disgusting, overrated, pointless

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

While the other reviews for this made for TV are very good, my wife and I just didn't see it at all. We both felt that the main character was incredibly annoying, there were many plot holes and the baddies were very inconsistent. It's a shame, as the story could have been a whole lot better.When the film begins, several thugs are confronting some guy in a hallway. In the process, the end up killing him...just outside the room where two ladies are. The ladies truthfully tell the cops they had no idea what occurred but not only do the cops doubt this but the killers! So far, it's an interesting premise. But when one of the ladies is found beaten very badly and their place torn to pieces, the film starts to degenerate into clichés and plot elements that simply don't make a lot of sense. When the injured lady gets out of the hospital, she and the other woman, Linda (Donna Mills), are in their car...and the beaten lady sees her attacker. She responds by driving like a maniac through the parking garage--screaming all the while. The car eventually hits something and it flips--killing the hysterical driver and leaving Linda paralyzed! Talk about overdoing a scene!! Sure, she was scared but this whole sequence was utterly ridiculous.When Linda awakens in the hospital, she's in a strange mood. Instead of trying to get better, she's very whiny and starts yelling at the cops. Why? I have no idea. It also later turns out she's paralyzed and instead of taking her physical therapy seriously, she whines that it is 'too hard'! She whines so much that when the leader of the killers (Chuck Connors) tries to kill her in the hospital, you are rooting for him to succeed.As a result of this hospital attack, the cops arrange for a retired police Captain (Martin Balsam) to take Linda to a hidden location and guard her. During this time, Linda whines a lot more and then reveals that she told her landlady where she was going to hide!! Huh?! Not surprisingly, the killer (always on his own after the first scene--which is odd because if he still had his henchmen the film would have ended VERY differently) soon is spotted nearby and what does the retired cop do? Yup...he leaves her home alone!! Duh. Soon the baddie arrives and like Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark", she is chased through the home by the killer--but instead of her being blind she's a paraplegic and has to grope her way around the place. And, when she gets on the phone to call for help, the phone goes dead the second she begins to tell them where she is!!! Will he succeed in killing her or what? And, will anyone care?!Again and again, the evil killers DON'T kill people when they should have considering they didn't want any loose ends. Why leave victims to identify them? And, if you are being chased by evil murderers why do you whine and do so little to try to help yourself during most of the film? The bottom line is that the basic idea was sound but the characters were one-dimensional and annoying. The made for TV movie just should have been a lot better.

Two young women in modern-day Los Angeles are menaced by syndicate hit men after one of their couriers, a guy on the take, apparently hid a package or a safe-deposit box key in the ladies' apartment. Surprisingly engrossing TV-movie with a taut direction by Jean (Jeannot) Szwarc, solid cinematography by television mainstay Howard Schwartz, and colorful performances by Martin Balsam as a detective, Agnes Moorehead as a physical therapist and Chuck Connors as the head bruiser for the mob. Only Donna Mills disappoints in the central role (she's blandly incredulous throughout, with a whiny voice). Teleplay by Cliff Gould shamelessly apes "Wait Until Dark" in its final stretch, however the plot is satisfyingly worked through. Schwartz's work won him the Emmy, most likely for his handling of an escape sequence by car in an underground parking lot; art director William L. Campbell was also Emmy-nominated.

This is a 1972 ABC movie of the week and whilst not startlingly original is fairly diverting. Most interesting for the excellent performance of Eddie Egan as an ex-cop, when, of course, he was the ex-cop that inspired The French Connection, in which he also had a small part. Similarly convincing is the ever menacing Chuck Connors as chief bad man who spends the whole film trying to get at the heroine, played by Donna MIlls. Donna is excellent here in a difficult role, mostly performed in a wheelchair, and yes we do get a sequence of her travelling up one of those sinister little one man internal lifts. She would later perform equally effectively with Clint Eastwood in Play Misty For Me.

The mob is after something and due to an unfortunate set of circumstances they believe that a school teacher by the name of "Lindy Daniels" (Donna Mills) may have it. And they will stop at nothing to get what they are after. In one specific scene Lindy Daniels is seriously injured trying to get away and this makes her plight even more difficult for her in the days ahead. Now, since I don't want to spoil this movie by giving out too many details, I will just say that this is a "made for television" film that has a couple of tense moments and Donna Mills looks as beautiful as always. Martin Balsam also gives a decent performance as a retired policeman-turned-private investigator named "Captain Caleb Sark". On the other hand, I was underwhelmed by the one-dimensional performance of Chuck Connors who played the hit man "Brian DiPaulo" and I suspect that some of this film was left on the cutting room floor. Be that as it may, this film doesn't have any graphic violence, sex or profanity that one would find in a typical movie today and because of that it may appear tame to some. In any case, it's worth a look for anyone who is interested in a good crime-drama from the early 70's.