Hell Hath No Fury (1991)

Network: NBC
Original Airdate: March 4th, 1991

… like Loretta Swit scorned! 

OK, OK, so, like, two of my favorite TV ladies teamed up for a domestic version of Single White Female and no one called me? I mean, I had call waiting, guys. You could have gotten through to me. Yes, I am late to the party, but so happy I made it here.

Lifetime did not invent television for women. In fact, many of the later entry small screen network films found success with women-centric programming. Yes, a lot of it walked into the damsel in distress territory, and it wasn’t always great, but it was, more often than not, good. And when you’re hanging out on a rainy Sunday afternoon, good can be really, really good.

Such is the case with the slick but flawed Hell Hath Not Fury, which brilliantly pits two of my favorite actress, Barbara Eden and Loretta Swit in a battle to the (almost) death. These two ladies bring something interesting to any project they are involved in, and the film is raised a notch just by giving them the majority of the celluloid.

Eden is Terri Ferguson. You know the type, Little Miss Upper Middle Class Perfect. She’s married to a well-known and respected businessman named Stanley (David Ackroyd), and is living the dream as a very well-dressed housewife. But Terri isn’t completely enthralled with her white picket fence life. She has a bit of an estranged relationship with her college aged daughter (Amanda Peterson), and she’s still feeling the empty nest syndrome big time. When Terri suggests that she could go to work for a good friend, her husband shuts her down almost instantly. Although they are quite in love, Stanley prefers a smoke and mirrors kind of life, and the way a devoted non-working wife looks to his friends and associates. So, life continues in a bit of a humdrum fabulous for the couple.

On the other side of the tracks is Connie (Swit). Already two bricks short of a full load, and in an abusive marriage, she becomes fixated on Stanley whenever she sees his local ads on television. He must seem like salvation to Connie because she shoots her husband dead and heads for Stanley’s house. As it turns out, Stanley and Connie had a very brief love affair in college, but he went off to find money and local fame, and she didn’t. Surprisingly, it also turns out that Stanley is not the man of her dreams either, because she shoots him dead too! Although it’s never fully made clear why the resentment runs so deep, Connie plots a kind of hazy, psychotic revenge against Terri, and cleverly makes her look like the guilty party behind Stanley’s untimely demise.

While Terri struggles to prove her innocence, the thinly veiled deceit that Stanley left behind begins to expose itself. He was up to his neck in hock, and Terri suddenly finds herself pushed out of her beautiful home, and desperate for money. Going to work for above referenced friend (who, by the way, is played by Kim Zimmer, y'all! And her husband is played by Richard Kline!!! OMG!), Terri clings to that silver lining. Until Connie slithers into Terri’s life, acting as a friend, but in truth, slowly begins picking off Terri’s very short list of buddies (when I say slowly, I mean only one person, but still… she’s devious and stuff).

Based on the novel Smithereens by B.W. Battin, Hell Hath No Fury is well paced, and certainly well acted. Both actresses are great and dedicated to making the most of the material. Not that the screenplay is bad, but it’s hard to understand the motivations that push Connie to that very edge at that moment. It’s perhaps a bit too haphazard in its desire to get the ball rolling, and the TVM could have used a little more backstory.

Overall, it’s a treat to see Eden and Swit in their respective roles. Swit is especially sinister as the remorseless Connie. Still, this movie is about Terri working her way back from what seems like a hopeless situation, and I can’t think of a better person to take on that task then Eden. Hell Hath No Fury ran against Earth Angel, which featured a little more star power and is also more fondly remembered. That’s too bad because while domestic terror TVMs seem like a dime a dozen, there is a reason we keep coming back to them.

My Very Best Friend (1996)

Network: CBS
Original Air Date: March 27th, 1996

If you had asked me two years ago who my favorite Angel was I would have said (without one iota of hesitation), “Sabrina.” I was hot and heavy for Kate Jackson’s snappy dialog delivery and awesome turtlenecks. She’s a legend. But now that I’ve been revisiting one of my favorite beautiful-women-fight-crime shows, I’ve found myself drawn to the more quietly charming Kelly. Jaclyn Smith brought a lot of strength and character, and I don’t know why I didn’t originally recognize it, but this girl is fearless! From the pilot movie where she has an incredible mano-a-mano dialogue showdown with Bo Hopkins, to getting shot up with smack by Cameron Mitchell, this is one lady that does not stay down for the count. Plus, her hair is fab!

