Sci-fi’s Greatest Hits, #49: "Jennie" from "The Bermuda Depths".

Описание: "Jennie", music by Maury Laws, lyrics by Jules Bass, sung by Claude Carmichael.

Title music for "The Bermuda Depths" (1978 - Rankin/Bass Productions, Tsuburaya Productions. Aired on ABC TV).

In 1701 an ocean-going passenger, Jennie Haniver, makes a desperate, selfish bargain with the sea to save her from drowning aboard her storm-tossed, foundering ship. In return, she becomes its servant, a harbinger of ocean disaster brought about by its avatar, a huge marine turtle. Two and a half centuries on, to soothe her crushing loneliness, she becomes the playmate and bosom companion of a friendless little boy, Magnus, but her appearance can't come without cost: the boy's father is killed by the turtle, leaving him an orphan. Having grown to early adulthood, Magnus returns to his Bermuda home and meets again with Jennie, whom he'd come to love... however, with the curse still active, it won't be long before another tragedy occurs.

The team of Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass is better associated with TV holiday specials like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman", but they dipped their toes into feature-length projects as well. "The Bermuda Depths", which aired on ABC, is a bittersweet love story tripped up by some unfortunately clunky special effects provided by the company's Japanese partner, Tsuburaya Productions. The giant turtle puppet looks fine for the most part, particularly convincing when it's underwater. However, any FX work involving ships is terrible: the props bob around like toys in a bathtub, with scale being ruined by outsized water droplets that fly everywhere. Additionally, certain motivations prove rather dodgy. Magnus' obsession with Jennie is easy to fathom, but the sudden Ahab-like determination of his friend Eric (Carl Weathers) to bag the sea-beast at all costs comes out of nowhere. There's also a half-hearted attempt to tie all the proceedings in with the Bermuda Triangle fad which was red-hot at the time, would-be relevancy that would have been better off forgotten. With the action scenes kept to a minimum and discretely separated from the sentimental ones, the film's melancholy isn't compromised in any important way. The title song, "Jennie", does a very nice job of emphasizing the regret and sense of loss for a love that can't be allowed. As Rankin/Bass were proven masters of effective song-smithing (facilitated by their longtime partner, composer Maury Laws), its success is no surprise.