Peter
Lawford is a wealthy industrialist who is using his private plane to get an
injured worker (Michael McGreevey, from the Dexter Riley movies) to a
hospital. The pilot (Sandy McPeak) gets
them hopelessly lost so when they run low of fuel, they have to land on an
uncharted island. They soon learn the
place is inhabited solely by women. Lizbeth (Jaime Lyn Bower) rules the women with
an iron fist and takes orders from a divine spirit known only as “Sister”. She allows the men to stay only if they agree
to fight off some nasty “head choppers" who periodically pillage the
island. Naturally, the co-pilot (Steven
Keats, from Death Wish) falls head over heels for one of the natives, which
causes a power struggle among the women.
Even
for a ‘70s Made for TV movie, Mysterious Island of Beautiful Women is a slow
and uneventful affair. Once the men find
their way to the island, there isn’t a whole lot for them to do except make doe
eyes at the natives. The identity of
Lizbeth’s supernatural deity is predictable, and the explanation is overly
long-winded. (I mean, what would a ‘70s
Made for TV be without a lot of gratuitous padding?)
The
cast makes it watchable. Lawford seems
to be having a good time surrounded by beautiful women and Keats does a fine
job as the most levelheaded male in the bunch.
Clint (Killdozer) Walker is probably the most memorable as the muscle-bound
passenger with a giant chip on his shoulder.
Of the native women, Kathryn Davis fares best as the blond-haired “Snow”
who gets a crush on Keats. It’s unfortunate
she only starred in one more movie because she is quite fetching. We also have Jayne (Body and Soul) Kennedy as the lone black woman of the tribe named “Chocolate”.
The
script was co-written by Gary Sherman, who was a few years away from his magnum opus,
Vice Squad.
AKA: Island of Sister Theresa.
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