By Tim Parks | May 27, 2023

The phrase “they don’t make them like they used to” certainly applies to TV movies from the 1970s. I gravitated to films which tackled hard-hitting scenarios centering on teenagers—like alcoholism, homosexuality, and teen prostitution—and they were akin to being the controversial cousin of after-school specials. Well, except the ones where Chachi got stoned and Helen Hunt hurling herself out of a second-story window thinking she could fly after taking angel dust. Guess she didn’t believe the kids from TV’s Fame anti-drug PSA that cautioned, “You can’t fly if you’re high.” But I digress.

I always find it interesting that the subject matter broached on television, particularly in the 1970s, isn’t something you would necessarily see in today’s world. Sure, there are shows that highlight teen sexuality and drug use—I'm looking at you, Euphoria!—but how mind-blowing must it have been to gather around the Zenith TV set with your parents to watch The Brady Bunch’s Eve Plumb turning tricks?

With that in mind, here are my Top 5 Troubled Teens ’70s TV Movies.

Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway

I’m always amazed when I mention my all-time favorite troubled teen TV movie from 1976, Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, and hear crickets. Even the mention that it stars Jan Brady as a teenage hooker gets blank stares. Is this thing on?

15-year-old Dawn Wetherby (Plumb) gets embarrassed by her drunk mother at a school dance, and faster than you can say “one ticket for Hollywood, please,” she’s on a bus to Los Angeles. Without much money and not knowing a soul in the City of Angels, the teenage runaway eventually turns to prostitution, thanks to some encouragement from a hooker named Frankie Lee (Marguerite DeLain), who introduces her to her pimp Swan (Bo Hopkins).

Of note, there’s a small appearance by Suzanne Crough of The Partridge Family as a fellow runaway and Joan Prather, who played David Bradford’s wife on Eight is Enough, is one of the prostitutes in Swan’s employ.

Thankfully, she also meets sensitive painter Alexander Duncan (Leigh J. McCloskey), who I suspect paints portraits, given that the singular version of the word was in so many subtitles in these types of movies! Alas, he is a gay hustler and his pleas for Dawn to stop hitting the boulevard fall on deaf ears in the film directed by Randal Kleiser (Grease).

Best Line: “I don’t care anymore. It was so meaningless. I felt nothing. I just stared at the ceiling and became a woman. What a hype!” —Dawn to Alexander after her first turned trick.

Fashion Moment: Dawn’s end scene hooker ensemble, complete with a white fur coat.

’70s Street Cred: Having a pimp named Swan.

Where to Find It: YouTube.

Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn

The next year, swoon worthy McCloskey reprised his role in Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn—see what they did there? The movie chronicles, via flashbacks, him getting kicked out by his parents in Oklahoma, hopping a bus, natch, and heading for LA, hoping to go to art school. However, he gets mixed up with hustling, which leads to present day (well, 1977 present day) when he puts Dawn on a bus to return home the day after telling her he loves her. Bye girl! Plumb's role is demoted to that of a glorified cameo.

The film focuses more on his bisexuality and he even beds TV’s Nanny and the Professor star Juliet Mills at one point. However, he encounters a Pretty Woman—more like Pretty Boy—situation with closeted football player Chuck “Snake” Selby (Alan Feinstein)—no comment—who employs him as a houseboy for $150 a week, which back then was akin to the $3,000 Julia Roberts got for “hanging out” with Richard Gere.

The movie is helmed this time around by director John Erman, who would later direct the acclaimed 1985 AIDS TV movie, An Early Frost. Alexander also features actor Alice Hirson, who portrayed Mavis Anderson on Dallas, on which McCloskey appeared in 46 episodes of as Lucy Ewing’s (Charlene Tilton) husband Mitch Cooper.

Best Line: “I was green like you, that was my only crime. Sniffing a little glue and those cops came down on me like Charles Manson.” —Fellow hustler Buddy to Alexander.

Fashion Moment: Tight pants. Like you can guess a guy’s religion tight.

’70s Street Cred: Attending a rap session, which is merely talking about feelings and not being an MC on the mic. Oh, and being able to buy an entire suit for “90 bananas!”

Where to Find It: YouTube.

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble

1976’s The Boy in the Plastic Bubble gives us Welcome Back, Kotter era John Travolta as Tod Lubitch, born with an autoimmune disease that requires him to be housed in the titular plastic bubble. Which means sticking a rubber hose up his nose would be ill-advised, to paraphrase the Sweat Hogs version of a sick burn.

