Attention please. This is the final boarding call for Polyester Airlines flight to the 1970s departing from Alberto Gate V05. Get ready for thrills, Chills and another.

Episode of It Came from the seventies. Good evening, passengers. This is your captain, Patrick Walsh speaking. I'd like to welcome you aboard Polyester Airlines Flight 114 to the year 1975. Polyester Air is the only time traveling airline that breaks the laws of physics just so that you can watch TV. Our final destination tonight is January 14, 1975. The Night Satan's Triangle starring Doug McClure and Kim Novak premiered on the ABC television network. The weather in 1975 is expected to be sunny, humid and very hot. So prepare yourself for a dog day afternoon. Please be advised that in the year 1975 everybody was Kung fu fighting. So when in doubt, do the hustle. I would like to now take a moment to introduce you to your co pilot for this evening. He's here all the way from Pickle Hollow. He is the host at the Smellcast and he is stuck on band Aids because band aids stuck on me. If I'm the captain, he's to kneel. Your co pilot for this evening, Mr. Toppie Smellie. I've now turned off the no smoking sign, so please sit back, crack open a grape knee high and enjoy your flight to Satan's Triangle.

Can I take my seat belt off and. And wander the cabin?

That's all you have on Toppie.

Oh, whoops.

Oh, hi, Toppie. Oh, so glad you joined me again on another flight to the past.

Me too. This is a good.

Fortunately there wasn't much else on TV last that night actually. No, that's not true. So there was actually a big made for TV horror movie battle on network TV because on ABC we had this movie that we're going to talk about today, Satan's Triangle starring Kim Novak and Doug McClure. But on NBC we had the Dead Don't Die, directed by show favorite and out Hollywood homosexual Curtis Harrington. CBS was just showing mass in Hawaii 50 and they just can't compete.

Must have been. I was tuning into mash, which was a personal favorite back then. But it's hard to believe I passed up one of those TV I know.

With those two delicious choices. I mean, me personally, I was five, so I probably did not watch it. I'm sure I was in bed by then because this was the first time I've seen it. I have not seen this previously to watching the show because it was a recommendation by Bill Van Reen. From Groovy Doom.

Nice rec.

Who was at the Uncle Spooky Spookarama movie show that Toppie and I were at on Tuesday night. So yeah, blame him, blame him. I blame Bill. Okay, Toppie, so please tell me what is the story of Satan's Triangle in a nutshell?

In a nutshell. We've got a couple of hot shot Coast Guard flyboys in a helicopter and they're shooting off to do a rescuer. And they know they're heading out to an area called the Devil's Dream. What they find there ain't good at all. Things go wrong immediately and we have a few survivors. One survivor, sorry, who tells this story about what happened to her and the crew on the schooner.

Perfect. Well done, Toppie Smellie. Personally, I would have gone for worst episode of Love Boat ever.

Oh, why didn't this ever happen on the Love Boat?

I'm sorry. I love Kim Novak and everything, but Chara would have been so much better in this role.

Oh my God, never. I never crossed my mind. But now I'm never going to forget it.

So, Toppie, tell me something. In 1975, in the 70s in general, were you aware of the Bermuda Triangle?

Well, yeah, I want to tell you something. I really was. I think that in the late 60s and early 70s there was a surgeons of articles and documentaries about weird things. Bigfoot, UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle. I attribute it to the success the wild success a pseudo documentary called Chariots of the Gods had in the theaters. And producers everywhere realized people won't eat this stuff up. Let's give it to them. So there must have been lots of that kind of thing on tv. Let's think of, I think In Search of with Leonard Nimoy was out there. And I personally was fascinated by all those things.

Tommy. Yeah, everybody was fascinated by the Bermuda triangle in the 1960s, 1970. And you got to understand for you youngins out there, this was not like National Enquirer headlines. This was major news about the Bermuda Triangle, about all this. And personally these TV movies and all those specials and all those fake documentaries really made me think the Bermuda Triangle was going to be a bigger part of my life. I remember being frightened as a child that the Bermuda Triangle was somehow going to come and get me. I don't know how that would work.

Okay, I admit at that age, and I was older than you at this time, these stories frightened me because they were told as this might be real. We don't know what it is that scared me. But particularly the Bemudic Triangle scared.

And I guess they figured it out because we never hear shit about it anymore. Never? No, never. With all those reality shows about, like, paranormal investigation and Bigfoot hunting, you think somebody would be exploring the Bermuda Triangle? Unless they did and they disappeared. Oh, shit.

Oh, could be.

I don't know.

Who disappears? Well, seemingly everyone. People, planes, ships, them. It just disappeared.

Planes, lunchboxes, everything gone forever.

Patrick, why do you think they went with this Satan's Triangle? Why didn't they use the obvious popular Bermuda Triangle or what else was it called? The Bermuda Triangle, but it was the Devil's Triangle.

Yeah, I've heard, too. And I think they went with this title because there was so much crap about the Bermuda Triangle that they had to make it different. That's what I think. And one of the reasons I picked Toppie to do this is when I was first talking about doing this podcast. I mean, taking, chartering this airline that we're on right now in the air.

And my belt's off. He.

He suggested a movie called beyond the Bermuda triangle starring Fred McMurray he remembered as great. But I watched. It was a snooze fest. There was nothing to even make fun of. Except that McMurray Fred Murray just came in to put his leg up on everything. You know, the Captain Morgan pose? That was his acting move. I'm like, oh, man, you had no rehearsal, honey. It was boring and boring. But anyway, this one's not boring. It's padded as fuck. Toppie, there's so much padding in this movie, it could have been 45 minutes long. The thing is, the reason why I asked Toppie if he was aware of. Of the Bermuda triangle in the 70s, is that they feel the need to explain what the Bermuda Triangle is and what happens there. Seven times I counted. You could have taken 15 minutes off right there.

The first one is between Haig and Paglio.

No, it's not the first one. It's not the first one because we get a title card intro explaining the Bermuda Triangle.

Jesus, you're right.

Within the last 30 years, just off the east coast of the United States, more than a thousand men, women and children have vanished from the face of the earth. No one knows how or why. This is one explanation.

Every time they came back from commercial break, they felt the need to explain it again for people who just tuned in.

As a matter of fact. Patrick, do you mind if I do that little narration in a mysterious, evil voice? It's very short.

I will mind if you don't. Now, okay.

In the past 30 years, over a thousand people have vanished from the sea and skies between Miami and Bermuda. Now two more are drifting into Satan's Triangle. Oh, I'm scared. Starring Kim Novak and Doug McClure.

Doug McClure. Okay, before we get into the cast, I do want to talk about who was working behind the scenes. Because this was directed by a guy named Sutton Rowley. Directed everything. Like major, major, major TV player. Like, started in 1957 and worked till the day he dropped all the Westerns. Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Rawhide, Kojak, airwolf in the 80s. I think you mentioned the show the Invaders once when you were on. You did that?

You did a lot of work for those producers. Streets of San Francisco, the Invaders. What were their names?

I had no idea. Well, we'll fix it in post. Attention, passengers. The production company that co pilot Toppie Smellie is trying to think of is Quinn Martin, which is a name I haven't thought about in 45 years. But for TV movie horror stuff, he. It's actually wasn't a TV movie. It was a series that spun off of Night Galley called Sixth Sense with Gary.

Gary.

Not Gary Marshall, God damn it.

Gary Busey became a talk show host.

Yeah, him.

Him.

The plan is why? Guy, Everybody. Gary Collins, he did a bunch of.

Did.

