Sweet Hostage (1975)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Powerful

It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The 1970s brought a number of things: disco, disaster movies, and the rise of televangelists. But the Me Decade also brought about a revolution in prime time. Not only did series like "All in the Family" and "Sanford and Son" debut, but movies started getting made for TV. One of these was "Sweet Hostage", based on Nathaniel Benchley's "Welcome to Xanadu". Martin Sheen plays an escaped mental patient who kidnaps a farm girl (Linda Blair), and the two of them develop a relationship. Their roles are reversed from what you might expect: he's a worldly guy while she can barely read and has no prospects in life. To be certain, he often corrects her grammar.It was interesting seeing Linda Blair in a role very different from the one with which she's most associated. At a Wizard World convention last year I got her autograph. She's a really nice person. Martin Sheen had just played a delinquent in Terrence Malick's "Badlands", so this wasn't a totally new role for him. Both do a great job with the characters. I really liked the scene where Sheen's character and the Indian do the Vulcan salute; that scene now feels like a tribute to Leonard Nimoy.Nathaniel Benchley was the father of "Jaws" author Peter Benchley, and it turns out that Nathaniel Benchley's father was also a noted author. The director, Lee Philips, had directed a completely different kind of TV movie the previous year: "The Stranger Within", starring Barbara Eden as a woman who inexplicably becomes pregnant and then starts behaving very strangely (it had to be the only movie in which Barbara Eden looks terrifying).All in all, I thought that this was a good movie. I wish that more movies got filmed in New Mexico. I really liked it when I spent spring break there in 2002. And above all, please remember to use correct grammar ("if I had done X yesterday", NOT "if I did X yesterday" or "if I would have done X yesterday").

I was nervous when this movie was shown on T.V. in the 70s. I had only seen Martin Sheen and Linda Blair in one one other film. Linda Blair in the Exorcist, and Sheen in Badlands.Sheen scared me silly in Badlands, and I remember sitting down and hoping not to be scared. Well not only did Martin Sheen scare me, he enchanted me, and made me fall in love with him.He and Linda Blair gave the best performances I had ever seen in a made for t.v. movie EVER! And after seeing this film again for the first time in nearly 40 years, I still loved it! My only complaint is the cheesy 70s soundtrack, but consider this was 1975. If you get a chance to watch this...DO IT!

I remember watching this movie when it first came out. I was a high school freshman at the time (boy, does *that* date me!). I remember thinking this was one of the best romantic movies I'd ever seen. The box of kleenex was dragged out, my eyes were red, etc.I spent about 15 years trying to find this movie when VCRs became rampant, and couldn't.Lo and behold, there it was on eBay. It cost a lot more than I usually pay for a tape, but I'd looked so long that I decided to get it anyhow.Now that I've seen it as a middle-aged woman, all I have to say is: this is a terrible movie! It's so bad that it's almost hilarious. The first three minutes give you an idea; Martin Sheen is in the courtyard of his Massachusetts mental institute, wearing a bathrobe and slippers, and telling the aides, "You may address me as Kubla Khan." It's all downhill from there, folks.What redeems it? If you want to take it seriously, be a young female who's waiting for Prince Charming, as this film is a bizarre sort of wish fulfillments. If you *don't* want to take it seriously, there's Linda Blair in one of her more nymphette stages, and the young Martin Sheen looking as quite the stud muffin, so there's some eye candy for all genders. And, of course, there are a bunch of lines in the script that are so bad that you've got to burst into laughter.I think the reason we couldn't find tapes of this film for so long is because Martin Sheen confiscated all of the original negatives. If Francis Ford Coppola had seen this, he would have never cast Martin Sheen for the lead in "Apocalypse Now." Fortunately, someone must have found one at a flea market and turned it into a video.Ratings: If taken seriously: 3 If not taken seriously: 10

Back in 1975 Linda Blair was still considered an honest actress. And she proves she just could act (which might not be so certain if you've seen most of the films she made the next decade) in this nice story quite close to "Badlands" ( Terrence Mallick, 1974). Martin Sheen is really convincing in the role of this escapist from a mental institution and his complicity with young Linda Blair makes the film stand its way. The end however is quite easy (Sheen's character committing suicide at the police's arrival followed immediately by the credits as Blair cries over his dead corpse. Anyway it's just a TV film, one can't be too demanding as for a real motion picture!) So, if you like the seventies' spirit and want to see an entertaining tale with two actors who were still at their best, have a look at "Sweet Hostage" (if you can find a copy for it's very rare...)