“We are not from Connecticut.” – Caleb Hobbes.
Black Noon aired Friday, November 5, 1971 as one of the CBS Friday Night Movies.
Here is the tale of a good man tempted by evil, and of a wife helpless to stop his descent.
We begin with a pre-title sequence of Yvette Mimieux watching a church burn. Cut to Roy Thinnes (The Invaders), as John Keyes, a homesteading reverend whose bride (Lyn Loring) has fallen sick, and their wagon has broken down in the middle of the desert.
Their water is gone, and they're near death... until Ray Milland (Caleb Hobbes) comes to their rescue. He’s the town leader in a mining town whose mine ran dry. Some of the townsfolk have remained behind along with Caleb, his mute daughter Deliverance (Mimieux), and wife Gloria Graham, who is too glamorous to be a homesteader, and I was sad to note her dearth of lines, one of them being, “Excuse me, sir, it’s your wife, she’s asking for you.” Boo. She should be saying flippant, unstable things or pathetic, unstable things!
Since the Rev's wife must recuperate, the newlyweds stay with the Hobbes.
Mimeux skulks around, casting sex vibes at the Rev, and fashioning a wax figure in the shape of his ailing wife.
There's more fun crap to come, like the Rev healing a wheelchair boy, townfolk performing rituals, Henry Silva as a mustache-twirling satanic figure, and the Rev's visions of a half-naked screaming man.
If you’re in the mood for silly Western witch stuff, it's worth a viewing. Picture and sound quality are acceptable.
A YouTube review describes the film best, as, “A mostly watchable made-for-TV movie that doesn’t resolve itself until the last 10 minutes. Will you guess the “twist” ending? Another schlocky horror-thriller from people who were probably jacked up on cocaine and afraid of Satan.”Isn’t that how all great TV movies are made?
Its competition was The Odd Couple, A Howling in the Woods (thriller starring Barbara Eden & Larry Hagmen) and Love American Style. Also notable is November 5, 1971 was birth day for Corin Nemec, who starred in one of my fave SyFy channel movies, Mansquito.