Tue 31 Aug 2010
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: BEYOND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE (1975).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , SF & Fantasy films , TV mysteries[18] Comments
A Tribute to Fred.
BEYOND THE BERMUDA TRIANGLE. Made for TV movie: NBC, 6 November 1975. Fred MacMurray, Sam Groom, Donna Mills, Suzanne Reed, Dana Plato, Dan White. Director: William A. Graham.
One of my life-long weaknesses has been the indolent habit of napping in the afternoon. However, I have always observed that I don’t have any interesting dreams when I nap, and I have concluded that I might put the time to better use by propping my eyes open and reading a book or watching a film that I might, in my more alert moments, not want to waste my time on.
I would like to think that this might occasionally lead to one of those “fortuitous” encounters in which the Surrealists believed and where marvelous consequences sometimes follow upon the most banal circumstance.
For those of you who would like to delve more deeply into Surrealist philosophy on this point, I refer you to Andre Breton’s Nadja, especially those pages describing his addiction to the American chapter play, Trail of the Octopus.
I was, earlier today, at a point where waking and sleep are no longer contrary conditions when my somnolent fingers brought into view on the TV screen, the opening scenes of a WTBS Sunday afternoon movie, Beyond the Bermuda Triangle.
I have always been intrigued by psychic phenomena, ever since those years when I used to look for the door to the Land of Oz in the closets of my grandparents’ farm.
Even in my bemused state, I quickly gathered in the essentials necessary to follow the storyline, which involved the disappearance of a boat in the area of the Triangle, and a young girl’s belief that her mother was still alive, somewhere “out there,” and was calling to her.
I had some trouble with character relationships, but deduced that Sam Groom is courting the sister of the missing woman who is taking care of her young niece, while Fred McMurray (with either a hair-piece or his hair dyed a sinister black) is probably the grandfather of the bereaved child, but is somewhat distracted by his pursuit of a much younger woman who is, herself, to disappear into that same hungry triangular area where the compass goes batty but where there is always time to send one last radio message before static claims the airways. Whew!
There is also a character to whom I felt peculiarly drawn, a retired professor who, years earlier, had lost his wife in the triangle and, at the last moment, close to the opening of the door to the “other side,” hesitated and was forever barred from crossing over.
That had obviously bothered him no end, and, in a touching and significant scene, he tells MacMurray that there is one thing bigger than this life “down here” and that’s “love.”
That choked me up a bit and fogged my glasses, and when I could see clearly again Fred was casting off to sea with Groom’s girlfriend.
That lead to a really tense climax in which Groom, pursued by the Coast Guard, raced to intercept Fred’s boat. I don’t want to give away the ending (which would be foreign to the spirit of this blog), but let me tell you that the Old Professor was right on target, and some old geezers are quick studies.
This made-for-TV movie had everything: a grieving child in peril, weird music, mysteries beyond our mortal ken, references to Atlantis, and an impressive, late-career performance by Fred MacMurray.
Now, I know that some people think Fred wasn’t much of an actor and got by on an earnest look and a commanding, sonorous voice. Well, here it was all in the eyes: the body was slack, the demeanour reserved, but the eyes seemed to reflect glimpses of something that sent a shiver down my spine (or rather up, since I started sliding out of my seat at one point and almost jackknifed on the floor between the chair and footstool).
I wish they had given the movie a less obvious title, something like Empty Boats. Still, since this might be a picture that only a recent retiree can appreciate, if you ever get a chance to watch it and don’t agree with me, don’t call me, I’ll call you.
But while you’re waiting for my call, don’t go into your closet. You never know who … or what … might be coming into it from … out THERE!
August 31st, 2010 at 6:21 pm
I had no plans to take a nap until this one put me to sleep.
Fred was a much better actor than given credit for, but Laurence Olivier couldn’t have helped this turkey. Just the presence of Sam (I’m So Dull I Put Myself To Sleep) Groom is enough to condemn this film.
Are you sure you didn’t dream liking this one?
And, yes, I know its a subjective thing, and there are plenty of bad movies on my list of ‘guilty pleasures’ but one was much closer to dental work without pain killers than so bad it’s good.
I do love the weird, supernatural, and such, but I have never seen a decent Bermuda Triangle film (and most of the books are pretty bad too, with the possible exception of Martin Caidin’s).
Midway through this one I was hoping the cast sailed into the fog and was never seen again.
I have seen parts of TRAIL OF THE OCTOPUS (and the sort of comedic remake with Bert Lahr), and I can attest to it’s surrealistic qualities, but I’m not sure this one could be saved by anything.
I’ve been becalmed in a sailboat on the Gulf and the only thing I was threatened by was hungry sea gulls. And even they wouldn’t have swallowed this movie.
August 31st, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Walter,
What a great review!! Are you taking lessons from Steve for subtle humor?
Thanks for convincing me to NEVER watch any part of this movie if it ever shows up on my tv screen. By the way, has anyone noticed
that they are showing “The 3 Stooges” shorts between feature movies on IFC? Great stuff, except they have those annoying logos pop up from the bottom of the screen while the show is on.
August 31st, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Sorry, if I missed the subtle bit, having one of those days when a few bricks are short of a load I guess.
Fred MacMurray on the other hand really was underrated as an actor. He was a perfectly good light leading man and something more than that in DOUBLE INDEMNITY, THE APARTMENT, and a few of the adult westerns he appeared in during the 1950’s — of course by this time he was cruising on vapors left over from MY THREE SONS.