Sweet, sweet Rachel. Rachel, which is about a psychic who sees murders. Which is a very popular, very popular movie topic in the 70s. This is one of my favorite ones. I stumbled across the commercial for this one on YouTube ages ago. It's like three women are kidnapped and forced to fight for their lives. What do you think the name of the movie is? 3. Three sexy women getting kidnapped. What do you think the name of the movie is?

3 Sexy Women Getting Kidnapped.

Snatched. Exclamations.

Point.

No. Stop it. No. Okay.

But my favorite thing is he worked on. Do you remember Cliffhanger?

I sure do.

He did the Dracula portion of the program. Cliffhanger was this TV show that was broken up into three segments, and they had three different, radically different stories being told that would end at a cliffhanger. Like the old serials. It was this Dracula one. There's something like an underground city in the jungle or something weird like that. And one would stop. Susan Williams, starring Susan Anton. Which was great.

Yeah, they were 15 minute segments or maybe 20 minute segments, and in one hour. And all of them ended on a cliffhanger. I loved it.

An ironic twist of fate. The show got canceled, so the series ended on a cliffhanger because none of the stories wrapped up. I was Angry. Yeah, I came for Dracula. I stayed for Susan Anton.

Do you want to know, Patrick? Though they did end one of them. They decided the Dracula segment was the most popular. They got the most mail about it, and they said, we're going to finish it. So they edited all into a movie. It made for tv.

The Curse of Dracula.

They told the whole story.

When I. When I. When I. Because I said, I feel I should have seen that. When I saw it on IMDb, when I clicked on, they said this. Your segments from Cliffhanger. I was. I was dancing with joy because I completely forgotten that show. Okay, so that was the director.

I just want one other thing about the director. I think he had a thing for helicopters and the military because look at. Look at his. Look at the use of helicopters in the movie we're about to talk about. But also he did lots of episodes of that TV helicopter show from the future. What the hell? You just mentioned Airwolf.

Airwolf, yeah, good point. They got the permission of the U.S. coast Guard to use all their ships. All these ships and helicopters. And if you've got their permission to use them for free. Used them a lot. I'm with him there. Lots of helicoptering. Lots of helicoptering, Lots of fishing. But we're not there yet. This was written by William Reed Woodfield. Woodfield wrote the screenplay. And I'm glad I was going to skip over him, and I'm glad I didn't.

Yeah, he did some stuff on tv.

He got an Emmy nomination for San Francisco International, which is a horrendous TV movie from the 70s, which I just might cover. Because it's great. If you haven't seen it, it's one of the first MST3K episodes.

Wow.

With Tab Hunter and everybody. All these people, like, I remember you. I have no idea why. Like all these people from the 70s that you forgot. And it's ridiculous movie. It's, you know, an airplane in trouble movie. But yeah, Voice from the bottom of the sea. Voice the bot Lost in Space. Colombo. Mission Impossible, which he got an Emmy nom. For, so good for him. But the big shocker in this movie for me is that we've got Kim Novak, truly Hitchcock. Icy Blonde. Kim Novak from Vertigo is in this movie. Oscar nomination for Picnic.

Great.

Bank robbery of Human Bondage, one of my favorite gay Agatha Christie movies. The Mirror Cracked, Played a big old bitch. How did they get Kim Novak to do a TV movie? Because she's like a classic screen beauty. Legendary. And then I read Kim Novak turned 42 in 1975. So I'm guessing the movie role started to dry up.

A little more insight is she did not experience fun times making movies. They were all problematic for her. She. She did not enjoy the experiences and she more or less unofficially retired. And after that it was just a matter of doing what she needed to do for a paycheck. And she liked doing TV movies because they were short shoots and she got a paycheck.

Short shoots. And they often let people, since it's not the movie industry, dictating what roles you can take and what roles you can't. You got to do things that you wouldn't normally be able to do, play roles that you wouldn't be able to do in a major motion feature. Because like here people be like, I'm always the nice guy, buddy. I do a TV movie, I get to play the villain. Hollywood wouldn't buy that, but TV would. A tv. You have to understand, youngins, at the time, TV was considered a huge step down from movies. It's not like it is now where you get the bleed over quite a bit. No. If you made a TV show, your career was on the way out. This is where you went to die.

And Novak apparently read the script and she liked the supernatural aspect and she was intrigued by the story, which is why, perhaps one of the reasons she.

Chose it, and rightly so, she's, she's very, very good in it. I mean, it's a very simple story and it's very padded. But what she's got to do is fun. Like every scene she's in, I'm like, you're up to something. And I like it.

She's a huge catch for the prod producers because I guarantee you that when men saw that Kim Novak was in this, they probably said, yeah, I'm tuning in.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because the TV movies were catered with women in mind.

Yeah.

So yeah, this is going to double our audience.

Yeah.

In theory. In theory. So what do we do? We get the. One of the world's most beautiful women and we cast her opposite Doug McClure.

Yeah. He plays Haig the winchman.

Doug McClure, most famous for being in the Virginian a thousand years ago. He's the star of that. But he was also in Bo Jest. He was in Gidget, the movie with Sandra D. He was in the musical Shenandoah. But man, does he do a ton of crap. Want to talk MST3K? He was in both the Lamb the Time Forgot and SST Death Flight with Robert Reed behind The. In my. In the pilot seat. Like me.

Oh, my God.

Terror in the Sky. The Banana Boat with. With Haley Mays. My Girls. Haley Mills was a movie I did not know existed. Death Race Humanoids from the Deep House where evil Dwells. And Manimal. What a career he had. I know a lot of people have crosses, crushes on Doug McClure, but to me, he looks like he smells.

I don't know how he got stuck into those cheap sci fi movies, but he did. He did it. Earth's Core. I don't know how, but now I don't know. He was. He would listen. I think his teeth is what sold them, no matter what he did, which is why he chews gum. This whole movie, Adam, as I was.

Watching it with my movie group last night and someone pointed out, why doesn't his helmet fit? And I'm going, that's because of his hair. His hair is huge. Yeah, he's got big hair.

Yeah.

I noticed in the comments on IMDb a lot of Coast Guard people going, that haircut's not regulation.

Not at all.

No, sir.

And then when he takes the helmet off, he had helmet hair.

Oh, well, yeah, yeah, well, that's. That I can deal with. But that. That springs back over time because, you know, it's. It's. It's the tropics. I got nothing. I got nothing. I love a movie that starts with a great big wake up call of Aruga. Aruga. Aruga.

Yeah. Hello.

Because we're coming right off of Happy Days. We see Said. This is what I talk about. Like, the lineups would be insane because we went right from the wholesome Happy Days into this and then back into, like, Marcus Welby. Wholesome Satan. Wholesome.

Yes. Now let's just give him. And one night, let's just give a nod to the music. Typical 1970s television music. And of course, because this is a spanky movie, it's sinister music.

So much flutes, so many flutes.

What did you call them last night? The Flute from Hell?

Well, Tara Gardner and I have this running gag. Whenever they whip out a flute during a scary scene, I'm like, oh, it's the Flutes of Fear. Like, I don't find anything frightening about flute music. I don't know what you're going for at. Plus, we watched beyond the Door with Juliet Mills for the show a while back, and in that, somebody stuck a recorder up their nose and played it. So now I'm just like, fuck this. Fuck flutes. Fuck all flutes. Fuck all the woodwinds. I'm out I'm out. I have to say, Toppie, the sexual tension between Doug McClure and his pilot Paglioni. You could cut it with a knife, but it's only one way, and I like it that way.

Yeah.

All you want to think about 24 hours a day, day in and day out.

No, no. Sometimes I think about you, Pagolini, and your foul temper and. Hey, watch it. I love you. Truly. Truly, I do.

I just decided that Paglioni is absolutely 100 love with Haig. It's all there in the dialogue.

