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Seven in Darkness (1969)

*** (out of 4)

A plane full of blind people are being taken to Seattle during a very bad storm when it crashes into the wilderness. Naturally, everyone on the plane who could see are now dead and it's up to seven people, including a pregnant woman, to try and make it out of the woods even though they can't see.

This here was the first ABC Movie of the Week and it's pretty funny to see how much all future TV movies can pretty much be seen here. You've got a very interesting story to grab your attention. You've got famous faces like Milton Berle, Barry Nelson, Leslie Ann Warren and Arthur O'Connell. You've got a short running time that goes by very quickly. And you've got the cliffhanger moments that build into a commercial. SEVEN IN DARKNESS has several flaws but there's no question that it holds your attention from the opening moments until the closing credits and it's certainly worth viewing.

If you're into disaster movies then you're going to enjoy this as the idea because it is quite good. How would seven blind people make it down off a mountain? With a running time of just 73 minutes nothing is given to us in great detail. In fact, I would have liked to have seen the "how" a tad bit more because it seems their journey was just a tad bit too easy for the most part. Still, there are some tense scenes including one where a couple members are attacked by wolves and another where they must try to find a way to cross a river. The performances for the most part are good and on the whole SEVEN IN DARKNESS is a good little film.

I have fond memories of this minor classic as the very first ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week. SEVEN IN DARKNESS was the premiere installment of these 90-minute films made for TV that appeared on Tuesday and Wednesday nights on ABC between 1969 and 1975. This film was an unsettling adventure about seven blind people, flying to some kind of convention for blind people and what happens when the plane crashes and they are the only survivors. Sean Garrison, Barry Nelson, Milton Berle, Dina Merrill, Alejandro Rey, Lesley Ann Warren, and Elizabeth (Tippy) Walker grope their way through the title roles. I remember finding it very unsettling to watching blind people stumbling in around in dark forests and tripping over things, but it definitely held my attention. The performances are OK, with Berle and Merrill doing standout work, but it is the plight of these survivors that sustains viewer interest here. No masterpiece, but a guilty pleasure of mine.

It's the story of a plane crash in a remote area, where the surviving passengers attempt to make their way to civilization and life. Here, though, they happen to be blind. Milton Berle is superb as Sam, an embittered, angry man caught up in his past disappointments and who is now in the struggle of his life.

Director Michael Caffey, about whom I know nothing, steers SEVEN IN DARKNESS as blindly as the plot's unfortunate seven blind persons who survive an air crash in an undetermined place - and the result is a largely unintentional comedy.

In addition to their handicap, these blind persons suffer from delusions of power, selfishness, they steal, lie, and do all manner of evil. Thankfully, they stop short of gorging each other down (the source of their food is not known and, to make matters worse, it is being stolen by one greedy element) but thankfully there is none of the cannibalism that would occur in a real life aviation crash in the Andes in October 1972.

Their elected leader (democracy among the blind!), Milton Berle - about whom I also know zero - manages to lead them to safety. In the process, these sightless souls manage to find yarn to string themselves together, start fires to keep warm - though none seem to smoke, and why non-smokers should carry lighters on themselves is baffling -, manage to find a makeshift bridge well above the foot of a hill, and even survive an attack, and kill a brute of a wolf who, for reasons known only to itself, strays off its pack to attack first one of the seven blind, then another. Both injured men bleed profusely in wintry and windy conditions, which should put most human lives at risk, but these two brave it all and you don't see any blood on their clothes.

Lovely Lesley Anne Warren is wasted, your don't even get to see her famous legs and curvy waist. Dear old Arthur O'Connel, always a highly reliable supporting actor, disappears much too soon, leaving a motley crew of sadly limited actors to carry the action, often driven by motivations that had me containing laughter out of respect, and just as often fighting dozing off.

Amazingly, the child who they come across and reluctantly rescues them initially seems to speak a different language, but then somehow trots out perfect English. Yet another miracle if ever there was one!

The irony is that this cheapo might be the precursor of all the disaster films of the 1970s, beginning with AIRPORT (1970) and continuing with POSEIDON, EARTHQUAKE, TOWERING INFERNO, and an array of ever worsening AIRPORT sequels.

Photography is typical B TV product of the 1960s, very washed up and low grade filmmaking. The script is downright naive. 3/10.

"Seven in Darkness" is the first episode of "The ABC Movie of the Week" and it's certainly a memorable...though contrived one. Think about it...an airliner with a group of blind people headed to a conference crashes...and just about all the blind people are fine but, miraculously, all the non-blind folks are killed!!! What are the odds?! So it's up to the blind folks to grope their way through the wilderness in order to find help...otherwise the gathering wolves will tear them to pieces. Along for the trek are a variety of caricatures-- such as the grouch who doesn't want to come to terms with being blind (Milton Berle), a pregnant woman, a war hero and a variety of other broad types. It's not a bad film and keeps you engaged...but the basic premise is a bit silly and tough to believe.