A Thief in the Night IV: The Prodigal Planet

The Prodigal Planet aka A Thief in the Night IV aka A Thief in the Night: The Prodigal Planet aka A Thief in the Night IV: The Prodigal Planet is the fourth and final installment in the Christian film series A Thief in the Night. It's preceeded by A Thief in the Night III: Image of the Beast. The film was published in the year 1983.

Plot
During the final years of the Antichrist's reign, a nuclear war has devastated the earth. The Antichrist and his world government find their grip on power slowly slipping away as Christ's return draws near. One of the lead characters from the previous film, David Michaels, is now part of a growing underground movement of Christian believers trying to stay out of the government's hands and thus escape execution. The government is using underground agents to infiltrate this movement. David's mission is to travel across a nuclear-devastated landscape to Albuquerque, where he will meet with other underground believers to await Christ's final return. The earth by this time is populated by doomsday people, mutants as a result of the nuclear exchanges. After rescuing one of them, Jimmy, David leads him to Christ. Jimmy later bravely dies to save the others from Jerry, and leaves Jerry their temporary captive.

Connie Wright is a government agent pretending to be a Christian. She rescues David from his internment at UNITE, then tries to get David to reveal the believers' secret hideout. Along the way, they rescue Linda and her daughter, Jody. Linda is a scientific researcher, brilliant, but terrified. Jody is a spoiled brat who, after being told off by Jimmy, begins to change. She even starts to slowly accept David's preaching. The same cannot be said of Linda, who is too rational a scientist to accept David's faith. But Linda is actually evidence of divine providence, because her scientific specialty is radiation. So as they travel through the war-ravaged nation, Linda's knowledge keeps them alive and provides crucial guidance. She feels guilty, though, because she was part of the team that helped create the mutant doomsday people.

David suspects Linda of being a spy, since it seems that government agents always know where they are. But Linda is the only trustworthy one: Jody is discovered to have been transmitting their position inadvertently, and Connie did so deliberately. Connie is later picked up by a senior UNITE officer (dubbed "General Goon" by David in Image of the Beast). They are soon killed as their van goes out of control and runs into a train. At the end of the movie, Jody accepts Christ as her Savior, while Linda still thinks about the matter, or at least she does not yet openly receive Christ on camera. Meanwhile, a badly wounded and sobbing Jerry is shown in the ruins of the UNITE military base, which is then destroyed by explosions, but not before he rips off his UNITE armband in disgust.

Production
This movie was filmed in New Mexico where as others in the series where filled in Iowa.

Cast

 * William Wellman Jr. as David Michaels
 * Lynda Beatie as Linda
 * Terri Lynn Hall as Connie Wright
 * Thom Rachford as Jerry Bradford
 * Robert Chestnut as Jimmy
 * Cathy Wellman as Jodi
 * Russell S. Doughten Jr. as Rev. Matthew Turner

Crew

 * Director & Writer: Donald W. Thompson
 * Producer: Peg Courter
 * Producer & Writer: Russel Doughten, Jr.
 * Writer: William Wellman, Jr.