It is. Haig is fun and go lucky, and he loves to look at women.

And.

Pagliano. Did I get his name right?

Pagolini. Pagolini.

Yeah. So, by the way, you know. Yeah. They show that they set up their relationship first thing. And, you know, by God, by the time you get to the end of the movie, it becomes important again.

Pagalini is clearly the good cop and the other one's the bad cop. You know, like Toppie said, this guy's just. He's stumbling in to do a rescue. He's hungover. He's all cranky. And I'm like, that's just what I need. I want a lazy, hungover person coming to rescue me at sea. That's exactly what I want to happen. But the dialogue between them, there's things like, take the stick and go down. Go down. Put it down. It's, like suddenly moving inside. It's all filthy. And Pagani is clearly just not happy that Doug McClure is always running around chasing girls instead of running around chasing him.

Women, all you think about.

Sometimes I think about you, Pagolini.

That really happened.

I don't think I can quite swallow that. Pagolini, take the stick. Take the stick. It's filthy. And I'm not sure. Did they make a pubic hair joke? Did you catch that?

I. I don't think so.

Pagolini asks Haig when he sees he's.

All, like, mopey and hungover, he goes,

redhead, blonde, brunette. We got a chance to find out.

So what was it this time? Blonde, brunette, or redhead? And Haig goes, I didn't get the chance to find out.

What was it this time? Redhead, blonde, brunette.

Never got a chance to find out. Good Lord.

How did that get by the sensors? Impossible. I did not interpret it that way. You have a filthy mind, sir.

So arrived to this rescue, Doug McClure makes Pangolini buzz this light. Lighthouse station that's nearby. Go down, Pagolini. Go down. And it turns out it's just to ogle the topless woman who's sunbathing by the lighthouse. Which, of course, Pangolini's not happy with a it's morally wrong. And why isn't he ogling me? But that leads to yet another info dump on what goes on in the Bermuda Triangle.

Can you explain any of those spooky things that happen in the Triangle? Explain them to me, huh? You know, we'd be famous. Haig in Pagolini. I mean Pagolini and Haig. It'd be in the newspapers, talk shows, the whole enchilada. Well, I told you what I think.

Yeah.

Trouble is, not many people believe in the devil these days. When you believe in God, you believe in the devil. I believe in God. God, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, a devil that I can't quite swallow. Pagolini and hate like that. I love you truly, Pagolini.

And I just want to give some nod to a nod to our Pagolini, who is Michael Conrad, career of doing one shots in movies and. And tv. Like, never the star, but always the guest star, but constantly working. And then his biggest role was Hill Street Blues, who was the sergeant. But I would also like to throw out that he was also in Scream. Blackula.

Scream.

So attaboy, Michael Conrad. Michael.

Miss.

Because everybody's awful. I realize that everybody on this boat that they're going to, including the rescuers. I'm like, you've got all seven deadly sins represented on one boat. It's not each person, but each vice is right there. Because it turns out that this boat that they're going to rescue is indeed trapped in the Devil's Triangle. And what's going on there is a test of fear, faith for the fate of your soul.

And there's a reason it ends with the two characters it ends with on that helicopter.

Oh, yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. So he gets this boat and everybody's dead. Everybody's dead. There's somebody hanging from the. The mast upside down. There's another one kind of impaled on the steering wheel. And then this up.

Why?

What's weird about the third one, Toppie?

Well, they open. He opens the door to discover the third body. Only establish it's floating in midair.

Pagnolini, go ahead. Make sure the tape recorder is working. It's been working. What do you got? I. I found another one. A man, and he's floating in the air.

What's the matter with you? Cut the jokes.

I'm not joking. Pagolini

He's floating in the air and he's dead. Huh?

Dead body Just levitated in the middle of the room. And that. That. That's a great moment. I was like, okay, this movie just got up. I was getting really cranky because it took a really long time to get to this point. We had to have a lot of shots of Doug McClure wandering through this cabin, which is. It's a small boat. It shouldn't have taken this long to get through. So what we're stuck with is a lot of shots of him stooping over because the ceiling's low, with his ass in the camera. And that was working for somebody, but not for me. This big orange clad, jumpsuit ass.

Yeah. So Paddle. Oni is talking with Haig on their walkie talkies, and Higgs is reporting, doing what he finds and says, what's this? What did you find? A body floating in the air. Okay.

Pagolani thinks he's getting the DTS or something. God damn it. These alcoholics. Alcoholic womanizer creeps. But it turns out that this one survivor.

Yeah, Kim Novak, who appears to be kind of in shock. Her eyes are open.

Kind of in shock. This one, actually. This movie actually benefits from a second watch to see how the game that Kim's playing. Because, spoiler, she ain't what she says she is. No, it turns out that the rest of the movie is her telling the story of what happened. She goes to try to get her to the helicopter to rescue her, but what happens, Toppie?

Well, the rescue goes awry. They're in a little basket, and the helicopters pull them up, but the line breaks and they fall. Haigs and Eva is her name, fall right into the ocean. And then the pilot, he starts having problems, like there's high winds. He says there's strange lightning in the sky. And he says, by the way, I ain't got no more gas. I'm gonna have to go to land. I'll just hang in there because I'll see you. I'll see you later.

Hey.

No, no, no. We're all right.

I don't know what happened to that cable.

But it looks like we're stuck here.

I'm afraid you are. I got to get out of here fast. My engine started acting up again. My fuel to get back is borderline. You going to be okay?

Yeah. You promise to light me some candles when you get back to the base? Hey, hey. Magdalini. Agini.

See you tomorrow.

Bye.

So Eva and Haigs swim to the schooner, you know, that's been floating around with dead people on it. And one guy's floating and they Climb aboard.

Yeah. And they're just stuck there until rescue comes. And that's when she just. She's like, okay, go to. To tell the story. I do. I love. I think her entrance is great. After she wakes up and after this whole thing, like her first line, she's in shock. This whole time, up until the. Through the rescue, she hasn't said a. I mean, the attempted rescue, which they tried to take over the basket. She hasn't said a word until he asks her to go change. And then we have the loving close up of her taking her clothes off. Ooh, hotsy Tatsi. But then she comes out in that fabulous robe with a wraparound belt, and.

She just goes,

we're gonna die on this boat, you know,

we're all gonna.

Die on this boat.

Yeah, she says that several times. Several times. But she does tell the story.

We're going to die on this boat, you know, just like the others.

I'm not ready to die yet. She's solid and she's sound. She'll ride it out and so will we. So why don't you make us some coffee while I. I try to find some dry clothes.

Hey, lady. Who just survived this harrowing ordeal and has been stuck alone for God knows how long on this boat with dead people, why don't you go make me some coffee?

Off.

Doug McClure's a pig.

And we sit back with Haig and we get to. We get the visuals as she tells it.

You want to tell me what happened?

Doesn't matter. I told you. We're gonna die soon. There's no way off this damn boat. All hope abandoned. Ye who board the requital.

Here, sit down. Sit. We're gonna be all right. Sea's calm. Pretty soon the star is going to be coming up.

Don't you know where we are? Haven't you seen what's happened on this boat?

You see, they'll want to know what's happened. They'll want to know what's happened to the man on the deck, the priest, and the man in the aft compartment.

So.

So why don't you tell me?

Why is the music so sexy? Why are you hitting on this traumatized woman who's surrounded by three dead bodies? This seems the perfect time to get down. What the fuck is happening? I spent the first half the movie going, what are you doing with this fat, disgusting slob? And I'm not talking about Doug McClure. I'm talking about who I thought was her husband. Hal. Yeah, the guy who boated It.

Yeah. Hal the furious fisherman who just wants to get a goddamn huge marlin.

