The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975)

          One of the most fascinating true-crime stories in American history concerns Lizzie Borden, a 32-year-old Massachusetts spinster who was accused of murdering her father and stepmother in 1892. Her trial, which involved issues of diminished capacity and women’s suffrage, became a topic of nationwide conversation, and Borden’s acquittal was shocking in the face of damning circumstantial evidence. This respectable made-for-TV drama depicts all the key moments from the historical record, then uses creative license to explore Borden’s mind. In this interpretation, which reflects ’70s ideas about feminism and psychology, Borden was an abused woman who struck back in a moment of temporary insanity. Beyond this lurid take on history, two things make The Legend of Lizzie Borden interesting: The film’s straightforward style gives way to horror-flick intensity during the climax, and Elizabeth Montgomery’s performance in the leading role is bold.

          Written by William Bast and directed by the reliable Paul Wendkos, The Legend of Lizzie Borden is divided into chapters with ominous titles, from “The Crime” to “The Accusation” to “The Ordeal,” and so on. Replicating the way the world heard about the killings without context, the movie opens with a housekeeper discovering gruesome crime scenes. Soon Borden stands accused, since she was in her father’s house at the time of the killings and cannot provide an alibi. Hosea Knowlton (Ed Flanders) gets the job of prosecutor. The film then weaves between trial scenes and flashbacks, slowly unveiling the nature of Borden’s twisted relationship with her father, Andrew (Fritz Weaver). A malicious zealot, he berates his adult daughter constantly and, at one point, murders her pet birds seemingly for the pleasure of inflicting pain. The filmmakers also imply incest. Adding intrigue is the presence of housekeeper Bridget Sullivan (Fionula Flanagan), who suspects Borden of committing the murders, and that of Borden’s sister, Emma (Katherine Helmond), who fears the worst but hopes for the best.

          Montgomery, known for her wholesome turn as a domesticated sorceress on the 1964–1972 sitcom Bewitched, commits wholeheartedly to playing Borden. Walking through most scenes with a faraway look in her eyes, Montgomery conveys the sense of a woman uncomfortable in her own skin, her occasional emotional outbursts representing futile attempts to draw pity from an intolerant father. Montgomery’s patrician quality serves the project well, making it hard to distinguish her character’s coldness following the murders from the normal reserve of the upper class. Moreover, Montgomery embraces the perverse eroticism of the story—during the unnerving climax, she strips naked before claiming victims, so blood splatters across her lissome form each time she swings her character’s infamous axe.

The Legend of Lizzie Borden: GROOVY
 

Special Delivery (1976)

          Had it been executed with more clarity and sophistication, the crime picture Special Delivery could have become either a clever farce or a tense melodrama. As is, it’s a muddle containing a few elements that are pleasant to watch. The main story hook is pretty good—during his escape following a bank robbery, a crook dumps a bag of cash into a mailbox, then must wait until the evening’s last mail collection for the box to be opened so he can reclaim his cash. Unfortunately for the crook, several people become aware of his plan, meaning that he must battle his way through assorted schemers and villains. Unfortunately for the audience, Special Delivery gets mired in several uninteresting subplots, and even the main action—a romance involving the crook and a beautiful woman who saw him stash the loot—fizzles because the second-rate actors playing these characters lack both individual fire and shared chemistry.

          The picture is murky right from the get-go, because during the very long heist sequence that opens Special Delivery, it takes a few minutes to discern that Jack Murdock (Bo Svenson) is the lead character. Once Jack and his buddies stage their wild escape—it involves a grappling hook and a window-washing platform—director Paul Wendkos unwisely cuts to flashes of Jack’s combat service in Vietnam. Way to keep things light! Then, after the momentous dropping of the loot into the mailbox, the movie cuts to several minutes of action involving a junkie, Graff (Michael C. Gwynne), who saw the drop and imagines scoring a payday. Thanks to this sort of narrative meandering, leading lady Cybill Shepherd, playing the woman who saw the drop from her apartment window, doesn’t show up until half the movie is over.

          And so it goes from there. In one scene, Shepherd and Svenson share bland flirtatious dialogue. In another, Gwynne delivers a gritty and wired performance that belongs in a more serious movie. And by the time everything comes together, it’s as difficult to care about what’s happening as it is to determine whom we’re expected to follow. Will the real protagonist please stand up? Shepherd looks great, coasting through a vapid role as a city girl who wants more from life, but Svenson is serviceable at best, and the flick wastes supporting players including Gerrit Graham, Robert Ito, and Vic Tayback. That said, if you’ve been looking for a movie that includes future Real Housewives star Kim Richards as a kid accusing random men of being perverts—and also features future soap-opera icon Diedre Hall as a scantily clad masseuse—then this Special Delivery is for you.

