Travis McGee was created by John D. MacDonald and is neither a police officer nor a private investigator. He claims to be a “salvage consultant” who reclaims others’ property for a fee of 50 percent. He lives on a 52-foot houseboat, The Busted Flush, named for a thirty-hour poker game in which he won the floating home. The character has been in 21 novels, but only this movie and The Copper Sea have adapted McGee for the screen.

The film starts as Travis (Rod Taylor) and his friend Meyer (Theodore Bikel) are fishing. They’re surprised as a woman, Vangie (Suzy Kendall), is tossed off a bridge with her legs bound. He saves her and, as you imagine, falls in love. I mean, it’s Suzy Kendall in 1970, the same year she was in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

Vangie soon tells Travis that she was part of a sex and murder scheme on cruise ships, where she would lure rich men to their rooms, and after she drugged them, her partner Terry (William Smith) would toss them into the ocean. She got out because she thought they were just stealing money, not killing people. Of course, Terry tracks her down and kills her, which sends Travis after her and his new partner Del (Ahna Capri), as well as teaming with a woman who looks just like Vangie named Merrimay (Kendell).

The fight between Travis and Terry at the end of the movie was real. Taylor broke three of Smith’s ribs. who, in turn, smashed his nose.

MacDonald disliked the film. saying that it was “feral, cheap, rotten, gratuitously meretricious, shallow and embarrassing.”

Robert Clouse, of course, went on to make Enter the Dragon. This is very much a 70s man’s novel movie, a place where men may get turned around by women, but they’re always correct, and everyone always wants to fall in love with them. Or in bed. Or fight them.

You can watch this on Tubi.