A Thief in the Night (1972)

Director: Donald W. Thompson

Writers: Donald W. Thompson, Russell S. Doughten Jr.

Composer: ??? Stock music?

Starring: Patty Dunning, Mike Niday, Colleen Niday, Maryann Rachford, THom Rachford, Duane Coller, Russell S. Doughten Jr., Clarence Balmer, Betty D. Jackson, Gareld L. Jackson, Jared McAdams

More info: IMDb

Tagline: ...and there will be no place to hide.

Plot: The story of Patty, a young woman caught up in living for the present with little concern for the future. She meets and marries a young man and her life seems great, until one moment she awakens to find her husband gone and the radio reporting millions of people have mysteriously disappeared. As dramatic, earth shaking events begin to unfold around her, Patty realizes she is living in the end times spoken of in biblical prophecy.

My rating:  5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

Ya know what this movie could've used a lot more of?  Titties.  There's not even one.  I thought for a moment that maybe the thief in the night took all of them but then I remembered that the movie wouldn't have them because it's a Christian propaganda picture.  Too bad Russ Meyer didn't make this; it would've been a lot more fun and it would probably convert a lot more people the Church of Boobs.  I'd get out of bed on a Sunday morning for a sermon at that church.  This is the LEFT BEHIND before LEFT BEHIND was a thing.  Like a lot of propaganda, it's heavily naive, optimistic in all the right places and pessimistic in all the right places.  Being how I don't believe in any of this nonsense, I'm rootin' for the cool kids who want to have fun.  Probably because this is a combination of low budget religious propaganda from the early 70s, the dialogue is often cornball as shit.  This might just be something you could have a good time with if you watched it with some non-believers (or, shit, believe away but make sure you're all...) drinking, laughing and talking to the screen.  That might be a good time.  Me?  I had this running on my monitor while I did office stuff.  Even then I found it often slow, boring and preachy.  This is the first of a dozen religious scare propaganda movies that Thompson wrote and directed.  I was hoping this would be more campy and outrageously silly and stupid but there's too much padding to maintain an hour's worth of cheesy entertainment.  When it comes to technical aspects, the sound library score is goofy and appropriate, the camera moves enough to keep the picture from feeling static (and the editing helps in this area as well) and the acting isn't all that bad at times and every once in a while I laughed, intentionally or not.  Still, no bare boobs.  This picture needed some sex.  It'd be a fun project to take something like this and delete some stuff and smut it up.  My time is short on this planet and there won't be some great editing booth in the sky waiting for me when I leave so I'll just imagine what it would be like and move on.