The Love Boat [movie #1]

The Love Boat [movie #1]
ABC
September 17, 1976
TV-Movie
VHS
C

The main reason to watch this, other than to see how much tinkering had to go on in this first of three pilots to make the transition from book to regular series, is of course the cast:

• Donald Richardson is played by Don Adams;
• Eleven-year-old Arnold is played by 14-year-old Jimmy Baio, who was a year away from Soap;
• George Havlicek is played by Tom Bosley, who had not yet worked with Jimmy's cousin Scott;
• Thomas Ford, the Captain (I'm pretty sure it's Allenford, but that's what IMDB says), played by Ted Hamilton, on M*A*S*H the previous year and later to be a Pirate King in The Pirate Movie; 
• Monica Richardson is played by Florence Henderson; 
• Stan Nichols is played by Gabe Kaplan;
• Willard is played by Harvey Korman; 
• Iris Havlicek is played by Cloris Leachman;
• Hal Linden, Barney Miller himself, appears; 
• Danny DiMarco, the Lounge Performer, is played by Richard Stahl, who'd done a That Girl, a Bob Newhart, and would later be on Soap;
• Ellen Carmichael is played by Karen Valentine; 
• O'Neil, the Doctor, is cast against type with Dick Van Patten;
• Isaac, the Bartender, is played by Theodore Wilson, who popped up on a lot of '70s TV, including recently What's Happening!!

Also there's even more of a BNS connection:  Ric Carrott, who was Ronnie, here plays Richard Garrett III, while Karen Ish, who was Mrs. Heinsohn, here is Dena DiMarco.  And Joseph R. Sicari was Dennis the Encylcopedia Salesman, while he's Nino, the Steward here.

Not counting the beginning and ending, the stories are less interwoven than would be the case on the series.  The first story is "Mona Lisa Speaks," written by Carl Kleinschmitt, who had done five episodes for That Girl, two for M*A*S*H, and one for Welcome Back, Kotter, so he had a bit of experience writing for Kaplan, whose role is goofier than on WBK, with Korman as his straight man.  Stan thinks he's met his dream girl, until she turns out to have a voice like Mae Questal.

Then comes "Mr. and Mrs. Havlickek Abroad," with Bosley and Leachman as a nouveau riche couple from Muncie.  This is by Bob Illes and James R. Stein, who'd later co-write for What's Happening!!  George punches out his daughter's rich fiance, thinking the guy's a phony.  Unless this movie got chopped up by the time it hit cable in the '90s, there's no resolution or make-up scene.

Next is "Are There Any Real Love Stories?," arguably the best of the bunch, mostly due to Linden and Valentine's acting.  This one was written by Dawn Aldredge and Marion C. Freeman, who had recently written for What's Happening!!  It surprisingly mentions abortion, a term not often heard on The Love Boat.

Last is Kleinschmitt's "Till Death Do Its Part" which has good performances by Adams and Henderson, who bicker well, but it leaves a bad taste that he tries to kill her and she finds out and blames herself.  And then she seduces him out of getting a divorce!

There are two directors, Richard Kinon and Alan Myerson, giving even more of a BNS connection.  And the split direction adds to the hodge-podge effect of the movie.  I haven't said much about "your crew," but suffice to say that they can't hold a candle to Lauren Tewes et al.