Xanadu

I was fortunate to have recorded this film on video many years ago, and it's always a real joy to watch it again.

A literate script, a totally involving storyline, Linda Blair's best-ever performance, and an awesome turn from Martin Sheen, all go to make up one of the best films of the 1970s.

A pity about the slightly OTT music soundtrack and naff song, and the film could have been a little longer. Also the much better book title of 'Welcome to Xanadu' should never have been dumbed down to 'Sweet Hostage'. But these are minor gripes about what is in any sense of the word a masterpiece.

The 1970s brought a number of things: disco, disaster movies, and the rise of televangelists. But the Me Decade also brought about a revolution in prime time. Not only did series like "All in the Family" and "Sanford and Son" debut, but movies started getting made for TV. One of these was "Sweet Hostage", based on Nathaniel Benchley's "Welcome to Xanadu". Martin Sheen plays an escaped mental patient who kidnaps a farm girl (Linda Blair), and the two of them develop a relationship. Their roles are reversed from what you might expect: he's a worldly guy while she can barely read and has no prospects in life. To be certain, he often corrects her grammar.

It was interesting seeing Linda Blair in a role very different from the one with which she's most associated. At a Wizard World convention last year I got her autograph. She's a really nice person. Martin Sheen had just played a delinquent in Terrence Malick's "Badlands", so this wasn't a totally new role for him. Both do a great job with the characters. I really liked the scene where Sheen's character and the Indian do the Vulcan salute; that scene now feels like a tribute to Leonard Nimoy.

Nathaniel Benchley was the father of "Jaws" author Peter Benchley, and it turns out that Nathaniel Benchley's father was also a noted author. The director, Lee Philips, had directed a completely different kind of TV movie the previous year: "The Stranger Within", starring Barbara Eden as a woman who inexplicably becomes pregnant and then starts behaving very strangely (it had to be the only movie in which Barbara Eden looks terrifying).

All in all, I thought that this was a good movie. I wish that more movies got filmed in New Mexico. I really liked it when I spent spring break there in 2002. And above all, please remember to use correct grammar ("if I had done X yesterday", NOT "if I did X yesterday" or "if I would have done X yesterday").

One of my all-time favorite movies.

I first saw the movie when it ran on t.v. in 1975. After repeated near-misses, I finally got it on tape almost 20 years later. I was already a Linda Blair fan, and this movie introduced me to Martin Sheen (I still have not seen a bad Martin Sheen movie).

The movie gives a moving portrayal of a hopeless love affair. It's a must-see if you enjoy a good tear-jerker.

Back when i first saw this movie I was in the Navy on the USS Enterprise. It was 1978 and I was 18. Very young and impressionable. I had been going thru the usual stuff most people that age go thru. A search for self and something I could believe in. So when they showed this movie on the ships TV I was on watch and sat their mesmerized as the movie progressed. The more i saw it the more i felt completely captivated by the main character martin Sheen played. He represented everything i was feeling and going thru. I felt like and outsider and that no one understood my true self. I found my self in tears and could hardly believe that there was someone who felt the same, even if it was a fictional movie character. I was deeply moved for days and found myself wanting to do everything from go AWOL and run away to commit suicide because there was just no way I could live in the world as I saw it and Martin Sheen saw it in that movie. I have never seen it again and hardly feel it would have any impact on me other than nostalgic but on that night far away on the Pacific Ocean, this TV movie Sweet Hostage was a godsend that I felt was meant to be shown while most the ship slept, I had a deeply spiritual experience. all from a movie! I chuckle now but it was one of my favorites for years until I finally grew up and got jaded and swept away in the typical pursuits of a young man..sex, girls and fast cars! Excellent movie.

Martin Sheen gives a rich, rewarding performance in this memorable, underrated television drama. It's rare to find a film simply and honestly built on the budding relationship between just two main characters. Sheen's escaped mental patient and Linda Blair's kidnapped farm girl talk, fight, come to a mutual understanding, and finally become lovers. Sheen spouts poetry to tomboyish Blair, but he grows on her, and she to him. The scenes where they discuss the meaning of words like "symmetry" and "phosphorescence" is charmingly played, and Blair is right in tune with Sheen's reckless, showy abandon. This ABC-TV production, based on Nathaniel Benchley's book "Welcome to Xanadu", is let down a bit by the low budget (as well as by the romantic theme song which plays at the beginning and nearly gives away the plot!), but it has two terrific lead performances and a loose, brisk direction by Lee Philips. "Sweet Hostage" is mighty sweet indeed.