Inspired by the Stanley Milgram obedience research, this TV movie chronicles a psychology professor's study to determine why people, such as the Nazis, were willing to "just follow orders" and do horrible things to others.
It was the TV debuts of Stephen Macht and Lindsay Crouse, and John Travolta has an uncredited part as a student.
The movie fictionalized Milgram as academic psychologist Stephen Turner, a somewhat quiet man consumed with Nazi concentration camp imagery.
Although scheduled for showing in the Christmas season of 1975, the drama did not air until August 26, 1976, because it took that long to assemble a critical mass of sponsors.
He felt the movie was dull, with the "genuine drama underlying the obedience problem getting lost in the welter of video cliches".
[1] The Tenth Level was shot directly on videotape at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City and on location at Yale University where the original Milgram experiments had taken place, and presented as a teleplay reminiscent of the "Golden Age of Television".