Air Date: Nov. 6, 1975 (NBC)
Production Companies: Playboy Productions
Running Time: 74 min.
Available on: YouTube
Written by: Charles McDaniel
Directed by: William A. Graham
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Sam Groom, Donna Mills, Susanne Reed, Dana Plato
Rating: 6 vintage televisions (out of 10)
After four terrific, some remarkable, 1970s TV movies, the streak ends with Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975.) It’s below average, for sure, but I rated it with six vintage televisions because I liked how it ended. Getting there, though, is a long, slow, journey that’s barely worth the time or the effort.
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Fred MacMurray stars as Harry Ballinger, the wealthy benefactor of Jed Horn (Sam Groom), who builds really fast boats. When newlyweds Frank (Frank Schuller) and Myra (Joan Murphy) disappear in the Bermuda Triangle, which seems to be located just off the coast of Florida, one theory is that the boat went so fast that it simply disintegrated.
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However, when Harry’s much younger fiancée, Jill (Susanne Reed) disappears searching for them, he gets proactively involved and consults the Professor (Herb Goldstein) whose traumatic experience in the Triangle left him an unemployed fisherman in the Everglades. As much as the story drags, they quickly share the conclusion that the Bermuda Triangle is a “doorway.”
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The drama with young Wendy (Dana Plato), Myra’s daughter, and Jed and his off-again/on-again romantic interest, Claudia (Donna Mills) provides the remaining plot, which, if jettisoned, would have left only enough for Beyond the Bermuda Triangle to be the length of a chapter in an anthology.
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Even with that, most of the movie is filled with speedboats racing across the water and air boats gliding across the Everglades, racing to places where nothing is really happening. For a movie about the Bermuda Triangle to be effective, we have to see something happen. A few spinning compasses and glimmers of light in the sky aren’t going to do it.
Visit the TV Terror Guide: 70's TV Movies playlist at ClassicHorrors.Club TV on YouTube to watch Beyond the Bermuda Triangle as well as all the great movies from this series...
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