HANGING BY A THREAD (1979)

There is absolutely no artistic reason that this film should be 190 minutes long.  The entire story is: a group of dorks who call themselves the Uptown Club decide to go to the top of a mountain for a picnic.  On the way up, the cable car is struck by lightning and disabled.  For the rest of the movie, these nerds cry and bitch and have flashbacks...mostly melodramatic stuff concerning other members of the Uptown Club...while one single helicopter tries over and over and over to save them.  Booorrring!  It's all painfully slow with no pay off.

For some reason when I went into this film I was thinking the incident would take place on a Gondola lift in a urban area.  Car perilously hanging as crowds of people ooooohhhh and awwwwww.  But no, HANGING BY A THREAD is about a basic as it can be.  The lightning strikes during the daytime and then suddenly it's nighttime.  That means all of the "in danger" scenes take place with a black background.  How exciting.  Also, the helicopter pilot is nonstop bitching about the wind, but every time we see a flag it's hanging limp.  Same goes with people standing outside...their hair isn't even moving!  The filmmakers tried to pad the running time (I guess so it can be a two-night event) with a story about gangster hit men trying to kill one of the passengers, but it's beyond lame.

I had positive hopes for HBAT, but in the end I was bored bored bored. Low budget, stiff acting, lifeless script, pathetic photography, TV show-level sets, many many shots of people making facial expressions ad nauseam, unlikable characters, super weak ending.  Unless you're a glutton for punishment or a hardcore fan of some of these actors, I say skip it with a vengeance.  I wish I had...that said, knowing me, I'll probably watch it again in a year or two.

CAVE IN! (1983)

CAVE IN! is rumored to have been filmed in 1979 but not broadcast on TV until 1983...and I can see why.  This sucker is boring!  Things get off to a quick start with a police chase, but after just a few moments you can already tell that this movie is about as low-budget and quickly slapped together.  Next we're introduced to the cave and I swear to Satan that this cave has been featured in like a thousand movies and TV shows!  Anyway, the cave has been having some problems recently with dirt and small rocks falling down, but yet the people who run it insist on keeping it open.  So, of course, there's a cave in and some people are trapped inside.  Compared to all of the other Irwin Allen films I've seen, the disaster moment this time takes place waaaaay earlier than usual, but I guess that's because this time they figured it was kind of hard to drum up any build-up excitement over a cave.

Anyway, people are trapped and now they (kinda like survivors in THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE) have to find a way out.  Boiling water, swimming underwater, walking across an old rope bridge...all the same old shit we've seen a thousand times before, but this time neutered by being on network television.  I wish it could have at least been fun to laugh at, but for the most part everything was so bland there really wasn't much to laugh at.

Maybe good for a watch if you're a fan of old made-for-TV movies, but I found the entire affair to be too bland to be enjoyable.  Even ol' Ray Milland as a cranky professor didn't help much!  Skip it.

FIRE (1977)

Showing up on network TV less than six month after Irwin Allen's previous disaster outing, FLOOD, FIRE tells the story of a forest fire caused by a work crew prisoner (Neville Brand) looking to make a cover for an escape attempt.  Soon, the fire is totally out of control and not only does it threaten Vera Miles' hotel and Ernest Borgnine's lumber mill, but also an entire nearby town.  So now it's up to Borgnine to drive all over the joint in his big truck wrecking into shit and saving everybody.

I liked FIRE quite a bit.  It was a big improvement over the lackluster FLOOD...the pace was quick, the acting much improved (the highlights being Miles and Borgnine), the special effects were better, impressive cast (Vera Miles, Ernest Borgnine, Lloyd Nolan, Alex Cord, Neville Brand, Eric Estrada, Patty Duke), the action scenes much more exciting, plus it just looked better. 

Younger audiences would probably fall asleep, but it you have a soft spot of older TV movies then you should definitely check out FIRE.  Recommended.