Being an Irwin Allen aficionado, I went an purchased the DVD to this TV-movie. While the premise is a good one, the casting is a bit askew as Desi Arnaz, Jr. is grossly miscast as a bank robber (his acting is so forced it's pathetic). James MacArthur delivers his lines in a bored, detached, almost nonchalant manner. There was really no reason this movie couldn't have been done as a traditional 2-hour event. Instead we get loads of soap opera histrionics (in flashback) to fill-out the second-half, showing how the various characters -- now stuck on the collapsing bridge -- first crossed paths with one another. A similar script was done for the equally dull and excruciating, "Hanging by a Thread" (1978). The saving grace for this film was the physical and miniature effects. For TV in the late 70s, the effect of the full-scale bridge set coming apart was quite well done, as was the model-work showing larger spans breaking away and falling into the river below.
Irwin Allen was at his end with Warner Bros. at the time he made this (1979). It was his last TV project before moving over to Columbia Pictures the following year, and clearly, Warner Bros. had no real faith in the project, hence it's airing on NBC nearly four years after it was made(1983), and on a night when it was due to be clobbered in the ratings (aired against the final episode of M*A*S*H on CBS).
Irwin Allen was at his end with Warner Bros. at the time he made this (1979). It was his last TV project before moving over to Columbia Pictures the following year, and clearly, Warner Bros. had no real faith in the project, hence it's airing on NBC nearly four years after it was made(1983), and on a night when it was due to be clobbered in the ratings (aired against the final episode of M*A*S*H on CBS).