Hanging by a Thread (1979)

Why so much hype?

Fantastic!

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

To be fair, it's over 30 years ago since I saw this film in the days when there were only 3 channels. So it was either this, a documentary about basket weaving on BBC1, or 'The Money Programme' on BBC2. It must have had an impact on me though to have remembered it and looked it up on IMDB all these years later. I basically remember about 20 minutes of actual action in the cablecar, and the rest of the 3 hours or whatever it was, as the characters dull backstories delivered by rather annoying and tedious flashbacks, just to leave you tutting when you thought it was just starting to get slightly interesting.You could probably make quite a good comedy spoof movie these days based on 'Hanging by a thread' and be sure nobody would take you to court for copyright theft, as the few people who watched it probably won't remember it, and the people who produced probably won't want to own up to it.If you've stolen money from a children's cancer charity collection box or drowned some kittens and want to punish yourself for it, then watch this film. Your debt to society will be paid in full.Who am I kidding though. About as many people are going to read this review as have met a Jehovas witness that takes 'no' for an answer.

I might have seen this Sam Groom Made-for-Television film once and a half in the early 1980s because it is split between two parts and the second time I've watched it was when I was eager to watch the whole length. Its generally melodramatic stuff and also as time moves on, its overlong at 3hrs 10mins in total about a couple of trippers stranded in an inactive cable car after it was struck by lightening. Seems pretty odd......eh....when the trippers and the cable car operators should have checked the weather forecast!!! On the other hand, the lightning strikes during daylight and its suddenly night time where most of the scenes were set. In the whole, the film is really poor for a lengthy two part drama with daft plots that descends severely and tediously into soap opera stuff with several of the trippers cry and bitch about other members of the travelling party or get flashbacks while Burr Debenning gets burnt... Yawn....until Sam Groom saves the day only just. Not recommended then and certainly not recommended today.

A group of old friends on an outing are trapped in a skylift. Sam Groom loved Donna Mills, but now she was with Burt Convy. Patty Duke Astin and Burr Debenning were a couple, Joyce Bullifant and Oliver Clark were a couple. Groom is quickly established as our anti-hero, with Convy snipping at him. Every disagreement between these two men is because Convy got MIlls and Groom didn't.Debenning is severely injured, burned, trying to get the lift to move. This now gives us the gut wrenching, angst ridden Duke Astin performance, as she tells the story how she, Debenning, Clark and Convy knew how the man Bullifant had loved, really died. Oh, the betrayal, the lies, the deception. Can you ever forgive me?This was just one of several seventies performances that Duke Astin gave as the Academy award winning actress who was now available for television, and like all the rest, she poured all the emotion she could manage into it. The rest of the cast is merely seventies names and faces, with the possible exceptions of Clark and Debenning. Oliver Clark did do other things and will be recognizeable if you watched alot of seventies tv, but Debenning is the face without a name. YOu may recognize him, but you won't know from what.This thing was shown in two nights, more than necessary. Definitely watch it edited. I am surprised to see Doug Llewellyn somewhere in the cast, and that this cast is so big, as anything that could remotely hold your attention, and that isn't saying much, takes place on that skylift.But if you just want to see some tame, empty 1970's television that will leave you exactly the same after you see it that you were before you saw it, Hanging by a Thread is the film for you.