Cheesier than a 32 oz. Velveeta loaf, Valentine Magic on Love Island (1980) was a trifle intended to entertain not only parents but the children they’d conceived while rolling around on shag carpets to Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass. Combining the worst of The Love Boat and Fantasy Island — director Earl Bellamy (Flood!) was a veteran of both — it opens with grating tropical theme music even more hilariously horrible than Cloris Leachman’s Someone I Touched ballad.
As we’re introduced to a slew of characters bound for the mysterious island — one wins a paid trip, another is written a Love Island prescription by his doctor, and so on — we’re reminded of 1974’s Death Cruise. In that ABC Movie of the Week, featuring luminaries such as Tom Bosley, Kate Jackson and Celeste Holm, tourists were picked off by an assassin aboard a massive cruise ship. Much to our disappointment, no one is murdered on Love Island.
Our lovelorn travelers include Denise (Mary Louise Weller), a bikini model who has tired of attracting the male gaze; Billy Colorado (Bob Seagren), a star quarterback nursing a career-ending injury; and Charles (Bill Daily), a socially awkward minister in Coke-bottle glasses whose bishop worriedly asks “You do like girls, don’t you?” Then there’s Crystal (Lisa Hartman, Back to Me and You), a meek grocery clerk trying to escape her meddling mom Ida (Dody Goodman); and feminist Bev (Adrienne Barbeau, Have I Got a Christmas for You), who is indiscreetly trailed by bumbling P.I. Robert (Rick Hurst) at the behest of her jilted tycoon ex, A.J. (Howard Duff).
Overseeing it all is the spectacularly bewigged widow Madge (Janis Paige, channeling Bewitched with a side of Miss Cleo), whose crystal ball and tarot cards reveal each guest’s romantic fate — if only they’d get out of their own way. Assisted by young niece Cheryl (Dominique Dunne, The Day the Loving Stopped), horny nephew Jimmy (Christopher Knight), and an aphrodisiacal dessert that appears to have been spiked with weed and Spanish fly, she is determined to set their pairings straight by the night of the island’s Valentine’s dance. We’re eager for her to succeed so that we might finally be free of these nitwits, whose struggles comprise a Whitman’s Sampler where every variety of chocolate is uniquely unappealing.
The White Lotus it ain’t. Valentine Magic on Love Island is a Dick Clark special that knows the words to similar Spelling-Goldberg productions but not the music. Its formula is approximately correct, which mostly means Adrienne’s Barbeaus are front and center, but the ingredients are off. Paige graciously brings a bit of whimsy to a thankless role, and the distinguished Duff will remind you of another sexist, egotistical, lying and hypocritical boss from 1980 (it’s unclear whether A.J. is bigoted), but poor Goodman ends up in a chicken costume and it’s no more degrading than the scenes she played outside of it.
Barbeau’s trademark stubbornness and sarcasm can’t overcome the idiocy of her subplot. Hartman fares slightly better despite her character’s inexplicable desperation and a Southern accent laughably cranked to 11. Between his glasses shtick and witless banter (“I like older women. My mother was an older woman”), Daily’s humor is particularly dated. The clergyman’s V-Day costume is good for a grudging chuckle, which was about as much laughter as Valentine Magic on Love Island extracted from me — until I checked the credits of its three (!) screenwriters. Unfortunately, I’m now compelled to watch two of Robert Hilliard’s bombs, Texas Godfather and Vasectomy: A Delicate Matter, out of morbid curiosity.
Streaming and DVD availability
Valentine Magic on Love Island is an elusive creature that hasn’t been released on DVD, though bootlegs circulate. Fortunately, you can find it on YouTube.
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… But wait, there’s more!
Janis Paige, whose first film credit dates to 1944, is still kicking at 101 years old. In 2017, at the age of 95, she shared a #MeToo story with the Hollywood Reporter that’s well worth reading. Her accused assailant was Alfred Bloomingdale, who garnered (mostly posthumous) tabloid notoriety in the 1980s due to his involvement with Vicki Morgan — a sordid tale that was chronicled in Vanity Fair by Dominick Dunne, father of Paige’s Love Island costar Dominique.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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