Review – The Legacy

Now that I look back on it, I think I actually read the source novel for this stinker. In fact, I think I wrote a book report about it in high school. Watching this movie again all these years later, I can only conclude that I was quite an idiot when I was a teenager. Or if not a complete moron, then at least a lot more easily amused than I am now. What we’ve got here is the oh-so-70s story of a woman (Katherine Ross) and her boyfriend (Sam Elliot) surreptitiously summoned to the bedside of a wealthy, dying Englishman. There they meet a quintet of rich weirdoes (including Charles “The Criminologist” Gray and Roger “That Guy from The Who” Daltrey) who inform our heroine that she is the sixth heir to the old guy’s estate, a legacy that apparently includes supernatural powers as well as great wealth. The trick is that only one of them can actually take title, so most of the rest of the movie is devoted to the heirs croaking over in strange circumstances. Some of the twists and turns (such as the nurse / werecat) were vaguely entertaining, but overall the story’s pretty dull. Mildly amusing