WEEKEND OF TERROR is about a pair of kidnappers named Eddie and Larry (Robert Conrad and Lee Majors). After botching their abduction -Eddie's a bit homicidal- the two scramble for a way to get the ransom money, even though their abductee is dead! Their solution? Why, grab a trio of nuns (Jane Wyatt, Carol Lynley, and Lois Nettleton) of course! The brilliant plan is to pawn one of them off as their former victim. While this may sound like the setup for a screwball comedy, it's actually a made-for-TV suspense thriller. As such, it's not a bad movie. This is mostly due to the "decent crook" / "crazy, eeevil crook" dynamic, between the two assailants. Majors plays his role as the more sedate Larry w/ laid-back ease, and Conrad's Eddie is dangerous, always about an inch away from his next maniacal rampage! A little more worldly than her Sisters, Ellen (Nettleton) benefits from her less naive nature. Can she use this against these men, before it's too late? A flashback to a time when movies like this seemed to be on every night! A fun way to spend an evening. Watch for Gregory Sierra in an early role as a cop...

***SPOILERS*** Movie about two buffoonish kidnappers staring the future guy with the chip on his shoulder Robert Conrad as Eddie and future "Six Million Dollar Man" Lee Majors as Larry, sounds like members of a comedy act, who pull off their first as last crime the blotched kidnapping of Louise Wedemeyer, Barbara Barnett. Louise while held hostage ends up with her getting her skull cracked and dies when a horny Eddie tried to have his way with her. Instead of leaving things as they are Eddie convinced his fellow kidnapper, the sensitive of the two, Larry to go out in the desert of Southern California to kidnap another girl to replace the dead Louise and collect the ransom from her concerned dad Mr.Wedemeyer, Tod Andrews.Spotting a stalled car in the desert Eddie seeing the driver is a young girl, who's in her 40's, who turned out to be Sister Ellen, Lois Nettleton, needing help. He's soon surprised when the car hood was put down to see that the car had beside the young woman two nuns Sister's Meredith & Nadine, Carol Lynley & Ann Doran, sitting in it! Making a bad situation even worse Eddie who seems to be on ,beside the cans of beer he guzzles down, something that's messing with his head tried to get the youngest of the trio, after kidnapping them, Meredith to impersonate the dead Louise in getting the ransom money. All this before Louise's dad and police can see her and realize she isn't Louise! ***Major Lee Majors Spoilers*** As Larry tries to get the by now out of his skull Eddie not to murder both Ellen & Nadine in order to keep then from talking to the police in who kidnapped them-He seemed to have forgotten the soon to be released Meredith who can also identify them as well-he puts his life at stake by hiding them if Eddie finds about it. Meanwhile Eddie did get the suitcase containing the ransom money without even once bothering to open it up and see it the cash is really there! Which shows just how much he was interested in the money in the first place. The final curtain comes down on this mind blowing film with Larry, Eddie by now was history, making a run for it at a local air field with Ellen being held as hostage by him. Trapped with his getaway plane disabled Larry ends up getting blasted by the police and when he's about to kick off he's forgiven by that forgiving soul Sister Ellen for all the stupid things that he did in the movie; Which in fact being forgiven was far better then the ransom money he never lived long enough to spend.

I have to say that I really enjoyed this movie. Usually I don't like the really really old TV movies, just the really old ones, LOL. The movie has a pretty decent pace, and the acting is good. Lots of well known actors in here. I thought Carol Lynley was kind of spaced out, but then she seemed spaced out in most of her 1970's films. Jane Wyatt really didn't seem to have much of a role. The only thing that really bothered me was that STUPID wig! That wig looked nothing like the Louise's hair, it was two totally different colors! When the guy sends the nun into the wig shop with a piece of hair to match up, you can see that it is so light it is hardly even brown. Louise's hair was chocolate brown. How hard was it to make the nun get a really dark brown wig?

Handsomely-produced TV-movie from Paramount has two desperate men, holed up in an abandoned house in California's High Desert, hastily rearranging their kidnap-for-ransom plan after their female captive suffers a fall and dies; they decide to kidnap another woman to take the dead girl's place, but end up with three nuns in the bargain (two in robes and habits, one in civilian clothes: a pleated mini-skirt and go-go boots!). Fairly entertaining yarn, written by Lionel E. Siegel with tongue slightly in-cheek, begins well but unravels completely by the third act. This holy trio of Sisters (Lois Nettleton, Jane Wyatt and Carol Lynley) is quite an unlikely group--as are Robert Conrad and Lee Majors as the kidnappers! The characters are not fleshed out by the writing, therefore we never fear for their safety. Lynley has a big dramatic sequence late in the film which Siegel squashes merely so he can continue along with his formula (this may not have been his fault, however, as most television dramas from this era were not made to be surprising or provocative--just routine). However, Jud Taylor's competent direction and the interesting rural locales manage to hold interest for most of this "Weekend".