Disaster on the Coastliner (1979) (TV)

Director:

Richard C. Sarafian

Writer:

David Ambrose (written by)

Release Date:

29 October 1979 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Plot:

A vengeful employee of a computer-controlled railway arranges a head-on collision of passenger trains. Can it be stopped?

Plot Keywords:

Train | Disaster | Railway | Collision | Business

Cast

Lloyd Bridges	...	Al Mitchell
Raymond Burr	...	Estes Hill
Robert Fuller	...	Matt Leigh
Pat Hingle	...	John Marsh
E.G. Marshall	...	Roy Snyder
Yvette Mimieux	...	Paula Harvey
William Shatner	...	Stuart Peters
Paul L. Smith	...	Jim Waterman / Victor Prescott
Arthur Malet	...	Southbound Conductor
Harry Caesar	...	Northbound Conductor
Jacque Lynn Colton	...	Mrs. Shanks
Lane Smith	...	John Carlson
Sandy McPeak	...	Hennessey
Virginia Kiser
Rockne Tarkington

Runtime:

Germany:89 min | 120 min (including commercials)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:U

Filming Locations:

East Lyme, Connecticut, USA

Company:

Filmways Television

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The trains are supposed to be owned by a fictional railroad. However, the name "Amtrak" is visible on all the trains.

Little tidbits

In 1978, when this movie was shot, I lived in East Lyme, CT and I was an extra for this movie (the big crowd at the railroad crossing, waiting for the train to come - I was paid $35, a fortune to a 14 year old in 1978). I got to meet Shatner at the New London Outlet Mall (yeah, I'm sure he remembers THAT), and my friend's father was the town cop who hauled the bad guy away in the police cruiser at the end of the movie.

The funny thing is that the continuity person let a detail slip through. The action was supposed to be taking place in California, yet the police cars all have Connecticut plates. Guess they were outsourcing.

I watched the movie when it came out (and again when it ran in reruns about a year later) and from what I remember it was typical shlocky '70s action-adventure stuff -- actors trying to either start a career or resurrect one, a suspenseful moment every fifteen minutes or so to allow the director to fade to black and go to commercial, horrid disco-inflected "Charlie's Angels"-ish soundtrack, etc. It was pretty bad, but I got to see myself on TV for a fraction of a second.

And now, when my kids are a little older, I can tell them their dad was in a TV movie with William Shatner, and they can say "A what with who?" And then they will go back to using nanotechnology to build robots that will automatically clean their rooms, do their homework, and stop their terminally uncool dad from ever mentioning the 70s again.