Rob Price
With Valentines Day just a few days away and continuing our special articles featuring the ABC Movies of the week, I thought we would focus on two genre stories that dealt with themes of the heart. The first is 1970s The Love War, a science fiction love story with the survival of the human race at stake, and the second is Love Hate Love, where a beautiful model is stalked by her ex-fiancé.
The Love War (1970): As much as this sounds like a modern “Rom-Com” about two soldiers finding love amongst the battlefield, it is, actually, an interesting look at an alien fighter, coming to Earth to fight a war, only to fall in love. I found the premise intriguing with two advanced races of aliens who have been fighting wars for eons and who both claim Earth as their own. Instead of great battles and multitudes of casualties, the two worlds each send three soldiers who, at a designated time and place, will attempt to kill each other. Whoever is left alive at the end claims Earth for their own. Kyle (Lloyd Bridges) is from a benevolent world and on his way to the designated battleground, he meets Sandy (Angie Dickinson) and the two almost instantly fall in love. Kyle’s race, having focused on intellectual advancement, is more logical and robot like and being in human form, he was not ready to feel the emotion of love, which compromises his decisions. The enemy race attempts to win no matter the cost and if they do, it will be the end of all mankind.
This is a fun movie about aliens, without really seeing any aliens and the story is more psychological than action oriented although there is quite a lot of fighting. Lloyd and Angie are a good match and have some nice chemistry together, with Lloyd being just strange enough to be a bit “alien” but still believable as a human. Angie is vivacious and fun loving, and her Sandy is the perfect foil to sweep Kyle off his feet. The treatment of “War” and how it is waged is fascinating and the film does give you some things to contemplate, centering on themes around love, physical connection and the casualties of war, even when the war is fought with only six people. The tone of the production is serious, and a bit campy, but that was commonplace for early 1970s science fiction. I did find parts of it predictable, but the ending is not what I expected, and I really enjoyed seeing this for the first time.
Love Hate Love (1971): Sheila (Lesley Ann Warren), a beautiful model in New York, is swept off her feet in a whirlwind four-week romance with a rich, jet setter named Leo Price (Peter Haskell). Sheila was already dating Russ Emery (Ryan O’Neal) who was out of town on business and upon his return Sheila meets him at the airport to break the bad news. Russ takes their breakup like a gentleman, he is heartbroken, but cordial. On their way out, the two have a final hug and quick friendly kiss, which Leo sees, sending him into a rage in which he beats and hospitalizes Russ. This action opens Sheila’s eyes to what kind of man Leo is and immediately breaks off contact with Leo. Sheila helps Russ recover realizing she is in love with him, and the two marry and move to California. But Leo will not let go and does everything he can to find Sheila with the intent of making her his wife, no matter what he has to do. Can Russ and Sheila escape Leo’s torment? Watch and find out!
I found this film a bit boring for most of the movie, it is a tepid thriller at best with very little happening. Sheila is not overreacting to Leo’s stalking, but besides the initial fight and the final confrontation, physically Leo doesn’t do anything to harm anyone, he is just creepy and refuses to listen or believe that his relationship is over with Sheila. I also felt that Russ wasn’t all that understanding of Sheila’s feelings, and maybe Sheila would be better on her own. The one saving grace of the movie was the actors’ performances. Lesley does a good job of displaying the fear while being stalked, her growing panic and despair felt genuine. Ryan plays the “good guy” husband with a sweet charm which endears him to the audience, even when he isn’t being as understanding as he could have been. Peter Haskell did an excellent performance of being just creepy enough to be threatening but reserved enough to be realistic and believable. Even with some strong performances from these talented actors, there really isn’t enough action to carry a full movie, especially when there are similar movies out there which are much more thrilling.
Both these films are good examples of the variety in both theme and quality that were produced for the ABC Movie of the Week, but it also highlights the amazing talent that ABC was able to procure for this series.