I also enjoy a Jaclyn telefilm every now and again, although I’m probably not as passionate about her TVMs as I am about Kate’s 70s output. But close. There’s some real winners in there, like Family Album and Before He Wakes. What can I say? I live for this stuff. But I would also have to admit that Jaclyn’s performances can be hit or miss, such as her not-great-turn as the amnesiac wife in Married to a Stranger (although I will watch it whenever it’s on TV), and I always go into a Jackie Smith movie with a grain of salt. That said, I was happily thrilled not just with her performance in My Very Best Friend, but also with the TVM itself which is gorgeously melodramatic and an awful lot of fun.

Smith is Dana, a woman who should have it all. From the outside, it certainly looks that way. She’s gorgeous, has a glamorous modeling career, and to top it off, she also has a dedicated best bud that she can always turn to. That friend is Barbara (Jill Eikenberry), an attractive, but far more down to earth woman in a rocky marriage. Ever since college, Dana and Barbara have shared everything – and I do mean everything, including men, but don’t tell Barbara that! Barbara is actually very unaware of Dana’s many dark secrets, including an undying obsession with Alex (Tom Irwin), who just happens to be Barbara’s husband! When Dana loses her own spouse (of about one day!) in an “accident,” her fixation on Alex goes into histrionic overload and Barbara’s rocky marriage looks like it’s about to get a lot worse.

Directed by Joyce Chopra (Smooth Talk), My Very Best Friend has all the ingredients that I want in a mid-90s telefilm: predatory beautiful people, yachts, lies and deception, and snow. I’m telling you, it has everything! And, like icing on cake, Smith is absolutely glorious as the gorgeous bad girl who will stop at nothing to get Alex into her clutches.

Lindsay Harrison and John Robert Bensink’s amusingly twisted teleplay (based on a story by Michael I. Miller, Patty Obrow White and Robert Glass) sets up the friendship well, but never takes itself too seriously, taking every opportunity to let Smith flaunt her unabashed villain skills. She’s absolutely terrific – and seems to be having terrific fun – as the back-stabbing-man-stealing-murderer. Not only is she stealing men, she’s stealing scenes! Eikenberry has the unenviable task of playing the straight guy but she’s manages to not look like an idiot when the stuff starts to hit the fan. No easy feat in a film like this, and her performance helps make the somewhat far-fetched premise seem a bit more palpable.

The only real problem I have with My Very Best Friend is the awkward conclusion, that upon further inspection makes little sense. But it's a minor quibble indeed, because this is the kind of 90s thriller that sets out to make the viewer squeal, “Oh no you didn’t,” and to that degree it’s a grand success.

TV Spot Tuesday: The Only Way Out (1993)

Network: ABC 
Original Air Date: December 19th, 1993 

I remember tuning into The Only Way Out when it originally aired in the early 90s. There was no way I was going to pass up a chance to catch John Ritter and Henry Winkler – two of the funniest and nicest men in showbiz – going toe to toe in a surprisingly gripping domestic thriller. The Fonz vs. Jack Tripper?!? That’s front row seat material! I know… I probably needed to get out more. But work with me here, because The Only Way Out is intriguing and suspenseful, and if nothing else, it’s worth catching for Winkler’s excellent portrayal of a manipulative abuser.

Ritter is Jeremy Carlisle, a nice guy who wants his recent divorce to be as amicable as possible. While the three kids he had with his ex-wife, Lynn (Stephanie Faracy) are mixed on the separation and the couple are obviously lugging around some extra carry on baggage, for the most part things could be much worse. And, the words “much worse” come in the form of a guy named Tony (Henry Winkler), a man who is all goofy on the outside, but a seething cauldron of hot water that is just about to boil over on the inside. His escalation from verbal abuse to violence is quick and terrifying (his groveling regret is just as disturbed), and Lynn isn’t quite sure how to react, so she turns to Jeremy for help. This only serves to aggravate both Jeremy and his new wife Susannah (Julianne Phillips), and it also drags Jeremy into an ugly confrontation where only one will come out alive!

