The Challenge

I saw this movie when it originally aired in 1970, and I loved it. I also remember the trailers from the week before that centered around the weapon Gallery used (a double barreled sub-machine gun),really cool ! The idea that two countries would decide to settle their differences and avoid all out war by choosing their toughest soldier to fight it out on a deserted island was great. Sadly, both sides plot to stack the deck and keep an ace up their sleeve, a starkly realistic twist. I've been trying to get a tape of this movie for twenty years, and will gladly pay a reasonable finders fee for a copy.

I saw this movie when it first came out and have also been trying to find a copy. This is an excellent movie with a great interaction between Mr. McGavin and Mako. The movie seemed to make some bold statements for the time (l970) when it was produced. I definitely look forward to seeing this again. I wonder if anyone knows whether this is still being shown around in re-runs. I highly recommend this movie and feel this might have drawn a type of cult following much the way 'Tribes' did when it was first released about the same time period. I feel that this was an excellent anti war allegory which left the viewer sensing the moral to the story.

I am a 100% combat wounded veteran, and this movie was pretty close, but perhaps this the way we should fight ALL wars from now on!! My 21 year old son found the movie from a man in Canada and I have watched it at least 3 times in the last 2 weeks! GOOD MOVIE. I had been looking for it for about 10 years, now that my son is in computer's at college, one weekend he was home and I ask him to see what he could do to locate this made for TV movie. He did a search and found that a man in Canada said he may have it, would go through his volumes of tapes and send us a copy. Took about 4 weeks, but it got here about 2 weeks ago, and I have it by the VCR to watch it at any time.

Bomb-carrying satellite from the US which crash-lands somewhere in the Pacific, starting a surrogate war between North America and China. Each country picks one soldier in an island death fight; the US government chooses game hunter Darren McGavin to take on China's pick, played by Mako. Juvenile war-games from writer Marc Norman--and perfect fare for budding G. I. Joes--though there was apparently trouble behind the scenes: the direction is credited to the nonexistent "Allen Smithee" (TV veteran George McCowan reportedly did the honors).

I have been looking for this film for 25 years. It was on the old ABC Movie of the week several times and I have not seen it since. Everyone that I have ever mentioned this movie to just goes Duh I don't know, or they try and tell me it's a Lee Marvin movie (wrong flick).