Aren't there enough bad marriages in the world to dispense with a feature film highlighting couples fighting? How is this a Christmas film other than taking place on Christmas Eve? Listening to Jane Fonda's character scream horrible things to Jim Hutton's character for most of the movie isn't fun. Especially with Jane Fonda's shrill, fake-southern-accent voice. Why oh why does Jane Fonda have to play a southern woman? It certainly doesn't make her more lovable, that's for sure. A bride on her wedding night like "Mrs. Haverstick" is about as cuddly as a porcupine. Who can blame Mr. Haverstick for deeply regretting his ill-considered elopement with his hospital nurse (who is fired for playing "doctor" with her patient) on a whim? Anthony Fraciosa as Haverstick's Korean War buddy in a marriage of financial advantage to Lois Nettleton are no better. How Jane Fonda said yes to this atrocious script I can only wonder. I thought by 1960 she had enough clout as Henry Fonda's daughter to be more selective. If this is truly based on a stage play by Tennessee Williams, I really am stumped. Anyway, if you have a couple of hours of downtime with nothing better to do and you think you can endure listening to married couples squabble, be my guest. There are far worse sins.
Reviews
4 Reviews
Period of Adjustment
(1962)
Unnerving first half is solid Jane Fonda and Jim Hutton screaming at each other
21 December 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Buster and Billie
(1974)
Campy entertainment in its absurdity
28 December 2013
Absurd and silly with as much sense as dream-logic, it's hilarious watching for pure camp value and complete abandon of concern for constructing a cohesive plot. Billie is a mentally slow high school outcast and object of scorn and ridicule who will let a boy do anything with her. Buster, a popular jock at the school, loses a bet to friends, costing him the humiliation of taking Billie on a date. He follows through on his penalty, only to find Billie is a sweet girl he falls for, hard, on the date. Why or how this could come about is never explained. The audience is expected to buy all the nonsensical premises of the movie without questioning any of it. Needless to say, Buster becomes the laughing stock of the whole school when he romances Billie unabashedly. The highly implausible situation goes from bad to worse when the jock's ex- buddies decide to make Buster sorry. Teenage drinking and mob mentality drive ordinary schoolyard bullying far over the line. Buster finds out and goes all "Billy Jack" on the movie. The movie is full of clichés and cardboard cut-out characters. If you have absolutely nothing better to do, it's worth a watch for a few laughs.
Double Jeopardy
(1999)
Stock LMN Movie That Made the Big Screen (astoundingly)
24 November 2013
"Double Jeopardy" is straight off the boiler plate formula mass-produced for the Lifetime Movie Network. The only mystery here is how an accomplished director (Bruce Beresford "Driving Miss Daisy") and big name, very successful acting professionals (who must have their pick of A-list scripts) got suckered into making this movie. Possibly blackmail? And how this movie got distributed as a big-screen, box office release instead of going straight to the LMN where 100,000 others exactly like it air daily is another head-scratcher. Putting top name stars in the cast doesn't make this screen-worthy any more than putting lipstick and a ball gown on a pig makes it a prom queen. And by the way, the "double jeopardy" law doesn't mean someone wrongly convicted of murder can then really kill the alleged victim and not be prosecuted. If you like LMN movies, you will be fine with this one. If you find them as big a time-waster as I do, skip it. Do something productive with the two hours of your life this piece of crap will rob you, like organize your dresser drawers.
Heaven's Tears
(1995)
On my list of worst films
13 November 2011
Heaven's Tears is close to the worst film I've ever seen. The plot is so ludicrous and implausible, it's incomprehensible. A soldier in the Nazi army during Hitler's regime, whose father is in the upper ranks of the Third Reich, is driving in the country one afternoon when he clips the bicycle of a teenage girl who appears suddenly before he can stop. The girl is knocked off her bicycle and the officer stops to attend to her. The girl is not seriously hurt. She's also beautiful, and the officer is instantly smitten. The girl also turns out to be Jewish, which, needless to say, is more than a minor inconvenience for the young couple. True love is not to be deterred, however, and the Nazi and the Jewish girl set out to persuade their families to accept their unlikely match, as well as their respective communities that each is wrong about the other. Where is Hank Williams, Jr., when you need him?
It gets worse from there, as well as more imbecilic a plot as the story progresses (not to mention seriously offensive). It defies imagination that someone fancying himself a writer could sell this script to a film studio, and that any producer would consider making it a movie. The film was made in The Netherlands, no doubt because no studio in the US would touch this idiotic piece of trash with a pole of any length, which actually restores a drop of respect to my regard for Hollywood. Even as an "it's-so-bad-it's-hilarious" diversion, I could not stomach watching it to the end. Ed Wood himself never crafted as nonsensical a stink bomb as this. Zero stars.
It gets worse from there, as well as more imbecilic a plot as the story progresses (not to mention seriously offensive). It defies imagination that someone fancying himself a writer could sell this script to a film studio, and that any producer would consider making it a movie. The film was made in The Netherlands, no doubt because no studio in the US would touch this idiotic piece of trash with a pole of any length, which actually restores a drop of respect to my regard for Hollywood. Even as an "it's-so-bad-it's-hilarious" diversion, I could not stomach watching it to the end. Ed Wood himself never crafted as nonsensical a stink bomb as this. Zero stars.
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