I need to get a striped marlin. It has to be a striped marlin. It has to be 180lbs and it has to be stock footage.

And I'll tell you, Patrick, they cut that stock footage right out of Mutual of Omaha's Wild King.

There's so much stock footage.

The hell it was so grainy.

Which I get because there's a rule in filmmaking. Never shoot on the water if you can help it. Well, because the light keeps changing too often. The sky never matches from shot to shot. You get water spray on the camera or. And you can't control the motion of the ocean. So sometimes hard to just keep things level. So of course they're gonna use a lot of stock footage. It's already been done. So. I get that. I get that. Because, you know, it's like I said, TV movie, make them fast, make cheap. We don't have time to film all this crap. It will cost too much and take.

Too much time credit. They do some on location scenes because they got the helicopter, they got the schooner. And you do see them on the water. And we. There's several scenes on the boat where you definitely see. Yes, there's. They're in the ocean. You can see the ocean in the background. But after that, after that rescue scene, there ain't no more location work.

Very little. Very little. Very little. Especially once the storm sets in. Once the storm. So since everything is shot from an angle so that it's always looking up so that you cannot see the water somewhere. We're in the studio now and that's okay.

They solved that problem.

I mean, they did it in Jaws. You have to do that. I get it. But it's just because it's tv, it's.

More obvious and well, you know, Choices, choices. But yet. Could they slather any more Vaseline on that lens when they were doing the studio show?

Evil Vaseline. It was the evil Vaseline of the storm. I said to Top. I was watching it with Toppie last night. I said, I don't know how we saw anything in these storm scenes on our shitty, tiny, crappy rabbit ear antenna. 1970s television because it's hard to watch in HD.

Yeah, yeah.

I still couldn't tell what was going on for a lot of it. But it's okay. We get the idea. It's a storm. It's supposed to be chaotic. We don't need to hear the dialogue as much.

They were shooting night for day too.

So anyway, she's got this big disgusting slob of who we think is a husband who is played by. Oh, the guy from Dallas. Not Dallas.

Dallas. Dallas, yeah, Dallas. He was Jim Davis.

Not the guy. Jim Davis. Not the guy who created Garfield. Jim Davis, who played the matriarch of the family on Dallas. But he did a whole. Like, pretty much everything on his resume is war stuff, Western stuff. He's that kind of a dude. Except every now and then he'll throw in something like Jesse James meets Frankenstein and Dracula versus Frankenstein. I like that they went with Jesse James meets Frankenstein. It's like, oh, how do you do? Charmed, I'm sure. Yeah, it's a very polite film. Very polite film. And he's revolting. He's revolting. And I realized, ah, you're gluttony and envy. This is. That's your things. That's your things. Because they just have tons of scenes of him just shoveling food in his mouth and just treating her like garbage. And she's to going, gorgeous.

Didn't pick up on that. But that's absolutely right. He stuck to space.

That's what tipped me off. That's what tipped me off. Like, he's the only one at the. Everyone at that dinner table, nobody's eating. It's just him and he's eating the whole scene. And it's a long scene, so shoveling it in, it's gross. Yeah. So it's him. It's his brother. Stepbrother.

I don't. I think he's just a crew he hired.

No, there's the guy. Who's the guy, the other guy, the guy in the captain's hat is Strickland. And Strickland is some kind of relation that he's in this constant war with. You know, if. If they. Kim Novak says they're always in a battle. If Strickland went to Africa and shot a panther, he'd have to go and shoot an elephant.

Yeah, you're right.

And so that's what this whole marlin thing is about. This guy caught a big marlin, so now Hal has to catch a bigger one. There's $5,000 on the line.

Yeah, that's right. They were competing and.

Yeah, the guy who plays Strickland is one of those. Oh, those guys. Oh, that guy. Guys, you know his face. You've seen him in everything. We have no idea what his name is. And you couldn't tell. You couldn't tell anybody what he was in. And this guy. Wow. What. What a resume. 250 credits this dude. That's an amazing amount of work, Ed. Louder. Dark Shadows, the Waltons, the Longest Yard, School Ties, Mulholland Falls, Seabiscuit, King Kong. Not Another team Movie. The Town that Dreaded Sundown Remake. Magic, Cujo, Death Wiz, Everything.

You see his face and you go, oh, that guy.

If you needed like a squinty eyed, weaselly, villainous type, this is the guy to get. And he's great for what we get over here because he's. Well, he's one of the corpses, obviously. And there's a whole bunch of crew that are all for some reason dressed identically. So I kept thinking of them as the Three Stooges. I kept waiting for a comedy routine to bust out or a musical number like we're in Anything Goes or HMS Pinafore or something.

But also, you know, the. The costume selection. Of course, one of them had to wear a striped. A black striped shirt like all sailors in every movie.

Well, I get it. It's his. It's how's boat? And Hal's crew has to have a uniform. They all have because they can't be mistaken for me. Yeah, they're all dressed alike, so they're not rich like me. I get that. That I get to make me wear this stupid outfit so you don't seduce my girlfriend or whatever she is. I. The problem is with so many of them dressed alike is that I couldn't get a bead on how many people were on the boat.

It was hard. The thing that I noted is I went back to. Because very early when things start going wrong in Eva's story, when she's telling the story of what happened, three of the crew abandoned boat.

They.

They take a rowboat and say, bye, we're out of here.

Why do they. Why do they take a boat and abandoned ship, Toppie?

Because they knew where they were. They knew they were in Satan's triangle. And they knew that because of the beliefs of their people that Satan was going to test them. Test. And. And they didn't want to be tested.

They picked up a survivor of a plane crash. It was floating out in the middle of the ocean.

Galeo, what do you see?

Holy Mother of God.

A priest. He got on board. These guys were like this. That's right.

It was from the moment he came aboard. Strange lightning started and the weather had suddenly changed.

You okay, Father?

I almost lost hope.

Get him alone, get him some dry clothes and show them where he can rest up.

God bless you all.

His face was filled with despair. Yet there was a Kind of inner strength.

That's just what you need, baby Priest.

Where do you think you're going?

We can't stay.

Can be done.

What do you mean you can't. You get back on board.

We cannot stay for a priest beyond this place.

What does he mean?

I said get back on board now.

No, no, we cannot stay, capitan, because it's going to be a battle. There's going to be a big battle. See all this. All this is the devil's place. And the priest will be tested and my man will die. So we cannot stay. You'll die if you don't get back in his boat. Whatever you want, capitan. We will not stay because we're going to die anyway. You understand? Captain, you get back in his boat. Don't terrify.

No, that's not the way. Do not blame them for their beliefs.

Yeah, that's right. It was the. The. The saving of that priest guy.

That guy. The guy who's leading the crew to leave the boat. His name is Wano. No, thank you. Thank you. No. With. With all the ocean noises and the wind. Wind noises. I could have sworn every time they said guano. You get back in this boat right now. Batshit. Get back in here.

Yeah, there were actually. I remember hearing a lot of words that I knew I couldn't have heard. One was ass. And it's because of the wind noise and just the. You just couldn't hear what they were saying.

Or maybe that's the devil whispering to you through the soundtrack. Who knows?

So we should just mention the actor because it's another one of them actors that plays Father Peter Martin. Yeah, yeah.

That is. I got him here somewhere. I know it's Alejandro Ray.

I just say, folks, you'll know him if he were a fan of the Flying Nun. So. Yeah. Carlos Ramirez on three seasons of that.

But yeah, he was like.

For a while there, he was like. When you needed a swarthy, mysterious gentleman.

Yeah.

With an accent.

Also be.

You can't. Alejandro Ray.

Yeah. Who might even be a preacher. So here. He's a preacher.

