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Bridge Across Time
Terror at London Bridge
USA 1985
produced by
Richard Maynard, Jack Michon, Charles W. Fries (executive), Irv Wilson (executive) for Charles Fries Productions/NBC
directed by E.W. Swackhamer
starring David Hasselhoff, Stepfanie Kramer, Randolph Mantooth, Adrienne Barbeau, Clu Gulager, Lindsay Bloom, Ken Swofford, Rose Marie, Lane Smith, David Fox-Brenton, Michael Boyle, Barbara Bingham, Paul Rossilli, Cameron Milzer, Charles Benton, Nancy Skillen, Ray Favaro, Jim Hodge, Peter Vernon, Mike Wilkins, Steve Archer, Stephanie Ann Stone
written by William F. Nolan, music by Lalo Schifrin
Jack the Ripper
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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London Bridge, London, 1888: Jack the Ripper (Paul Rossilli) is shot
and killed and falls into River Thames. 1985: The London Bridge has
since moved to Lake Havasu, Arizona, as part of a tourist attraction, and
when the last (original) stone is added to the bridge ... a terrible
murder happens. Then another one. Then yet another, the local librarian
(Adrienne Barbeau), and she was said to have a date with an Englishman
that evening. And when an Englishman is actually tracked down who has been
seen at the scene of the crime whose profile might fit that of a
serialkiller, he's promptly arrested. The audience of course knows better
already ... Don (David Hasselhoff) has been transfered from Chicago to
Lake Havasu after he shot dead a kid he wrongly thought attacked him, also
for the relative calm of working in the countryside - but of course, a
murder was not what the doctors ordered, let alone more than one. When
he's not investigating crime himself though, he's interested in true crime
stories, and thus is an expert on Jack the Ripper ... and he can't help
but seeing the many parallels between the recent killings and the Jack the
Ripper killing spree, which is only corroborated by the fact that the
knife used and the wardrobe of the killer seem to be about a century old,
according to lab reports. His first theory is of course it's a copycat
killer - but once the guy above is arrested, Don's no longer so sure and
thinks the real Jack the Ripper has somehow returned - even his girlfirend
(Stepfanie Kramer) doesn't believe him, yet he and Don's partner (Randolph
Mantooth) help Don set up a trap for who actually is the real Jack the
Ripper, a trap so fool-proof it almost springs on themselves, as the
Ripper manages to overcome Don's partner and take the girlfriend hostage -
but just in time, Don overcomes his aversion against shooting people (he
had since that incident in Chicago) and shoots Jack the Ripper dead
(again) ... Bridge Across Time is one of those
made-for-TV movies that really hasn't all that much going for it: Sure,
it's based on an interesting premise, but the script as such is less
interested in making anyting out of that premise than to establish a few
standard TV characters with standard issues, and tone down whatever
promise the concept may hold to TV-typical situations, and not only fails
to give a (within genre limitations) believable explanations for what's
going on, but also fails to follow its main character's conclusions to at
least make this a good supernatural murder mystery. Instead it treats us
to a few too many soap opera mainstays to keep this interesting, and to a
positively disappointing finale. Not really worth one's while, really.
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