark" feeling to it.

i'd put it around 1972.

can anyone cobble together what movie this might be? i rly wanna find/DL this film -- perhaps my earliest childhood memory!! really and truly STARTLED when "Rachael Sweet Rachael" googled up empty....

TIA!

 

SWEET, SWEET RACHEL (Aired on ABC 10/2/71) An alltime favorite TV movie of many. An ESP expert searches out a killer who uses telepathy to kill. Super spooky! http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0067811/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqJ-gJKKo34

 

i cannot believe that weeks (months?!) of googling variations on that title, and i failed to come across something SO ferkin CLOSE!!!! arrrrrggghhhhh!!

did you happen to KNOW the film, or just a more competent googler?

in my defense, however, i'll point out that google can't even find it if seaching on "Sweet Sweet Rachael". BAH!

anyway, moochers grassy arse! i shall watch that youtube copy my first available chance!!

 

I didn't know the film nor ever seen anything on TV remotely like it, not being a US viewer. All I did was cut/paste your first paragraph into Google and the first few hits all pointed to the links and details I posted - sorry no magic but the women in the screen shot has scary eyes though.

The first link led me to here: http://www.cinefear.com/televisionterrors.html then I copied the paragraph on that page to find further hits.

 

yeah, i figured you were brit based on your ID (didn't you fall off a YACHT some years back?)...but given that the film uses the UK spelling for rachael, and that you posted me the UK site for IMDB, you got me to wondering whether maybe it WASN'T a made-for-yank-tv film after all (yeah, it was, but).

i am really disturbed that google cannot find this from the near-miss "sweet sweet rachael". geesh. you google "pearl harbour", it has no problem finding pearl harbor! in fact, you google "pearl farbor" or "pearl marbor", it still gets you there.

but "sweet sweet rachael" -- THAT's not close enuf for google's algorithms?! :confused

 

just to report back, i have now watched it and it was...um...okay. not quite the seminal work my mind had played it up to be.

and the "cliff" in question was about 6 feet high! just some rocks on a beach beneath a big hollywood** mansion. the jumper did indeed die on the rocks/beach, but only b/c he (yes, he) got a headstart going out a 3d floor window.

film did have some "moody" scenes (shadowy halls, flickering candles, etc), but most of it was set in the daytime and some of it outdoors. all in all it was less "goth" and more "columbo" -- big fancy house, rich widow, and a couple of hollywood doctors offering case theories over cocktails.

it was not at all "scary"...i'd definitely rate it more as a "detective" show than any sort of "horror" one. i think i may have conflated some actual "dark shadows" in my brain.

or karen black's "trilogy of terror", another ABC movie from around the same time.

but all in all, it wasn't bad. i'd give it a 6.

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** hollywood is actually not on the water but such is the way of cinema.