Ritter and Winkler had been searching for a project to do together when the script for The Only Way Out fell into their hands. Originally, the pair was gearing up to work on a comedic TVM titled The Sob Sisters, but the film was scrapped due to script issues. Then they were approached to star in The Boys (a TVM about Columbo's co-creators, Richard Levinson and William Link), but the parts eventually went to John Lithgow and James Woods. Around this time, Ritter had become interested in a British thriller titled One Way Out and his production company, Adam Productions, picked up the adaptation rights. Although Ritter was working on the remake he was surprised that it turned out to be the film that would finally team up the talented comedians. Ritter said, “We didn’t realize that such a heavy, dark piece would give us our first chance to work together, but we’ve wanted to do it for years.” So be it, right?

After production, ABC tossed around airdates and the tele-film was originally scheduled to air in November, during sweeps. Ritter believes the creepy thriller was pushed back because some executives were nervous about the heady subject matter and violence. Strangely enough, the network decided to air the TVM during the Christmas season! There's just a touch of irony in there.

In many ways this top-notch small screen suspenser mimics much of the same frustration of the 1990 theatrical film Pacific Heights, by creating a character that exasperates the bejeezus out of you. Dammit, I wanted to kill off Winkler’s character too. Ritter is maddening as well, because Jeremy cowers more than protects. And yet, I can’t imagine how I’d react to a madman showing up at my house, my work, and every other nook of my life. Critics had mixed opinions on The Only Way Out, but many were fascinated, and ultimately taken in by John Ritter and Henry Winkler’s dramatic turns. Ritter stated that both he and Winkler auditioned for the part of the baddie, but now that I’ve seen the movie (a couple of times), I can’t imagine what it would look like if the roles were reversed because the casting is oh-so-perfect. And, that makes it all the more unfortunate that this engaging thriller has fallen by the wayside.

Check out the promo for The Only Way Out below: 

USA World Premiere Movie Project: Accidental Meeting (1994)

This review was written in conjunction with The Daily Grindhouse's year long tribute to the USA World Premiere Movie!

Anyone who visits my beloved blog knows I carry a bright and heavy torch for Miss Linda Gray. I’ve said this before: Sue Ellen Ewing is one of the most complicated and fascinating characters to ever grace the small screen. Her relationship with J.R. (Larry Hagman) is the kind of stuff that dysfunctional awesome is made of! I have seen Linda in a variety of other roles, from Dogs to Models, Inc., and then back to Sue Ellen in the Dallas revival (set your DVRs for February 24th, btw), and when all is said and done, I love Miss Gray best when she’s bad.

I haven’t mentioned it as much here, but I also adore the heck out of Linda Purl. While she brought a little bit country to Fonzie’s rock and roll on Happy Days, they seemed the perfect match, and I was disappointed when they broke up. A lot of that is due to Purl’s charming presence on screen. She’s absolutely breathtaking in Dark Mansions, and she kills it (literally) in the theatrical slasher flick Visiting Hours. Also, she was completely adorable in Danielle Steel’s Secrets. There, I said it.

You can imagine how excited I was when Gray and Purl crossed paths in the 1994 USA World Premiere Movie Accidental Meeting, a thriller that puts a gender-bending twist on the Hitchcock classic Strangers on a Train. Regardless of incorporating a different element to the story by making the leads female, using any of Hitchcock’s story devices is going to set the bar pretty high. At the same time, this is a mid-90s basic cable made for TV movie, and one hopes that lowers the bar back down a bit. That’s not meant to demean the TVM genre at all (and you should know I’d never do such a thing), but viewing a project in its proper context allows films that might otherwise be considered trash or lower culture to become somewhat more interesting.

Purl is Maryann, a somewhat successful businesswoman with a horrible boss. And I mean horrible. He admits he loves to put pressure on his employees, and he’s really into firing people on the spot. This makes Maryann’s trek up the corporate ladder tenuous and tensions flair when she reminds her boss that being a good mom is more important than slaving through corporate America. Jennifer (Gray) has her own issues. She’s a childless housewife in a crap marriage. Her philandering husband (Kent McCord, looking super fine) might not openly cheat on his wife, but he’s not struggling to cover it up either. When the two women are involved in a car accident, it was – as Max on Hart to Hart might say – Moi-dur.

