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TCall2004
Reviews
Dead Ringer (1963)
Suspend all disbelief
Okay, some of it can get silly.
But this one is worth suspension of disbelief.
My question is:if the Sainted Frank was so much in love with Edith, why did he waste no time whatsoever jumping into bed with her twin sister, Maggie? (Maybe "having to marry" Maggie was his punishment for having cheated on Edie. It was a heavy price to pay.)
Frankly, had I been in Edie's place, when Maggie told me that she was pregnant and Frank "had" to marry her, I would have slapped her into the next week.
I did not blame the "good" sister one bit for recoiling from "Tony Collins", Peter Lawford's gigolo character. He came off as MEGA-sleazy.
Peter Lawford, at one time, was a very handsome man, but by the time they made this movie, his looks were all but gone and he looked bloated and was pretty much going through the motions. Sadly for him, he had another twenty years to live.
Jean Hagen's character DeDe Marshall is the type of woman I can't stand...rich, pampered, empty-headed.
Karl Malden gave his usual solid performance, and I love Estelle Winwood in any thing she's in. Estelle was Tallulah Bankhead's roommate and I wish she would've written a book about that experience. It would have been a best seller.
I liked the dog, Duke, but him killing someone? Great Danes are not attack dogs....and you could see in the closeup that the dog was a fake.
Nevertheless, I've always liked this movie and was so glad when I could get it on DVD.
If a Man Answers (1962)
The haters need to lighten up
And this comes from a lifelong feminist.
I saw this film on TV back in 1973, along with "That Funny Feeling". I have just bought both movies on DVD.
They're both cute movies made in the early 1960s. I take them for what they are. They're funny, sweet flicks that leave something to the imagination.
I liked Chantal's mother....yes, an attractive woman over 40. How often do you see that today in youth-obsessed Hollywood? Everyone dressed age-appropriately and not a pair of fake breasts to be seen!
Sandra looked lovely, as always.
There are too many things in this world these days to get bent out of shape about - this movie is not one of them.
Starkweather (2004)
So many inaccuracies
First of all, Starkweather and Fugate were from Nebraska. So what's with the Southern hick accents and the country music?
Starkweather fancied himself another James Dean. I don't think he listened to country music.
What's with the "devil" character?? Added nothing to the plot. Im fact, the movie could have done very well without it.
Charlie loved animals - much better than he liked people; he wouldn't have killed the toad.
Charlie Starkweather was a very short, red-headed kid with bow-legs and thick glasses and a bad stutter. He also wasn't very bright.
Caril Ann Fugate was NOT the stunner she was portrayed as in the movies. By all accounts, she was a very snippy, arrogant child.
Both roles were miscast...badly.
If they're going to do a story on a mass murderer like Charles Starkweather, at least get it right.
"Badlands" was a much better account of the Starweather-Fugate crime spree than this mess.
Heavenly Creatures (1994)
I love this movie
I felt sorry for poor Juliet Hulme. Her father, Dr. Hulme, was a cold fish and her mother, Hilda, was self-centered beyond belief.
They left their daughter at a very young age in a sanitarium for five years and never visited her? How cruel!
Honora Parker had nerve calling her daughter Pauline a "tart" when she was living with a man to whom she was never married for years - Wendy and Pauline were not their only children. A boy, Herbert, born before Wendy lived only days and a daughter, Rosemary, born after Pauline, was so severely retarded she had to be institutionalized at the age of 3. Having given birth to no less than four children by a man who was still married to another woman, Honora had no room to cast aspersions on her daughter's morals.
Herbert Reiper was thick as a plank - "unhealthy" meant "not getting any fresh air."
Why did that boarder, John, keep pushing himself on Pauline, when he had to know that she was only 14 years old? And why were Herbert and Honora so ready to believe the worst of their own daughter when John was old enough to have known better? He should have been the one blamed, being the adult.
The psychiatrist was so laughable - someone would "outgrow" being gay?
Both sets of parents made a huge mistake trying to keep the girls apart - opposition only makes things worse.
Not that Honora Parker deserved to be murdered for that.
Deadly Relations (1993)
Urich doing his usual great job
I came upon this movie as I was channel-surfing on a Sunday afternoon (a bad day for television, even with digital cable).
Lifetime was showing it and when I saw the cast, I decided to watch.
The late Robert Urich did a marvelous job in the TV movie "Blind Faith" as Robert Marshall, the NJ insurance man who had his wife, Maria, murdered in 1984, and is now serving life in prison.
He did not disappoint in this movie as a control freak of a father who went so far as to kill his two sons-in-law for insurance money (and to blow off his own right hand for the same reason).
A truly scary guy.
A young Gwyneth Paltrow (one of my favorite actresses) did an equally terrific job as Carol Fagot Holland, the daughter who was loyal to her father at first but , in the end, helped to bring him down.
Roxanne Zal also does a good job playing Urich's psychotic second wife, Marty.
Shelley Fabrares does not get enough air time in this move, but makes good use when she is on screen.
Good scenery , fine acting.
Nice way to kill two hours on a Sunday afternoon.
I'd recommend it.
Pinky (1949)
Actress just not believable
When Hollywood made "I Passed For White" in 1960 (a film that, unfortunately, is unavailable on video or DVD), the actress they used for the lead role was much more believable in the part.
In this film, alas, the same cannot be said.
And it's a little hard to believe that, upon finding out the truth, a doctor would still want to marry a woman who is not only black but who lied about her origins to him.
And the prior post is 100% right - had the lead character embraced a white man in a crowded courtroom in that atmosphere, they both would have been lynched.
I realize the movie was made in 1949, but a better choice could have been made for the actress in the lead role.
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (2003)
Deeply disturbing but compelling nonetheless
The part that really blew MY mind was the serial killer's friend, Dawn Bodkins, INSISTING that gay people did not exist until recently.
WTF? THAT woman clearly ingested too many drugs in her youth - what a stupid thing to say!.
Wrounos' mother, Diane - this woman abandoned her kids and she's acting as if she knew nothing about the hell her daughter went through (sleeping in the woods in the Michigan winter, etc.) I guess it never occurred to her that she might have had something to do with the way Aileen turned out!
Wrounos belonged in an insane asylum, not executed. And this comes from a lifelong proponent of capital punishment. Something was clearly mentally wrong with that woman! The last interview proved it.
Scary - but you can't look away