But maybe I should hold my comments when I haven’t been to bed for thirty hours. Creeping senility seems to be galloping.
August 31st, 2010 at 8:37 pm
Anything I know about subtlety I learned from Walter.
August 31st, 2010 at 9:05 pm
You are making me relive my childhood. I remember watching this on TV when I was nine years old. My favorite books were Sherlock Holmes collections and anything about sharks, the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman and the Bermuda Triangle.
September 1st, 2010 at 7:26 am
What a great review, Walter.
David, I think my favorite Sam (I Can Grit My Teeth, See?) Groom movie was the adaptation of James Herbert’s THE RATS, where they used French poodles as rat stand-ins.
He was also in a TV movie where he punched Amanda Blake in the stomach. At least that’s how I remember it.
September 1st, 2010 at 8:40 am
Found it: Betrayal (1974).
Sam Groom and Tisha Sterling (who was the daughter of Ann Sothern and Robert Sterling) were the villains.
To be honest, I can’t remember whether Sam punched Ms. Blake or Tisha (while gritting his teeth), but it was one of them.
September 1st, 2010 at 8:42 am
Oh, imdb says they used dachshunds rather than poodles to play the rats in the really awful Deadly Eyes, based on Herbert’s THE RATS.
September 1st, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Oh, wow, Dano Plato is in this–the Different Strokes girl!
September 1st, 2010 at 2:29 pm
I have a very vague memory of watching this sometime in the late 70s. Not a great film, but the fact that I still have any memory at all of it 30-something years later bears witness to something or other.
Sam Groom….it’s a long time since I’ve heard that name. He used to be the star of a (Canadian?) TV show called POLICE SURGEON around this time. My local station used to show it last thing on Friday night. You watched it because there was literally nothing else on TV. He also did a pilot for Irwin Allen called THE TIME TRAVELLERS (It wasn’t taken up…Surprise, surprise). Where is The Groomster now?
I’m a big fan of MacMurray. Did you know that the artist who originally drew Captain Marvel used his face as the model for the superhero?
September 1st, 2010 at 8:34 pm
Bradstreet
Not only did C.C. Beck use MacMurray as the model for Captain Marvel, but Fred actually donned a superhero costume very like the Marvel one in a fantasy sequence from the screwball comedy, NO TIME FOR LOVE (Mitchell Leisen, 1943) with Claudette Colbert.
Ironically the timing was such that the costume wasn’t copied from Beck, and could not have been copied by him, just one of those odd coincidences.
But it is startling how much Fred looks like the Big Red Cheese from that iconic first cover of his debut replete with the off the shoulder cape and the then campaign style shirt front.
In any case how many major stars of the era appeared as a superhero in costume
September 2nd, 2010 at 6:43 am
Bradstreet:
According to imdb, Sam is now teaching acting (those who can’t…) act HB Studios in New York.
My wife was a long-time fan of the soap ANOTHER WORLD, where Sam played Russ Matthews for about five years.
September 2nd, 2010 at 6:34 pm
I was likely unfair to Groom, he was no worse than a lot of leading men from the era, and probably better than others, but he always seemed to me a singularly dull actor.
I do recall POLICE SURGEON, and as stated it ran at the wee hours in my market too (today DAVINCI’S INQUEST is the modern equivalent — great chance to see Donelly Rhoades since his stint as the doctor on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA). Actually PS wasn’t bad and Groom got to show a little more depth than in most of the American work he did.
What I mostly recall about this movie (and there was another from the same era, I think with Doug McClure) was not knowing when it ended. Suddenly it was over, with no real resolution and I was left sitting there waiting for Rod Serling or Hitch to come on and tell me what the heck had happened.
Oh, well, if there was ever a bigger crock than the Bermuda Triangle (well, there was, the Philadelphia Experiment — the idiot who started that was the town kook in my hometown — how anyone could have believed anything he ever said was a wonder)it would be hard to find. Charles Berlitz made it up whole cloth out of a whole lot of coincidence and one of the most traveled and hurricane bedeviled regions in the world.
Of course Roswell is almost as big a crock as most UFO books don’t even mention it until the sixties.
And no, there is no Yeti, Sasquatch, or Boggy Creek Monster either — just a lot of people who should be writing fiction (or reading it), not making up ‘facts.’
Sorry, but my dad briefly worked at AREA 51, and he didn’t see any UFO’s or aliens either.
February 2nd, 2013 at 9:18 pm
Can you kindly help me to get a copy of this movie? I am from Brasil. I saw this movie when I was a child, and the movie was very antique at that time..so..is impossible to get this here
Thanks!!
February 2nd, 2013 at 11:27 pm
Rosi
It’s probably available only on the collector-to-collector market. Try either sell,com or ioffer.com (and keep trying).
December 17th, 2016 at 10:40 am
“I do love the weird, supernatural, and such, but I have never seen a decent Bermuda Triangle film…”
SATAN’S TRIANGLE was a scary little made-for-TV movie that shocked many young folk with its ending. It also thrilled in other ways by starring Kim Novak…
December 17th, 2016 at 4:19 pm
Worth checking out, Jeff. Thanks!
May 10th, 2020 at 9:42 am
I voted this the worst movie I had ever seen when I saw it at age 24. I’m now 67, and I haven’t changed my mind.