Jennifer and Maryann strike up a quick friendship, confiding in each other. Jokingly, they promise to kill each other’s male problems. Only, Jennifer ain’t laughing. She seduces and brutally dispatches Maryann’s boss and then seeks a returned favor. Needless to say, Maryann is unhappy about this turn of events. What’s a girl to do?

After the well crafted set up of Accidental Affair, the film loses a bit of steam. Perhaps that is because, in these types of light thrillers, it’s the bad guy who gets all the great moments. However, this film concentrates more on Maryann’s struggle to get out of her situation, and it’s just not as interesting as watching Jennifer leer and slither her way through the film. It’s still fun though, and somewhat thoughtful in the tension it presents between Gray and Purl and the housewife vs. businesswoman dichotomy. Well past the burn-our-bras era, Accidental Meeting presents a modern world where you can be both a successful career woman and a good mother (and with a cute boyfriend to boot!) In short, you can have it all, even if your boss sucks. However, Jennifer lacks either a decent family or a good job, and one wonders if her repressed anger is triggered by a denial of both the radical and the traditional. By the time Jennifer rebels against her own self-appointed state (she might hate her hubby but she also absolutely refuses to get a divorce because of a pre-nup), she’s become a wide-eyed lunatic whose desperation allows her to sleep with and then kill her prey!

While the ending is typical of these kinds of thrillers, and there is, in my humble opinion, not enough Jennifer, Accidental Meeting is an engaging little potboiler, built on the fantasy of so many disgruntled spouses and employees. And for being such a late entry into the TVM thriller genre, the plotting and brevity of pace evoke days of yore. Who would ever complain about that?

Oh yeah, and a bearded Leigh McCloskey?!? S-O-L-D.

Accidental Meeting is available on vhs. 

Watch the trailer here:

Haunted by Her Past (aka Secret Passions, 1987)

Network: NBC
Original Air Date: October 5th, 1987

I’m not really sure what rock I was hiding under in 1987, but by all indications, I should have not only seen Haunted by Her Past but I also should have written about it eons ago, as it combines two of my favorite things – the TV movie and the soap actor. The film unites the incredible raven forces of Susan Lucci and Finola Hughes in a ghost story that is more melodramatic than scary but I can’t complain because I enjoyed the movie so much!

Lucci is prim and proper Karen Beckett. As a surprise, her gorgeous husband Eric (John James from Dynasty, and also my 1980s bedroom wall!) whisks her along with their two best friends Rita and Charles Kamen (Marcia Strassman and Robin Thomas) away to the quaint town of Unionville, a place that seems stuck in a time from long ago. They stumble upon a charming inn where people dress in period costumes (!), and Karen is drawn to the one room that has no electricity or any other modern means, which really sets the tone for the type of nerdy historic romance she is seeking. And boy, does it seem like she has romance on the brain, because this mousey young lady lets down her hair – and her inhibitions – at the inn of love. Unfortunately, the gothically designed mirror in their room is also the ghostly prison of a very angry young barmaid named Megan (Finola Hughes) who murdered her lover, only to be hung for her indiscretions, after she gives birth to the dead man's baby. All these years later, and she still hates men, and makes Eric her next target.

Haunted by Her Past generated a lot of buzz when it originally aired in 1987 (see ads below), mostly because of the hot soap opera cast.

In an interview to promote Haunted, Lucci indicated that the film was not simply a ghost story, and commented, “The movie’s been described as a ‘silky, sensuous, contemporary ghost story.’ I feel that’s an appropriate description. The story is really about a woman coming to terms with her own sexuality, and that ghost story is a metaphor. It’s about how it affects her life and her husband, whom she’s madly in love with.”

The supernatural triangle of man-hating ghost, mousey woman and hunky guy creates a lot of tension, and Megan is determined create a wedge between Karen and Eric. But to do this, she encourages Karen to confront her own unknown past, which Megan plays a big part in, and which maybe should have stayed a secret!

