The Love War

Like most of the comments here, I'm working off of my childhood memory. But the fact that I remembered the title after all these years has to count for the quality of the storyline, low-budget or not.

I have several scenes of this film stuck in my brain - which I won't give away here should we actually get a DVD box set of the Best of the Movies of the Week some day (hint, hint). But I have to go on record as saying that Spielberg's DUEL isn't the only TV film ABC produced under the Movie of the Week banner that is worthy of note. I'd venture to guess that there were a dozen of these suspense/horror/sci-fi genre films nearly as good (or better) as much of the summer movies we're seeing in theaters these days (and I'm talking about storytelling, not effects and explosions). That may not say as much about the quality of those TV movies as the lack thereof in modern films. But LOVE WAR in particular, was one I watched every time it was on and has held up - at least in my mind.

I'd love to see it again, if only for the sake of nostalgia.

I saw 'The Love War' more than 30 years ago on Australian television, while I was working double shifts in a Sydneyside slaughter-yard. I found this low-budget TV-movie deeply enjoyable, for two reasons: firstly, it was science fiction at a time when I was starved for even half-decent SF. Secondly, I've always maintained that science fiction is about *ideas*, not hardware and special effects. 'The Love War' has no ray guns, no spaceships: if you watched this movie with the sound off, you'd barely realise it's science fiction.

The film begins in an airport jetty. We see Lloyd Bridges come hirpling along, with an extreme limp. We never do learn the precise explanation for how he got the limp ... but we learn very shortly that he's an extraterrestrial, or at least that he claims to be one. This raises a lot of questions that never do get answered: if the aliens are able to equip themselves with human bodies, then why has Bridges got a body with a gimpy left ankle?

Anyroad, it soon turns out that there are two different alien species on Earth. Two planets are at war with each other, and their best soldiers have decided to duke it out on Earth rather than on their homeworlds. Sucks to any humans who get hurt. Apparently, the two rival sets of aliens are able to disguise themselves so perfectly as humans that the only way they can rumble each other is through sunglasses with special lenses. (Why don't they get contact lenses?)

Bridges is on the run from the aliens, although it's not immediately clear whether he's on the run from the aliens on the *other* planet -- his enemies -- or whether he's on the run from his own people, because he wants to defect to Earth and live as a human. This raises still more questions that never do get answered: if Bridges successfully goes to earth on Earth and lives out his days as a human, what will happen to this body he's wearing -- presumably not a genuine human body -- when he eventually dies? Will he just self-combust, like the dead aliens in 'The Invaders'?

Well, Bridges crosses paths with gorgeous blonde Earthwoman Angie Dickinson, who falls in love with him surprisingly quickly. There is a 'surprise' ending which I saw coming from about twelve parsecs away, but I enjoyed the trip it took to get there. The actors give such earnest performances that I accepted them as extraterrestrials, despite very little evidence. At the very end of the movie, we get a glimpse of two of the aliens through a pair of sunglasses. Still, this movie might have been more interesting if the actors and director had played it for more ambiguity, making Bridges's haggard protagonist more like the enigmatic character played by Kevin Spacey in 'K-PAX': is he a genuine alien, or is he a deluded human who has convinced himself he's an alien, as a defence mechanism against insanity?

Part of the problem with 'The Love War' (besides its irrelevant and generic title) is that this story didn't really have to be science fiction: it would have worked much more credibly if the two rival sets of aliens had been human all along: two rival mafia clans, for instance, or modern incarnations of the Hatfields and McCoys. Or the Jets and the Sharks. Worse luck, this TV movie bears a strong resemblance to a science-fiction story by Kris Neville that was published about twenty years earlier: anyone who's read that story will have no trouble guessing the end of this movie.

I enjoyed 'The Love War', but would like to have seen the same premise without the science-fiction garnishes. I'll rate this TV movie 7 out of 10. It doesn't insult the viewer's intelligence, and that's a rare achievement indeed.

Whole decades have passed since I've seen this one. Up until the late-70's, "The Love War" was TV grist for the afternoon just-home-from-school crowd or nightowls on the independent stations. It has since vanished.

Lousy title, but a terrific premise: aliens fight a low-level, unseen war in a U.S. city for territorial control of the Earth. Some neat special effects (for 1970), a starry cast and a twist in the tale make this worth another look. Certainly worth consideration for a re-make.

I saw this movie on TV when I was a lot younger but it impressed me. Mainly because despite the unlikely pairing of Loyd Bridges and Angie Dickinson in a Sci-Fi movie it worked quite well. The plot was complex but while moving quickly enough did not become garbled or incoherent as some movies do when trying to achieve the "unexpected". The partnership between the main characters develops quite naturally although it may seem cliché to some in this day and age. Perhaps much of it's charm for me is that it came before many other similar movies and was in its way a ground breaker in this genre. I would love to see it again but as another commented I have yet to see it on either tape or DVD. Not many resources even list it. The title of lost sci-fi classic is quite appropriate and I feel many sci-fi fans would enjoy it if it were available to them.

I do enjoy the cosy charms of a 70's TV movie. This one went out in the U. S. as an ABC Movie of the Week. Its one of several of these kinds of things which veered into sci-fi territory. Its about aliens from the warring planets Zinan and Argon who are currently on Earth, using it as a neutral zone in which to play out their deadly battles. Like many a low budget TV film, the aliens disappointingly take human form. On the plus side we have Lloyd Bridges as one of the warrior aliens and Angie Dickinson as the human woman he meets whom he falls for. Its fairly basic stuff overall but its still well done, with the solid production values of U. S. telly-land underpinning it. The ending has an interesting plot development.