The Night They Took Miss Beautiful (1977)

Terrorists hijack an airplane flying from Miami to the Bahamas that contain the finalists of a beauty pageant and demand five million dollars in ransom. Directed by Robert Michael Lewis and perfectly appalling! Not only poorly written but poorly directed and acted. With a title like THE NIGHT THEY TOOK MISS BEAUTIFUL and a premise like that, one would think this would be a trashy hoot but it's just plain bad. The terrorists are cartoonish rather than terrifying, the "evil" government agents are cliches and the nominal hero (Chuck Connors), an airport security man, is incompetent. The acting is dreadful right down the line except for Stella Stevens and that's only because she's given nothing to do. The most amusing performance comes from Sheree North as a strung out junkie lesbian terrorist. Oh, she's as godawful as everyone else but at least she's amusing in a kind of bad acting way. I felt bad for the actors but I suppose they have bills to pay too. With Phil Silvers, Victoria Principal, Gary Collins, Henry Gibson, Peter Haskell and Karen Lamm.