Betrayed By Innocence (1986)

 

Network: CBS
Original Air Date: March 1st, 1986

A fairly by the book drama is livened up by good performances, most notably from Barry Bostwick. I mean, is he ever bad? Here he plays Nick, a down and out filmmaker. Well, not so down and out, he seems moderately successful, but unlucky with love and his marriage to the lovely but distant Sharon (Lee Purcell). His daughter moves out, his wife goes on a business trip and Nick meets Marisa (Cristen Kaufman) at a party. She looks youthful, but she certainly can’t be jailbait. Yeah, right. And this underage honey is T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Her father is an angry cop (Paul Sorvino) and he gets bent on revenge when he learns of his daughter’s seduction, er, rape. Of course, Sharon gets pulled into the fray and before you know it, Nick is on his way to becoming the neighborhood sexual offender. Oh, I mean divorced neighborhood sexual offender! Now that sucks!


She wanted it... she wanted it bad!
Nothing more than a salacious drama, Betrayed by Innocence doesn’t have an ounce of romance in it, which is why I’ll keep calling it a drama. It’s got lots of drama! The leads are definitely attractive and the seduction scene is well done, but there’s nothing sweet about either of these two. Nick is a little too self-centered and Marisa… well, she’s just too young. I have a very hard time believing Nick had no idea she was underage. I mean, c’mon Nick! She’s way too wide-eyed. But as immature as she may appear, Kaufman was great up against Sorvino. She’s every bit the little brat you’d expect from a girl rebelling against a police officer father. Cristen's last appearance was in 1999 and it's a shame because there's just enough Virginia Madsen in her to make her someone to watch for.

The best scene in the movie features Bostwick asking Kaufman for a dance. I guess there wasn’t much money for an actual score because it sounds sort of like someone hit the samba button on their Casio! Bostwick says “This is my favorite song.” Hmmm… In the next scene (the seduction), Roxy Music is playing. So they could afford Roxy Music but nothing else?!? Couldn’t they just use the song twice?

Of note, Isaac Hayes appears briefly as does Thom Christopher who some of you will recognize as Hawk from Buck Rogers (or Carlo Hesser on One Life to Live. I know him from both cuz I’m just that nerdy!).