The Night They Took Miss Beautiful | |
---|---|
Genre | Mystery |
Written by |
Lou LaRose (story) George Lefferts |
Directed by | Robert Michael Lewis |
Starring |
Chuck Connors Sheree North |
Theme music composer | Walter Murphy |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
Production | |
Executive producer(s) |
Don Kirshner Merrill Grant |
Producer(s) |
George Lefferts John E. Quill (associate producer) |
Cinematography | Jules Brenner |
Editor(s) | Les Green Robert L. Swanson |
Running time | 100 minutes |
Production company(s) | Don Kirshner Productions La Rose Productions Ltd. |
Distributor | NBC |
Release | |
Original network | NBC |
Original release |
|
The Night They Took Miss Beautiful is a 1977 television film appearing on the NBC network that was produced by Don Kirshner. The film features a large number of stars in a story about "skyjacking beauty queens" on a Consolidated PBY Catalina. The passengers include five beauty pageant contestants, their entourage, and a secret agent carrying a vial of a secret and highly fatal biological warfare toxin that if opened can cause a pandemic.
Following a Miss Universe-style contest in Miami, Florida, the five semi-finalists are flown to Nassau, Bahamas in a flying boat along with the American contestant's stage mother; the group's escort, Kate Malloy (Stella Stevens); Miss Beautiful Master of Ceremonies Marv Barker (Phil Silvers) and a deadheading pilot, Paul Fabiani (Gary Collins).
At the airport, no one notices notice two men in flight mechanic's coveralls board the aircraft and conceal themselves. The two, members of a Symbionese Liberation Army-type revolutionary terrorist group, hijack the aircraft, killing the co-pilot when he attempts to send a warning over the radio. The surviving pilot lowers the aircraft to 200 feet to avoid radar and lands on a small uninhabited island that has World War II-vintage buildings. What the two terrorists do not know is that a deadly contagious nerve agent is aboard.