Brian’s Song (1971)

Matt Roush says...

For one night, TCM turns its focus to classic movies made for television, and what a lineup it is, starting with 1971’s Peabody and Emmy-winning football tear-jerker about the friendship between Chicago Bears players Gale Sayers (Billy Dee Williams) and Brian Piccolo (James Caan), who receives a devastating cancer diagnosis. Followed by John Travolta from 1976 as The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (10/9c), and at midnight/11c, Steven Spielberg’s riveting and career-launching thriller Duel from 1971, starring Dennis Weaver as a motorist at war with an unseen semi-truck driver. Overnight at 2 am/1c, Cicely Tyson stars in the Emmy-winning civil rights drama The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. Network TV is a poorer place for having abandoned the art of making these punchy and powerful stories.

What's Worth Watching (Mar 22)