Originally, Lucci was supposed to play both Karen and Megan but she said the short shooting schedule didn’t permit her to take on more work. She felt it was for the best and said, “It was much better for me to be able to play against another actress.” I’m a big Finola Hughes fan anyway, but she is a delight in Haunted. Spunky and somewhat scary, she makes the most of her part as a jilted woman who sees her eternal role as a man-killer as wild and just. Lucci is great at working the sex factor but is also good playing up her nerdy side as well. The gorgeous and wonderful Marcia Strassman is wasted in a nothing role, but John James makes up for any of the film’s lack with pure bronze machismo! Yes, I have a crush on him. Oh yeah, and there's gratuitous Page Fletcher (The Hitchhiker) action as well!

This TVM could easily have been adapted from a Harlequin novel. It’s bodice ripping – TV movie style – and the utilization of some of the most popular actors from the 80s soap genre gave Haunted enough of a push to land it at #20 in the Nielsen’s for the week. I seriously wish I was one of the lucky 14.8 million who got to see this when it originally aired in 1987.

Isn't It Shocking? (1973)

Before John Badham became the iconic director behind Saturday Night Fever (1977) and War Games (1982), he cut his teeth on the small screen. Badham worked mostly in episodic television and Isn’t it Shocking? was released in 1973 and was his second foray into the world of tele-films (his first TVM No Place to Run aired the year before). Shocking was broadcast on October 2nd under the popular ABC Movie of the Week moniker and, according to Michael Carol’s excellent and aptly titled book, The ABC Movie the Week Companion, it is considered to be one of the first horror-comedy hybrids (although I might argue that the hybrid dates back at least to the 1927 film The Cat and the Canary). Even without that tidbit, Shocking stands for an interesting time in the tele-film as it began to grow in popularity, enticing bigger named, respectable stars and genre-friendly stories.

Case in point, Alan Alda, who was then America’s Sweetheart on M*A*S*H (or at least a neo-Groucho Marx) plays Dan Barnes, the bored and somewhat unproductive sheriff of a little idyllic community called Mount Angel. His odd secretary Blanche (Louise Lasser from Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman fame) keeps his days interesting, but he’s looking for more exciting pastures over the hill in Horse Creek. Dan wants a younger crowd, the folks at Mount Angel are mostly elderly, and he feels stagnated in a town that is just moving too slow. However, the pace picks up quickly when a madman starts killing off several of the over-sixty crowd.

Shocking is shocking simply because of the dark subject matter. Considering the brutal deaths (well, brutal by television standards) and revenge motif, in some ways the film meets the criteria of a proto-slasher, which are films that predated the 80s slasher craze but still embody many of the same components. It also plays on other slasher tropes with the set-pieces and excellent music score by David Shore, who heightens the tension with creepy strings thrusting through the airwaves. And it’s got an incredibly inventive piece of weaponry – the killer uses a heart attack machine! Basically a primitive defibrillator, the killer literally shocks his victims to death. But there’s one thing that slashers – and most horror films in general – have shied away from and that is focusing on the death of elderly characters. While there are no overt shots of violence, the murder scenes are intense merely because of who the victims are.

 

We are given very little information about most of the victims, but Jessie (Lloyd Nolan in a terrific role) who is one of Dan’s co-workers also falls to the murderer’s incredible killing machine. He has just enough screen time to allow his character to embody a sense of humor and vulnerability which amplifies the tragedy of the rest of the murders. His death is particularly gripping because you get a real sense of the father-son relationship he had with Dan. Unlike the victims of slasher films who tend to feel like caricatures, we understand the murder victims in Shocking have sons, daughters, husbands and wives.



The old timers in Mount Angel are also shown as vibrant and vital members of their community. In a montage we see the town is brimming with busy merchants and farmers. Even the crazy cat lady (played by the wonderful Ruth Gordon from Harold and Maude) is doing chores (in fact, I think she’s churning butter)! In a world where so much weight is placed on superficial beauty, Shocking is a time capsule of when real people populated films, and it is refreshing. And if we’re going to stick with slasher tropes, Ruth Gordon must be the oldest Final Girl in horror film history!