He's a priest. He's definitely. He says he's a priest. He's in a priest collar and is totally serving Father Damien Vibes from the Exorcist, which I'm sure it's 1975. I'm sure they were trying to cash in on that, too.

Okay. We first see the good Father out in the ocean sitting on a piece of wreckage. Because it's a wing. Yeah.

A plane wing, not a chicken. Wing. Get your. Get it together. It is lunchtime. I'm recording this, so I am hungry. Please continue.

But how weird is his wave when he tries to signal the crew? It's a weird wave.

Well, there's a reason for that. That comes back later. Yeah, that's what I wrote down. I wrote down, father drowning is really not too enthusiastic about being rescued. It's a slow wave that. Very small. And he's smiling.

Yeah. Oh, weird smile.

Weird smile. Which again comes back later. So as soon as this priest gets on board, things start getting weird. There's always, like, the weather changes immediately. All of a sudden, this crazy wind. Before it was. Now it's. And the sky changes color and there's weird lightning and this Vaseline on the lens because I guess it's supposed to be foggy.

And. And this all starts happening as soon as the Father's on board, which is.

Why those guys were like, where the fuck. We're out, we're out, we out. Nuh. This ain't right.

And the captain even tries to stop him with a gun, but. And he even shoots the gun, but he misses. And it's the Father who says, let them go. You can't blame them for their beliefs.

With this titty hanging out. This titty hanging out. State what I love, too. They, like, get out of those wet clothes. And so they show him toweling off for like five seconds. Then he's back in the same outfit. Something. But did you have a dryer? He didn't give him some sweatpants or something? Nothing. You put him back in the same wet clothes. That's nice. Okay, great. But there was a lot of that, unfortunately. But whatever. I guess they figured if somebody came in after commercial, he was not wearing a priest uniform, the story wouldn't go. Because they always had to think of those things. It was how to get that hook in when you went to commercial to make sure people came back after commercial. And it was kind of how to remind people because it might have been five minutes, people might have joined. Anyway, I find him interesting. Like both him and Kim Novak in this, I find really interesting. Because they're giving you nothing, like, facially and tonally, so that you can never tell what either one of them is thinking, which I think is fun.

Yeah. There's a scene shortly after the Father arrives and they. Eva goes down because she's freezing. She wants to get a change of clothes. The Father follows and they have. While the rest of them are up top in that storm and God knows what's happening. They have a scene and. Well, she spears first of all to be coming on to him a little and a little. Yeah.

He was very handsome. Too handsome to be a priest. My mother used to. There were a couple of priests at my college that my mother had my. Her eye on. She'd be like, such a waste. Such a waste. Like. I know, right? I know. Anyway, continue.

They have a brief conversation that's. It's kind of weird. And then things start going to hell up on the deck. And some deaths happen.

Because.

The winds have reached hurricane levels and like, everybody dies at the. Like all three people die pretty much at the exact same time. Like within minutes of each other.

Yeah. One guy goes through this window of a door.

Strickland.

Yeah.

And crashes on the. On the windshield. Yeah. On the steering wheel of the boat.

Eva runs up to see if she can help. She looks up, there's another crewman trying to cut down the sail.

Down the hatches. Yeah.

There's a flash of lightning. Gone. He disappeared. She don't know what happened.

Right.

And then finally, finally, dum, dum, dum. There's somebody stuck in a cabin. Who is it? It's the marlin fishing guy.

Yeah.

He can't get out. Yeah.

Yeah. Right, right, right, right, right. And we've seen it. We've seen it. He's caught his. His 180 pound marlin and we see him hanging it up. And the second you see the rig that it's in, you're going, oh, check.

Offs marlin, Sage scrimmage for help. And Eva and the good father come. They. They can't open the door either. He's screaming for help. He's buying it. Oh, they can't open. So Father says. And he kicks that door in and they go in and.

Well, they hit a. They hit a big swell. So the ship rocks before they're able to get the door open. Yeah. When they finally open the door, Toppie, that's when we find him.

Yeah.

Dead and floating.

Yeah. And floating in midair. And they just, you know, their mouths are open and they're going, huh? And yeah. Nobody goes over to like, let's check this out. He's not really floating in air. But now they just say, oh, no, no, no, no.

Not even Doug McClure, when he finds the body, goes over, checks to find out why. What's happening over here? Is he constantly. Nobody thinks to go overlook. Because you know what? I wouldn't either. Because it's terrifying. It is a terrifying image. But the thing is that I find fascinating about this movie and also kind of charming, hilarious, is that Kip Novak is telling the story. The two of them are just like relaxing and having, like Netflix and chill. Sip and sip and brandy.

Yeah.

And there's three dead bodies. Three dead. Like it's a tiny boat to these. You're not more than six feet from a corpse. The two of them are like having this weird flirtation thing where she tells the stories totally calm. And the long version of the story, she's not cutting to the chase like a normal person in a panic would be like, and this happened and he's dead. And he's dead and this happened. But she's like, I would have started the very beginning.

Yeah, she's speaking.

I was born a poor black child in Chicago.

Yeah, yeah. So she. She tells the whole story.

Well, in the story that she tells, the priest tells a story. So we got a story about a story. And we didn't have any budget, so they can't show it to us. So he has to tell us every detail.

There was a storm. We lost radio contact. The weather reports were all clear. When we left Santo Tomas, the sea was like glass. I asked the pilot to call Miami so the ambulance will be ready for little Miguel. When we arrived, the child was dying. And the parish, poor as they are, raised the money for the operation that would save his life. Suddenly we were surrounded by these strange clouds. The pilot lost control of the plane. We tried to get off in Mayday, but the radio was dead. And then we crashed. Little Miguel and the pilot, Lord, were dead instantly. The Cortinases were badly hurt, but it managed to put them onto a piece of a wing. But with little Miguel gone, they just didn't care. They just let themselves be swept into the sea.

How long were we in the air before it happened, Father?

15, 20 minutes.

Well, how in God's name did you get way out here?

Where are we?

We're about 250 miles northeast of San Thomas.

The triangle.

What do you mean, the triangle?

The devil's triangle. Well, at least that's what people call it. What strange things happen here?

Couple.

Come on, Father.

Come on.

What kind of things?

Wild crash things. Like what's happening right here now. Strange lightning storms approaching out of nowhere. The radio not working.

Strange lightning. Come on, Father.

That's connected with.

What do you call that thing? The Northern Lights. That's it. The Northern Lights.

As far as the radio is not working, everybody knows the Earth's magnetic field is completely out of whack out here.

Yeah, that's it.

Perhaps.

Basically, he survived this plane wreck, which, you know, he was trying to get some family that was needed medical attention for their infant child. And they're being flown out of the country. And then 15 minutes after they took off, whatever happened, happened. And they've been floating on the ocean, and it's like the devil came and the test. But he get his explanation of the Devil's Triangle is that it's a place that we're tested.

Some people believe that the Triangle is the devil's place. And when it is time for one.

To die, he test us here as.

He did the Lord in the wilderness. That's why they could abandon test.

It's a test for our souls.

It's a test of faith.

And I like Kim Novak's like, oh, the test of our faith in God.

Or the devil

Its been called the Devil's.

Triangle by semen for hundreds of years.

Semen?

The natives call it Elucar del Diablo, the place of the devil. Many people have been lost here. People, ships, small boats, even planes. Vanished without a trace.

Yet you survived.

There have been survivors before. Some claim they had seen the devil himself.

You said that this is a place where the devil tests us.

Yes, you could say that. The Cotinises and I were tested.

And you passed the test. But the Cortinas is their baby. And the pilot, they didn't.

Why?

It's not a test of living or dying. It is a test of faith.

And God? or in the devil.

