Poor Natalie Wood had admitted just a few years before while making "The Star" that she was petrified of water, an eerie situation at the Bette Davis AFI tribute. Just a few years before tragedy struck, she was part of a sinking ship, both literally and psychologically, with this messy TV movie, overlong and tedious, so melodramatic that I couldn't even laugh at it. Natalie's rather understated in her double role as the title character and her mother, and that's a relief considering the melodramatic performances of the rest of the ensemble. Robert Foxworth is the focus of the introduction which indicates that this is going to be a rather soapy melodrama filled with flashbacks that are more bizarre than anything in the present day of the film.
Ralph Bellamy overemotes as the father of the modern day Natalie, and Morgan Fairchild chews up the scenery as if Flamingo Road was made of actual fried flamingos. Peter Graves, Roddy McDowall, Jean Pierre Aumont and Bradford Dillman go ballistic as well in their acting. An Irwin Allen production (with a lot of Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins style of trash inside the script), this is just too bizarre with every outlandish twist and tyrhs, compiling twists involving multiple murders, diamond smuggling and a sinking ship, along with an overly dramatic musical score accompanying it all. Bad TV movies, when discussed, should have a lead off with this one for how audacious it all is.
Ralph Bellamy overemotes as the father of the modern day Natalie, and Morgan Fairchild chews up the scenery as if Flamingo Road was made of actual fried flamingos. Peter Graves, Roddy McDowall, Jean Pierre Aumont and Bradford Dillman go ballistic as well in their acting. An Irwin Allen production (with a lot of Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins style of trash inside the script), this is just too bizarre with every outlandish twist and tyrhs, compiling twists involving multiple murders, diamond smuggling and a sinking ship, along with an overly dramatic musical score accompanying it all. Bad TV movies, when discussed, should have a lead off with this one for how audacious it all is.