Filmed around Salem, Oregon, Shocking has a lot going for it. Aside from the scares and laughs, there is an amazing edge-of-your-seat car chase that ends with the killer decimating Dan’s police vehicle! Television movies never really got their just dues for camera work, and admittedly many films are static, thanks to low budgets and shortened shooting schedules. Cinematographer Jack Woolf does a fine job capturing the more tense moments, but he works best by just letting the actors interact with each other. Shocking is about the characters and there are several medium shots featuring two actors which is often framed with one person closer to the camera and the other a few steps back, sometimes obscured by shadows, allowing for more focus on the emotions. Also, the shadowing becomes symbolic of a dark town secret.

Alan Alda was perfectly cast. He proved his ability to mix comedy and drama on M*A*S*H and while he is more befuddled and less prone to snarky one liners, Alda captures a real sense of frustration, often comical and sometimes tragic, in his performance. While Louise Lasser never became a household name, she was a familiar presence in film and television and this is one of her best roles. She’s infuriating with her oddball sense of humor and style, yet uniquely adorable in those Mary Hartman braids! Together, Alda and Lasser have chemistry to spare, and the scene which solidifies their attraction for each other is saved for the hysterical last moments, as the credits roll, making a nice break from the bleak murders.

Screenwriter Lane Smith wisely separates the humor from the violence and manages to imbue an eccentric ambiance throughout the town. This was Smith’s television debut (his first film, a theatrical, was the interesting but flat 1972 James Garner mystery They Only Kill Their Masters) and he would later adopt a more serious approach, penning far less humorous small screen thrillers throughout his career (including the excellent Strange and Deadly Occurrence, which also twists an ideal life in the country into something terrifying). By today’s standards, Shocking probably seems earnest and tame, perhaps even a bit timid, but that was the struggle of television when they first made their foray into motion pictures. Badham concentrates on the characters but he doesn’t build his thrills traditionally. For a horror film on television, he doesn’t pull any punches with his subject matter and while he opts for less-is-more with the visuals I can’t imagine handling this type of film any other way.

I’ve seen Shocking a few times and always love it a little more with each viewing. Aside from its original airing and a few re-runs, this movie has all but disappeared from the minds of television viewers. It’s interesting that such a high caliber actor like Alda could have a film this obscure, but it symbolizes the eternal purgatory most TV movies find themselves in. Every time I watch it, I am drawn to the characters and the budding romance between Dan and Blanche. I pity and fear the killer and I wish I could back to the day after this movie aired in 1973 so I could find the nearest water cooler and discuss this wonderful little gem of a film.

I've written about Shocking before when I made a list of the Top 10 TV Movies that Need a DVD Release. This was my #1 pick, so get on it Hollywood!

You can read another great review of Shocking at The Classic Film and TV Cafe.

This review originally appeared on Retro Slashers (well, truthfully, it actually first appeared on a school paper, but RS was the first to publish it).

TV Spot Tuesday: Flamingo Road

If you haven't noticed, I've been in the mood for love lately.

While I almost always enjoy a scary TV movie, I also like it when my small screen treats are soapy and sudsy and full of over the top romance. The 80s was the perfect coming of age era for me because so many day and night time shows brought on the melodrama but good!

Although I missed it in its initial run, I remembered Flamingo Road well. I am from Las Vegas and we had our own Flamingo Road (next to the Flamingo Casino as you might have guessed), and for years I assumed that was where the show took place. Silly me! Apparently there are a gazillion roads with the same name, and this series, which debuted on May 12th, 1980 on NBC actually took place in Florida (although it was shot in Sam Dimas, CA). The road symbolized the right and wrong side of the tracks, and characters from both sides intertwined in tales of heat, lust and revenge!

Inspired by the 1949 film with the same name (and starring Joan Crawford), Flamingo Road was intended to be NBC's answer to Dallas or even Falcon Crest, but did not do so well in the ratings. At then end of it's second, and final, season Neilsen listed it as the 68th most popular series of the year, out of 105. Despite it's middling ratings, Flamingo Road tried to find a niche for itself on daytime, but the move never materialized and the series ended on a cliffhanger.

Flamingo Road had an amazing cast, including Cristina Raines, Mark Harmon and Morgan Fairchild who said her character was a "real bitch" (as if we'd assume anything else). The promo below also shows a studly John Beck, who would go on to play Mark Grayson on Dallas. Other wonderful faces included Kevin McCarthy, Howard Duff and Woody Brown. This series seriously needs a DVD release!