His dad Johnny is Mike Brady himself, Robert Reed, with Diana Hyland as mom Mickey. Off-camera, Travolta and Nyland shared a romantic relationship, until Hyland succumbed to breast cancer in 1977. Glynnis O’Connor, is his neighbor/love interest Gina, who encourages him to get involved in life, with him eventually donning a spacesuit contraption to attend high school. His classmates are fleshed out by pre-Carrie P.J. Soles and pre-Grease Kelly Ward (Putzie), which makes sense as Randal Kleiser directed both films. He sure loved making TV movies!

Best Line: “My son is not a freak!” —Johnny Lubitch to a doctor.

Fashion Moment: Travolta’s short shorts. I wasn’t mad about it.

’70s Street Cred: Cracking up your classmates by donning a pair of plastic glasses with a fake nose and mustache.

Where to Find It: Streaming on Tubi.

Sarah T. — Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic

The 1975 movie starts out as some kind of beer commercial/educational film hybrid. It’s kinda fuzzy—maybe I shouldn’t have been drunk when I watched it. What? It helped me relate with Sarah’s plight, which sees her drinking problem go off the rails, stemming from her parents’ divorce, and the disappointment of not making Glee Club—relatable—and her alcoholism culminating in both child and animal endangerment. Neat!

The supporting cast is a who’s who of “Hey I recognize them” actors, with Larry Hagman as her father and William Daniels as her stepfather Matt. And one guy who may have been an extra on CHiPs or something. Anyway, the biggest co-starring role is a pre-Star Wars Mark Hamill as her boyfriend Kenny, who gives Sarah an ultimatum he’ll break up with her, if she doesn’t stop boozing it up.

Sarah’s mother (Verna Bloom) is more concerned about her standing in the neighborhood than delving into the reasons behind her 15-year-old daughter’s excessive drinking and the subject is debated while she’s enjoying scotch. Glass houses much, Mom?

She’d rather, oh, I don’t know, have her daughter possessed by Pazuzu than be a drunk. Speaking of... the only downside/missed opportunity for fans of The Exorcist is Blair not projectile vomiting when she imbibes too much. Otherwise, it’s a serious film with more than its fair share of camp value.

Best Line: “You make me seem like some sort of alcoholic freak! I don’t see purple cockroaches climbing the wall!”

Fashion Moment: Sarah wearing a “Pollution is a dirty word” t-shirt and non-Disney sanctioned Donald Duck hat.

’70s Street Cred: Singing Carole King’s “It’s Too Late” for your Glee Club audition, drinking Tab and eating a tuna fish sandwich purchased from a vending machine. Shudder.

Where to Find It: Available on DVD from Shout Factory.

Born Innocent

Blair’s first foray into TV movies-of-the-week territory was with 1974’s Born Innocent, which is widely remembered for the brutal scene where she’s violated by four girls with a wooden toilet brush handle in the shower. The graphic content, never before shown on television, was excised from subsequent reruns until its DVD release in 2004. Wish I had seen that version!

Blair plays Chris Parker, an “incorrigible runaway,” who ends up in a remand center for girls, which is a nicer way of saying “juvie.” She befriends a benevolent teacher Barbara (Joanna Miles) and butts heads with red-haired social worker Emma (Allyn Ann McLerie), who gives off a Casual Friday Endora vibe, sans blue eye shadow and chiffon ensembles.

Naturally, being the new kid on the cell block, Chris must fend for herself, save for her lone friend Janet (Sandra Ego), who is pregnant. But she’s on her own in battling the aforementioned violence from the school’s lesbian gang. When Chris gets a four-day pass to go home, you can see why she ran away so much, her parents, played by Richard Jaeckel and Kim Hunter, are awful!

Born Innocent is heavier in tone, going for gravitas and eliminating the camp aspect that Sarah T. had. I’ll take camp over gravitas on any day ending in y.

Best Line: “Yeah, I’d like to be a stewardess!” —Chris to Barbara.

Fashion Moment: Chris spends the night in jail prior to going to the flip side of The Facts of Life’s Eastland Academy. A background player sports a polka dot dress, which makes it appear she’s been locked up for illegal gambling, as she clearly lost a bet.

’70s Street Cred: Referring to money as “bread.”

Where to Find It: Streaming on Tubi.

Tim Parks is the Lambda Literary Award-nominated author of The Scheme of Things and a freelance entertainment writer for 23 years, columnist for 18 years with his latest one, Hollywood, appearing in The Rage Monthly. In his spare time, he sells movie memorabilia on his Cult Pop Shop SD page on Etsy.