So the last part of Eva's story is what happens at the very end, shortly before the helicopters arrive. The two survivors, the priest and Eva. Everybody's dead except them. They just saw a floating guy. And all of a sudden the priest says, I hear something. I hear something. He goes up and he says it's a helicopter, that the Coast Guard, they. They found us. He starts climbing the mast. He grabs a flare gun, tucks into his belt, starts climbing the mast, I guess to get a little height, I don't know.

But also I just want to toss it. Meanwhile, Ava's like, there's nobody here. There's no sound. What are you talking about? Please continue. Toby.

Yeah, she doesn't hear anything. So he. He shoots the flare off and seconds later loses his grip and somehow his foot's caught in a wire and he goes. Fallen and his neck snaps and dies. The priest dies.

Listen, Listen. I told you to have faith. They're here. They came for us.

I don't hear anything.

Yes. I told you they were coming.

Father.

There.

You hear him.

No.

I must make sure they see us.

Where are you going? You can't go up there. Father. There's nothing. Father, Come down here. You've got to. Father, there's no one there. There's nothing, Father. Don't leave me. Don't leave me here alone, Father.

I love a movie with dangling. And we get a lot of dangling. That. That. That corpse dangles the whole movie.

And that ties right into the beginning, because when their helicopters are arriving, we see that flare.

Yes. That's what gets their attention, because the other. The other helicopters, like, we can't find anybody. There's nobody here. Oh, look, Topless girl.

Yeah, it's. It's Haig doing his I love women thing.

And I don't like dick, just Pangolini's. I like Pangolini. Weenie. That's it.

Yeah. We should just call them pegs from now on.

Yeah, but you mentioned a scene like one of these. One of the scenes that. What I was shocked happened on TV in 1975 is that we find out something about Ava, something that she's been hiding, something that we just all assumed was one way, but it turns out to be another. She's not Hal's wife, Toppie. What is she? Who is she?

Well, she's there because she's been hired to basically be his girl.

Whoops.

I mean prostitute. Oops. I mean hooker. Oops. I mean sex worker. And so that's why she's there.

Please, Eva, hold on to your faith. He will not forsake you.

You gave up on me a long time ago, Father.

You're wrong, Eva. We're all his children.

What do you think that I was doing with Hal? I'm a prostitute, Anika. That's all I've ever been.

So was Mary Magdalene.

She wants to hook up with the priest. We got full Thorburns almost happening here.

I'm a prostitute, Father. That's all I've ever been.

So was Mary Magdalene. And the Lord loved her. And he lapsed you.

And do you love me, too, Father? Show me. Show me that you love me.

I love you, Eva, as God loves you.

He starts coming on to the priest the way she later comes on to Haig.

The faces are getting closer and closer and closer. And really, at this point, pretty much as soon as we docked, I mean, we stepped on board and she showed up. I'm going, there's something wrong with her.

Yeah.

She's not reacting the way a person would in the situation. There's something wrong with her.

We don't know what.

I think she's the evil one in this situation. Okay.

I didn't go that far, but I knew there's something.

I did. I did. But then when we get the retelling, I'm going, well, maybe not. When we see her in the past, she just seems like a woman in this movie reacting the right way. It's all this stuff in the present that seems weird.

Okay, got you there. Yeah, definitely. So just before the smooch lands, the priest turns away and says, I do love you. I like you. I love you like God does. And so he's. He's. He ain't gonna go through this. He's. He cuts it off.

And then she starts singing. I don't know how to love him, what to do, how to move him. Yvonne Elliman just shows up on the boat for no reason. It's fabulous. It's fabulous.

If only.

If only I did like that, though. She gives like father a prostitute. He goes, oh, like Mary Magdalene. She was a wonderful woman. Like, well done, sir. Well done. I'm sorry I'm using the terminology in the movie. I know it's insensitive now, but this is what they said in the movie, so. And I'll probably play the audio clips. You're probably. You're just gonna have to deal with it. Okay. It's the 70s. We don't know no better. So we tell the. She finishes the whole story and that's how everybody died.

Right.

And so what's the next logical thing to do is.

Well, yes, because they're confident. They don't have any radio connection with bass anymore, but they're confident that they're.

Not going to get there till tomorrow. Till the morning.

They confident the paglio, Pagolini or Pags made it back to base, and that helps.

Coming again, surprisingly lurid shot for tv. It's artfully done, but it's lurid. There's a couple of these that immediately establishes sexual tension between these two very early on in this weird situation. Yeah, like, he's sprawled that on the. On the sofa. On that. On that butterscotch sofa that we love so much. It looks like a melted butterscotch. It doesn't matter what fabric it is, but it's so 70s. He sprawled that on it. But it's a crotch shot. We're just going right up the length of his leg.

And her head is. It's not on his leg, but it's like. It's like she's sitting in a chair. The Way it's angled and, like, leaning in. But the way it is, it just. It's like crotch and her face.

Mm.

For this whole scene.

Yeah. Yeah. So you can feel.

And I loved all this because, like, adhere. You're really starting to see that the. The. She's not what she says. She is, like. Everything she says is fraught with double meanings.

What are you thinking about?

Pagnolini, the guy I fly with for the bottom. I was just wondering if he made it back to the base all right.

Really good friends, huh?

Pangolini? Yeah, I guess we are. Never thought about it much, but, sweetheart, he's a good guy. Little square, but he's a good guy.

I'd like to meet him.

You do? Pangolini?. Now, there's a guy who always believes a good guy. Like I said, a little square.

No vices.

Like you.

Oh Ive got a couple.

How soon do you think they'll be coming to get us?

Probably not till dawn.

He's talking about Pagolini again. Pagolini. We love Pagolini. I'm gonna this girl, but first I gotta talk about how much I love Pagani. And he's like, hey, love. He's a good guy. He's kind of a square, but he's got no vice. And she's like, unlike you. Flat. Flat. She's like, yeah, I got you. You know, I've got you. I've got you already. This is fun. She's got. She's got. She's got the fly in her web.

Mm.

And she's gotta just go, wait. She's gonna wait like a spider does.

And worst of all, even though it appears there's going to be saved, she says, once again, we're all gonna die on the ship. And then before commercial, we see that their clothes have come off and that they are indeed capulating with the thing.

That we skipped, though, after this scene with the head on the lap like that, the flirtations getting hotter, getting more obvious and more obvious and more irresistible. Doug McClure's like, you know what? I know exactly what happened. There's a logical explanation for all this. And he mansplains everything that happened in a perfectly logical way.

We're in a place called the Devil's Triangle. The Devil's responsible for everything that's happened, don't you?

How else can you explain all that's happened here?

Come on. Come up on the deck with me. Come on. I want to show you something. Come on. Come on. From what you told me, Strickland was more concerned about his money than getting his engine started. Not just the $5,000 Hal gave, but probably every dollar he'd ever earned. But instead of going directly to the engine room, he stopped at the bottom of the ladder to count his money. And the boat pitched. You and Father Martin were flying through the egg and as a bow crashed back into the water. Strickland was catapulted through the hatch. The impact was bone crushing. He was dead before you ever reached him.

Somehow there's parts of the story that she didn't talk about. Like the robbing of the safe that somehow Doug McClures knows about and I don't care. It's fine, whatever. Just move the story along. Unreliable narrator.

Patrick, you're right. Because this is. This comes way before they have sex. Is. Is. Hey, hag. Feels like. Look, I know all this is weird, but I'll bet you I can come up with a logical explanation for everything. And they go through the whole story again. But this time Haig says, well, sure, it looked like he disappeared when lightning hit, but you were blinded. And that thing of the jiggy, the boom came swooping by and knocked him off the moat. You just didn't see it. Oh yeah, right. That's what happened.

