Douce Captive

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.

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").

This is an amazing movie for its time and you can really see the talent of Linda Blair and Martin Sheen in this film. It's about a man who escapes from an asylum and kidnaps a teenage girl. The two of them fall in love, but sadly their love is doomed. It's a story that really stays with you for years. It's well worth watching.

I saw this film over 25 years ago I was very young, but it left a deep impression in my heart, this was a very touching movie that stayed with me for all these years, I only saw this movie that one time, but I never forgot about it, I did however forget the name of the movie, but I never forget the two main characters; Linda Blair and Martin Sheen they were absolutely fabulous. Why did they not make more movies together. I will always keep this movie in my memories. I hope to see it again soon as would like to have a copy of my own to watch whenever I want. Sweet Hostage was and still is Sweet Brilliance!!!!.

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.