ABC's First Movie Of The Week Was An Adventure Story Starring Comedian Milton Berle

For over half-a-decade, the "ABC Movie of the Week" was a television institution, bringing viewers a brand-new made-for-TV film straight to their homes. The first was an epic survival story featuring iconic small-screen comedian Milton Berle in a dramatic role about plane crash survivors trying to find their way out of the wilderness. The twist? All of them are blind.

"Seven in Darkness" premiered on September 23, 1969, and was in many ways indicative of the high-concept ideas which would define most installments of ABC's anthology series. A group of visually impaired people are flying to a conference for the blind in Seattle when their plane crashes in the woods. The pilot and all the other sighted passengers die, so the blind survivors — including a pregnant woman, a Vietnam veteran, and Berle's antagonistic Sam Fuller — must find their way to safety. Their lack of sight makes this even more challenging than it would be otherwise; a memorable scene in the movie has them struggling to cross a rushing river because none of them are able to see there's a nearby bridge.

Reviews for "Seven in Darkness" weren't great, with many critics highlighting that it didn't feel like a "real" movie despite a pretty expensive $16 million budget. The ratings were just okay, but ABC considered it a success as "ABC Movie of the Week" ended up being a great lead-in for the now-forgotten, Emmy-winning "Marcus Welby, M.D.," which premiered right after and was a ratings hit.

Milton Berle earned the nickname "Mr. Television" thanks to just how popular and beloved he was on the small screen in the late '40s and '50s when he hosted NBC's "Texaco Star Theatre." He was very much a comedian, having gotten his start in vaudeville before moving to radio and eventually TV. By the '60s, however, his star was in decline. "Seven in Darkness" offered him a relatively high-profile gig and a chance to play against type in a drama. Newspaper reports ahead of the film's premiere noted that it marked a new side for Berle, and that the actor enjoyed making the movie. 

"It was one of the happiest shows I've ever done," the Victoria Advocate quotes him as saying. "Everything seemed to go well." Berle never regained the level of success he had at his peak, but he continued working into his 90s, even including an infamous appearance on "Saturday Night Live." J.K. Simmons would go on to play Berle in the "SNL" movie "Saturday Night." Mr. Television's final acting role came in 2000, in the "Kenan & Kel" TV movie.

ABC's "Movie of the Week" would run until 1975. Over the years, many other actors who were in the downswing of their careers found success in one of these TV films. Myrna Loy, Ray Milland, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, and Olivia de Havilland were just a few of the stars from an earlier era who followed Berle's lead.