He'd probably been drinking all day. CEO should have tied off the booms before he cut the lines. He climbed up on the cabinet, secured the main boom, knocked him unconscious and threw him into the ocean. Lightning probably blinded you the instant it happened.

But what about Hal, Toppie? What about the floating corpse of Hal? How do you explain that, Toppie?

Okay, yeah. How does he. Well, that seems like a big one to explain, but it turns out if you just change the angle, you'll see that behind him is the. The fish, the marlin. And he's not floating in the air. He's just suspended by the marlin's beak or sword or whatever the hell he has. He's been pierced.

Yeah, I don't know what you call it. The, the. The. The horn, for want of a better word. He's impaled on the marlins horn. Because during the whole thing when he's locked in the room, the marlin was on this swing set of ropes. It swung through the horn, went through the door. Just the horn and he. When the hit a swell, he fell on the horn and he's been impaled to the side. And it is pretty. They don't see anything. It's still grizzly to think about. Like you're just stuck on this dead fish's nose, just spinning and just teetering and tottering with the waves that. Like some gross infinity. Like those balls like you see on people's desks that just go on forever. Just. Dag. Dag. They're just hanging there forever. Gross. And the thing is. What I love that you get the shot of the side. I like the. The marlin's eye peeking through the people. The window, like, ha. I got you back.

Yeah.

Who dead now? Who A trophy now.

Yeah. So this is important because at this point, we're watching all this and going, okay, all right. Okay. Well, maybe this. Maybe this isn't a supernatural story. I'm kind of relaxing here.

Yeah, everybody's relaxed. They're getting. They're both like, he's drinking. She's not.

He's drinking.

He's like. He's doing this whole dissertation of what happened. He's boozed up, too. Like, visibly boozed up. And so when they finally booze, when they finally bone, you're like, oh, this must be the end. This is the happy ending. Okay. It's one of those horror movies where it turns out nothing scary was really going on, except what happens.

Toby, well rescued, finally does come. Oh, go ahead.

No, we're about. They're making love. We're about to cut to commercial. What's gonna bring us back? What's gonna make us think the movie's not over?

God damn it.

Maybe a piece of jewelry.

Oh, she's okay. She's lost a piece of jewelry that the priest gave her. It's a little cross on a chain.

She took it off to make love. Doug McClure took it off of her so they could make love.

And the last shot before commercial is, oh, she's not wearing it. She's not wearing the cross.

She's not wearing the cross. But it's sitting there on whatever nightstand or table or whatever. But the cross just. It just disappears into thin air.

I forgot. Yeah.

So something supernatural is going on, and Doug McClure is wrong, and the movie's not over. Let's buy some tide.

Yeah. Excellent rundown.

I can't believe I ate the whole thing. Toppie.

Time to make the donuts.

Yeah. So Pangolini's on his way. The Coast Guard's on his way. It's more love. Lots of padding here. Lots padding. Just them swooping in again. It's dramatic. They paid for the Coast Guard. Use it. Go ahead. I'm fine with it.

They're back to doing location shoots.

They get to ride the basket up and they're rescued this time. Actually, no, they.

What? No, they get to back the plane, the helicopter gets to land, and they get to board like normal people. And they are so fucking blase about just escaping an onseat death trap.

Well, they're also like, lovey dovey and glib.

They're both glib about it and, like, in a way that normal people wouldn't be.

Yeah.

There's no one attending to them. Nobody. It's weird. Everything's weird. She's all smiling and happy and Pagoliti's like, really? Yeah, really. You're on a floating death trap and you've picked up a broad. Really?

So it's.

What is the matter with you?

It's the Coast Guard that gets them off the schooner. The Pags helicopter lands on the Coast Guard ship and he's going to take Eve, Eva and Pigs home to safety.

So they climb, taking bone on them dry land like normal people, like landlubbers.

And right away Pags is like, oh, I can't believe this. You got some girl and, you know, googly eye or she's good. Oh, brother.

He's throwing a lot of tune at her because like I said, sexual tension could be cut with a knife.

How you find them, God only knows.

Pagnolini, this is Eva.

How do you do?

Pangalini.

And did you get.

That's my man.

At one point he says, put on the life jacket. And she gets this look on her face and says, no, master the belt.

Get her a helmet and a vest.

I don't need them.

Sorry, regulation.

No Pagnolini. If she can survive the last 24 hours, she doesn't need a helmet. Well, you can sure pick them, old buddy. Like I told you, there's no bite.

We'll see.

And that's. Whoa. When you realize what.

Yeah, because. Yeah, Doug McClure is like, no, no, no. It's fine if she doesn't want to wear a helmet and a seat belt. That's fine. If she can survive the last 24 hours, she can survive the flight home. And packaging's like, no, it's regulation. Put on the helmet. And that's when she yells. And you're like, wow, that was a really weird reaction.

Yeah.

Something is wrong.

Yeah. And we find out right away what the deal is. The deal?

Yeah, because they. They get a radio from the.

From the.

From the boat. This seems to be a bit of confusion about what Douglas Cloris has he found versus what the Coast Guard is finding. What is this weird discrepancy, Toppie?

Well, the story is that the good father is dangling from the mast. But when the Coast Guard gets there, they don't find a man dangling. They find woman tangling.

A blonde, about 35, 105 pounds. Kim Novak's been dead this whole time.

Yeah. Yes. Yes, sir. This is Haig.

Your transcript shows you found a dead body, male, hanging from the mask, Correct?

Affirmative. It was a priest, Father Martin, first name Peter. Peter Martin.

That's not what we found. We found a woman. Long blonde hair, about 5 foot 8, 125 pounds.

And the camera zooms in on Kim Novak. She's sitting there in the helicopter in this grin.

Oh, I loved all this. She's got the deadest, deadest eyes. And by the way, fabulous, fabulous. Thick eyeliner. Fabulous. She looks fabulous. Looks stunning. She's got the, she's got the deadest eyes and, like, the weirdest smile. And it just keeps spreading like a rictus grid on a corpse. Like when this one. It's great. It's great. Like.

136. I'm waiting for an answer.

Respond.

That's the moment. You know, not only is everybody tricked, I've been tricked.

I, I, We've been cast. We got Kaiser sosayed before kaiser Sosay,Toppie.

Yeah. So all of a sudden, Tim Novak turns into the Father, complete with, you know, his little Father's little collar thing.

Oh, yeah.

And he just, he reaches out to touch Haig, who is obviously, like, stunned that this has happened, and he just goes flying.

You've lost your battle. Ha. Good.

My.

Oh, my God.

He goes flying out the helicopter to his death

Which, which seems to be a recurring theme with Toppie and I is like these campy, campy male stars in the 1970s dying ridiculously by falling out of an aircraft. Because this is a ridiculous. Yeah, because the Father just takes two fingers and says, whatever he says, I'll play the auto. It just goes.

Goes boop.

Yeah, but here's the thing.

And Doug McClure goes flying like he got hit by sledgehammer.

Yeah. Now, here's the thing. Here's the important thing is just before Haiggs goes flying out to his death, he's going, oh, yeah, my pal here pangs flying the helicopter. You know, he's, he's, he's a straight guy. He's a square. I know he wants you to wear the helmet and the safety stuff, but you know what? At the bottom, the bottom line is he's a good guy. He is a good guy. That's, that's when the Father doesn't Have any use for Haig anymore. And once he goes to his death, his. His focus now is on our pancakes. Yeah.

The hero of the film, the moral compass of our film, even though he's only in the very beginning of the very end, he is the only person with Eddie Marvels in this film. He's going after Pagolini.

There's one great moment when the devil. I guess he's the devil.

