Weekend of Terror (1970)

***SPOILERS*** Movie about two buffoonish kidnappers staring the future guy with the chip on his shoulder Robert Conrad as Eddie and future "Six Million Dollar Man" Lee Majors as Larry, sounds like members of a comedy act, who pull off their first as last crime the blotched kidnapping of Louise Wedemeyer, Barbara Barnett. Louise while held hostage ends up with her getting her skull cracked and dies when a horny Eddie tried to have his way with her. Instead of leaving things as they are Eddie convinced his fellow kidnapper, the sensitive of the two, Larry to go out in the desert of Southern California to kidnap another girl to replace the dead Louise and collect the ransom from her concerned dad Mr.Wedemeyer, Tod Andrews.Spotting a stalled car in the desert Eddie seeing the driver is a young girl, who's in her 40's, who turned out to be Sister Ellen, Lois Nettleton, needing help. He's soon surprised when the car hood was put down to see that the car had beside the young woman two nuns Sister's Meredith & Nadine, Carol Lynley & Ann Doran, sitting in it! Making a bad situation even worse Eddie who seems to be on ,beside the cans of beer he guzzles down, something that's messing with his head tried to get the youngest of the trio, after kidnapping them, Meredith to impersonate the dead Louise in getting the ransom money. All this before Louise's dad and police can see her and realize she isn't Louise! ***Major Lee Majors Spoilers*** As Larry tries to get the by now out of his skull Eddie not to murder both Ellen & Nadine in order to keep then from talking to the police in who kidnapped them-He seemed to have forgotten the soon to be released Meredith who can also identify them as well-he puts his life at stake by hiding them if Eddie finds about it. Meanwhile Eddie did get the suitcase containing the ransom money without even once bothering to open it up and see it the cash is really there! Which shows just how much he was interested in the money in the first place. The final curtain comes down on this mind blowing film with Larry, Eddie by now was history, making a run for it at a local air field with Ellen being held as hostage by him. Trapped with his getaway plane disabled Larry ends up getting blasted by the police and when he's about to kick off he's forgiven by that forgiving soul Sister Ellen for all the stupid things that he did in the movie; Which in fact being forgiven was far better then the ransom money he never lived long enough to spend.

This starts with a man chasing a woman and it's filmed in slow motion . Amazingly one of the names featured in the credits is Lee Majors who isn't actually either of the characters running in slow motion . This sets up the story that is equally slow motion . This is a pity because there's all sorts of potential in this TVM but of course being a TVM there's rules involved , as in no sex , violence , bad language , blasphemy or anything else that will alienate a family audience It's a very bland tale where two criminals have an intricate if not implausible plan and they need a hostage and they've just lost their original hostage which means they need a plan B and low and behold a miracle happens because three nuns just happen to suffer a car breakdown on a remote desert highway . Obviously the Gods were on the side of the baddies at this point Did I mention how bland this TVM was ? As I said it goes out of its way to offend absolutely no one . The victims are nuns but there is absolutely no reason why they should be nuns they could be some really hot cheerleaders and it would have not made the slightest piece of difference to the telling of the story except to perhaps manipulate the audience in to feeling sorry for them . There's no need because they're women held at gunpoint and that should be enough

I have to say that I really enjoyed this movie. Usually I don't like the really really old TV movies, just the really old ones, LOL. The movie has a pretty decent pace, and the acting is good. Lots of well known actors in here. I thought Carol Lynley was kind of spaced out, but then she seemed spaced out in most of her 1970's films. Jane Wyatt really didn't seem to have much of a role. The only thing that really bothered me was that STUPID wig! That wig looked nothing like the Louise's hair, it was two totally different colors! When the guy sends the nun into the wig shop with a piece of hair to match up, you can see that it is so light it is hardly even brown. Louise's hair was chocolate brown. How hard was it to make the nun get a really dark brown wig?

I taped this movie years ago & I thought that it was a pretty lame movie. But there were some really funny parts in it that were not meant to be funny. Lee Majors was cast as "Larry" a few years before his really big role as "Steve Austin" in "The Six Million Dollar Man". And Robert Conrad plays "Eddie" the main bad guy out of the two. The part that is really funny is the line that "Larry" says to "Eddie".I quote: "Eddie! What are trying to do! Are you on something that I don't know about? Acid! Speed! Something?"The line is a classic! If you ever get a chance to see this movie, keep it on until you get to hear "Larry" say that line. It's priceless! If I ever have the chance of meeting Lee Majors someday, I would ask him if he was on something that we didn't know about, after making this partly funny clunker...