Death Cruise (1974)

Instant Favorite.

A Surprisingly Unforgettable Movie!

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Having thought that the mid 1970s was something of a golden era where American TVMs were produced I gave DEATH CRUISE the benefit of the doubt when I saw the relatively high rating on this page and expected more than something you'd get on the Hallmark channel but to be honest it seems like I wasted my time The plot summary on the main details gives away the premise a bit too quickly . This is indeed how the plot unravels but there's far too much screen time dedicated to the characters all of whom are crashing bores . I've always got the impression these exotic cruise ship passengers are invariably badly dressed yawn merchants who quite literally suck the life out of everybody around them and this is exactly how they are portrayed in this TVM The murderer in the midst isn't the most obvious person you'd think off and it does have some unintentional funny moments such as two characters finding a fellow passenger has gone overboard and the female character blurting out " Darling I want to have a baby " but if you're watching a film that feels like THE LOVE BOAT mixed in with MURDER SHE WROTE you'll find yourself not only siding with the murderer but feeling he hasn't murdered enough passengers

It's About Time "Kate Jackson" got her credit for this film.., i can remember watching it & trying to understand it on TV.., my grandmother lay in bed dying from cancer & i was barely 15. i didn't find out till years later that Richard long had died tho.., i miss him on the other shows/movies he was in.I have a copy of the VHS tape still but it's NOT "CC'd" or Closed Captioned for the Hearing Impaired & thats the ONLY flaw in the movie that i can remember or know of to date.., i haven't been able to find a DVD or VHS copy that has sub-titles in English even. If someone out there knows of either copy on VHS or DVD thats CC'd or has English sub-titles please let me know.thanks - Cofffeenut

Seems to me there have been more than enough movies (or episodes on TV shows) wherein a mystery killer picks off a group of people one by one, and then crosses their faces with a big 'X' on a group-photo where everyone is smiling and happy. The theatrical film "The Last of Sheila" used a group-photo as a red herring, but "Death Cruise" doesn't have time for subtlety. It's a telefilm, short on time and short on budget. A would-be "Ten Little Indians", the cast is littered with has-beens (Richard Long), should-have-beens (Edward Albert), and one fresh face (Kate Jackson, giving off some enchanting, mysterious charisma). It's a cross between "The Love Boat" and "Murder, She Wrote", yet it does predate both and was fairly intriguing for its time. Seen today, it's a tacky hoot, although there is a neat twist at the finish line. As TV-movies go: ** from ****

I saw this when I was twelve. It was the movie that made me understand what a good mystery really was. I had read the entire Happy Hollisters children's mystery series and they were about a family of child sleuths who always got their man. But we the readers were not in a position to solve the mystery along with them. This movie showed me that a good mystery is that which makes the viewer/reader, at the end, say, "OH!!!!! OF COURSE!!!!!!!"