He's the devil. I. I suppose you know who I am. I know who you are. Yeah.

Good stuff.

They don't say it, but we all.

We know. Yeah, well, they're in the devil triangle. anyways.

What do you want?

You, Paolini. Your soul. It's time. Then what was for the others? It doesn't have to be for you. You know who I am. I know. Then you know I can't spare you.

I'm not afraid to die.

Everybody's afraid to die, Panolini. I am the only one who can save your life. All you have to do is ask me to. Ask me, Panetta. Ask me to save your life, Paolini. No. I reject you. If I cannot have you sold, I will have you married. Magnolia. Your wife will love me. Your children will love me. She will have me. They won't reject you soon as I reject you.

In God's name.

Go to your God. God. Die for your god.

There's a moment where the devil becomes so angry because Pegs is resisting him that he yells. Oh, God, that's a great. He yells at the top of his voice, my God against your God. And this beautiful, like, supremely shocking.

Oh, I wrote it down. It's a great bit because. Yeah, he's just going on you. It's like you're gonna.

It's about. For your soul right now, Pagani. Battle for yourself. Listen, your family's gonna love me. Your wife's gonna love me. Your kids are gonna love me. I'm gonna have your life. I'm gonna look like you when I get out of this ship. And he's like, no, no, I'll never. I'll never relent to you. And he's like, I owe. I stand before you. I'll pray to. Pray to your God. And he says, God, where is it? It's such a great line. Oh, oh, oh. Then go to your God, Pagolini. Die for your God. So even though Pagolini's gonna die, you don't survive this confrontation with the Devil. It's for the battle's for your soul. What happens after you die. Everybody else lost.

Yeah.

So play praise. The helicopter starts to crash. And it's the longest, slowest nosedive in the history of Santa.

Yeah.

It's like the helicopter was flying at plane flight. Like, if that. If the helicopter was having the horror, 64,000ft, that would make more sense. But it takes him, like, three minutes to crash. But I don't care, you know?

But yeah, and when it crashes, you know, he's dead. And so once again, there's this disaster. The Coast Guard is quite a distance away, but they see something's happening. They go towards it, and who do they find floating in the water with a piece of debris?

Well, first it's the priest.

Yep, that's what we see.

We see the priest, but we also see Doug McClure floating over there. Doug McClure is dead.

Yeah. And that's weird anthems.

Yeah. And then the priest just looks at the ship. He smiles, swims away. And then Doug McClure's corpse bobs up out of the water, alive, looking wet and scary. He's got that look on his face, the dead eyes, and just starts to smile at that ship and do that slow wave. So this is how this game goes. This is how this game goes.

Yeah. I guess the devil, it likes this area because he can really claim a lot of souls, I guess. And this is his little playground, apparently.

I'm gonna look like somebody from that last group of people that I killed, and that's going to be my way in.

Yep. And who knows who he's. Who's he's. He's gonna target, probably.

And it makes sense if it's a Coast Guard ship that's coming to rescue him. He's like, I think it'll be better if I look like. Like Doug McClure, because he works for them. That's his buddies up there. That's his Coast Guard family. They'll trust me.

Yeah.

And they're all gonna die. They'll all be tested. They all will die.

So all that happens in kind of this very quick climax, and you realize I've been bamboozled. There's a great feeling like, oh, you got me. You guys. You guys. You got me.

Because even though I was on to the fact that there was something wrong with Kim Novak, I did not expect her to turn it to the priest, that that was the force of evil while she was alive.

Yeah. So I.

She tried to seduce. She came on to Satan, and Satan said, no. Satan said no.

Yeah.

So I thumbs up and I said, well, you got me. That was great.

Yeah, it's. This isn't so much of a horror movie. It's more of a mystery than anything else with supernatural mystery. There's no scares in it and there's no action. There's no gore, there's no blood. There's nothing like that. But it's worth a trip, granted. We've spoiled it for you.

Yeah. Well. Well, 75.

The movie's almost 40 years old, topic. It's almost 50 years old.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was my first time seeing it too, Patrick. And I loved it.

Yeah, I thought it was fun. I didn't love it. Love it. I probably will grow on me, I think, just because it is very. Even though it's an hour and 15 minutes, it's. It's really padded. If you cut out half of the coast guard stuff and half of the fishing stuff and three times. Explain the Bermuda Triangle, it would be a much tighter movie, but they had.

A time slot to film, if I had a guess. And I really wonder if this is how it went. They had a story about good and evil and the story. The general story of the priests and wanting to claim souls. Then someone said, hey, you know, why don't you have this happen in that Bermuda Triangle? And blah, blah, blah. And that happened. And then. Well, we've gotten through all these supernatural deaths. I know. Because they got. They don't have quite a story yet. Let's have Haig explain them all and have kind of a Colombo it.

The Colombo ending.

And so then they do that. And finally, may I add, plenty of.

These movies would have ended that way. There are several where you find out nothing supernatural is going on. There is a perfectly logical explanation for everything. That would have been a valid ending. Yeah, sorry, Topic.

And then I think you're right. The rest was padded with all the location helicopter stuff.

And.

And they finally said, yeah, we got a movie. Now this. This is. Here we go.

It's a juicy little twist. I like it. It's a mean little twist. And because what I love too, about one of the things I love about the 1970s made for TV movie is that you didn't often get happy endings. Everybody dies in this. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. There are no survivors in this.

Yeah, that was. Yeah. Actually movies in general at that time. Everybody dies.

As Sam Panico, also from Groovy Doom, says it's a movie of the 70s. Everybo dies and nobody knows why. Exactly. And that was scary because. Because you didn't know why. That was the scary part of it. But yeah, yeah, it was a grim ending. I'm here for it. It was cute.

Yeah, I was pleased.

You won't hate yourself for watching it.

No, not at all. Just forget what we told you about the ending.

Actually, it's fun if you know the ending. I mean, because both of them are playing that ending throughout the movie. Like I said, that blankness like you, like something they just said could be taken either way. And again, sometimes there'll be like that little involuntary movement when they say something. Oh, wait, you just got shifty when you said that. I didn't notice that the first time through. So there is a game to be played. It's okay. It's on YouTube. It's also on Amazon Prime. And you won't hate yourself for watching it. Okay. And if you did, too bad. You pay for your ticket. There's no refunds on Nostalgia Airlines.

Okay, I'm gonna go back, sit down, put my seat belt on.

It's the 70s. We don't have seatbelts. What are you talking about, Toppie? It's okay. We never really took off. We just have this. We have. We have a projection screen outside the windows and we rock the plane a little bit. Nobody knows the difference. They're all high anyway.

Oh, God.

Okay, so just let you know, everybody, next time we're going to be taking a tour. We're going to college. We're going to College in 1978. We're going to college with Morgan Fairchild and Shelley Winters for the initiation of Sarah. Get ready. It's gonna be lesbianic. So, Toppie, before. Before we deplane Diplane.

Yes.

See what I did there before we deployed to play? That's what tattoo says, too. I'm very tired. Anyway, before we remind everybody where they can find out more about you and where they can listen to the smell cast.

Well, first of all, let me say thanks for having me. It's always fun doing this with you. You can find me over@the smellcast.com. it's a crazy little podcast. Part personal journal, part weirdness, part Kukla friend and ollie. There you go. Perfect. So enjoyed me sometime for some half hour shows every couple three weeks.

Fabulous. And the links will be down there in the show notes. Thank you so much, co pilot Toppie. Thank you for us, for getting us home safely.

Air quotes.

Air quotes. And stay safe, stay healthy and stay out of the triangle. Yeah, that triangle. I've got another triangle for you.

I got nothing.

Good night, Toppie.