The Bermuda Triangle

A Schick Sunn Classics speculative docudrama directed by Richard Friedenberg based on the popular book by Charles Berlitz concerning the legendary Bermuda Triangle, and the mysterious ship and plane vanishings and strange occurrences that have been reported there for centuries, even as far back as Christopher Columbus who is believed to have seen UFOs in the area in 1492! The famous missing flight 19 from 1945 is also profiled, as are several other reported stories. Brad Crandall presents this quite well, as he had many other films of this type from the 1970's.

Not bad for nostalgic value, certainly entertaining, though also amateurish at times, even a bit outlandish.

Now available on Blu-ray in HD so can gain a new appreciation or at least a re-evaluation.

I first saw this movie as a kid, so naturally I was taken in by it. The thing is that its a good time filler, but its almost completely inaccurate. There was a book I read a long time ago called The Bermuda Triangle Mystery Solved by a man named Larry Kusche who had done extensive research on all of the disappearances and had come up with startling facts. More then a few of the disappearances never happened, they happened away from the Bermuda Triangle, or they were perfectly explainable. They did an investigation once and compared the number of disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle to the number of disappearances in other areas of the ocean that are the same size, they actually said that the Bermuda Triangle is one of the safest areas to travel through! This film claims that no debris was ever found in all the "hundreds" of disappearances in the triangle, Kusche pointed out that there was debris found after some of the disappearances. This film devotes a lot of time to the disappearance of Flight 19. The facts are this, these pilots were not experienced, they were all student pilots except for their flight leader Lieutenant Charles Taylor and he was new to the area. They found out that Taylor's compasses malfunctioned and he thought they were way off course and instead of flying towards their base they were actually going away from their base. The weather got very bad and in this bad weather, in rough weas in the dead of night, the planes ran out of fuel....well you get the idea. There have been a number of Avenger bombers found in the ocean so you cant say conclusively the wreckage of Flight 19 has never been found. Also there was a big PBY that disappeared searching for Flight 19. A ship saw a huge explosion in the air where this PBY was flying and they said later on that some fool was sneaking a cigarette and...well you get the idea. This film plays so fast and loose with the facts that its almost laughable.

Excellent story about the famed 'hot spot'.

Brad Crandall narrates this 1979 film which documents many of the strange disappearances that have occurred in the Triangle. Fine dramatizations make the film more immediate with just enough time spent there before the viewer is returned to Crandall's narrative.

Among the stories reviewed are 'Flight 19', the 'Mary Celeste', the 'Cyclops', and the 'Philadelphia Experiment'. Many frightening moments with solid special-fx.

Well worth the time and much better than many other versions of this phenomena. Recommended.

I watched this as a kid on its original cinema run in the UK. I was nine years old and and the movie left a lasting impression on me- I can still vividly remember the stories (especially Flight 19 and the Philadelphia Experiment).

I've wondered about the film for many years, as it's format was rather strange for a cinema movie- The stories (I believe taken from Charles Berliz books "The Bermuda Triangle" and "The Philadelphia Experiment") were supposably true. The movie takes on dramatised documentary form, complete with overly serious presenter.

I watched this when I was in high school, and I took it for exactly what it was - a movie presented for fun. Unfortunately, I have no "scientific analysis" to present about it simply because there isn't anything to say. I will say that I vaguely remember going for a burger and fries after leaving the theater! There were a lot of movies about UFO's, Bigfoot, and big sharks back then, and I'm afraid no one really considered this feature to be any different. I found that it filled a need -we had fun watching it. Brad Crandall was at the height of his glory in a huge study full of neat model ships and a behemoth video player (which was amazing in itself back then). The special effects were a little cheesy, and the acting was a little corny, but all in all it was a fun movie. I recommend it for those who find the subject interesting. Please resist the temptation to be overly critical. "Exhaustive scientific research" is not called for.