Special Delivery: FUNKY

The Death of Richie (1977)

          “Ripped from the headlines” TV movies have gotten a bad rap over the years—and deservedly so. After all, most such projects combine sensationalism and superficiality to create stupidity. Yet the law of averages ensures that some timely telefilms are bound to be worthwhile. One example is The Death of Richie, the respectable dramatization of a grim real-life incident during which a suburban father shot his own teenaged son to death. Like so many hand-wringing TV dramas of the ’70s, The Death of Richie illustrates the plight of parents whose teenagers become drug addicts. Doe-eyed ’70s dreamboat Robby Benson stars as Richie Werner, the oldest of two sons in a middle-class American family. Much to the chagrin of his repressed parents, George (Ben Gazzara) and Carol (Eileen Brennan), Richie runs with a gang of dropouts who abuse booze, grass, and pills. Tortured by shyness and upset by his inability to score with girls, Richie even builds a hidden room inside the Werner home, converting a crawlspace into a drug lair complete with blacklight posters and a strobe lamp.

          Once Richie starts getting into trouble with the law, George intervenes by helping Richie get a job, and Carol joins a support group for parents in similar situations. Yet none of the family’s efforts impede Richie’s downward spiral. Eventually, violent clashes occur, with Richie threatening his father at one point by brandishing a pair of scissors. The parents seek an order of protection, deepening the schism with their son, and the tension culminates during a deadly showdown in the family basement.

          In addition to smooth direction by small-screen workhorse Paul Wendkos, The Death of Richie benefits from methodical storytelling. Cause-and-effect relationships between events are clear, so the dissipation of Richie’s mental state is tethered to the frustration his parents feel as they exhaust options for fixing their problem. Benson employs his signature sensitivity to convey the angst of a young man who can’t connect with other people, and Gazzara gives uncharacteristically nuanced work as a man struggling to expand his emotional vocabulary. (Like costars Charles Fleischer and Clint Howard, Brennan gets stuck with one of the film’s underwritten supporting roles.) The Death of Richie gets a bit long-winded at times, and someone should have stopped Benson from doing cutesy movie-star impressions during a lighthearted scene. Generally speaking, however, this is tough stuff made with sincerity and thoughtfulness, sort of a nihilistic alternative to the wholesome Afterschool Special approach.

The Death of Richie: GROOVY

The Mephisto Waltz (1971)

          Despite falling well short of greatness, The Mephisto Waltz is an above-average supernatural-horror flick with evocative atmosphere, strong acting, and a unique hook—it’s built around the world of classical music. It should also be noted that the movie stars Jacqueline Bisset at her most ravishingly beautiful, so the eye-candy quotient is considerable. At the beginning of the movie, we meet angsty Myles Clarkson (Alan Alda), a mediocre pianist relegated to interviewing better players in his role as a music journalist. Accompanied by his wife, Paula (Bisset), Myles travels to a sprawling estate for an audience with Duncan Ely (Curt Jurgens), a legendary virtuoso. Although Paula gets a bad vibe off Duncan and his twentysomething daughter, Roxanne (Barbara Parkins), Myles quickly falls under Duncan’s spell—because Duncan claims he can train Myles to become a world-class pianist. It turns out the Elys are Satan worshippers, and Duncan has designs on U-Hauling his soul into Myles’ healthy young body, since Duncan is terminally ill but determined to preserve his genius.

          It’s not giving anything away to say that Duncan succeeds, because the real thrills begin when Paula starts to realize her husband isn’t her husband anymore. Produced by prolific TV guy Quinn Martin (whose output included The Fugitive and The Streets of San Francisco), the picture is capably directed by Paul Wendkos from a script by Ben Maddow (which was adapted from Fred Mustard Stewart’s novel). The execution is stylish even when the story gets convoluted and silly, and the film benefits tremendously from spooky music by composer Jerry Goldsmith. Additionally, the locations are consistently credible, especially the shadowy expanses of the Ely mansion. Yet it’s the acting that really propels the piece. Alda is poignantly narcissistic as Myles, and then appropriately aloof once Duncan’s spirit inhabits Myles’ body, while Jurgens makes a strong impression as a domineering diva during his few scenes. Parkins, whose dark beauty complements Bisset’s natural look, has fun playing a scheming witch, and Bisset lends a certain measure of emotional credibility to her various scenes of anguish and panic. Best of all, the movie twists and turns toward a perverse ending that almost justifies the movie’s overlong, 115-minute running time.

The Mephisto Waltz: GROOVY

Terror on the Beach (1973)

Dune-buggy riders on the rampage—why not? Two years after being menanced by a driverless 18-wheeler in the small-screen classic Duel (1971), lanky leading man Dennis Weaver found himself on the wrong end of a different set of wheels in this suspenseful telefilm. It should be said up front that Terror on the Beach is a tease, since it lacks the conviction to deliver a nasty ending in keeping with its menacing storyline, but there’s plenty here to entertain the undiscriminating viewer nonetheless. Weaver and Estelle Parsons play Neil and Arlene Gwyn, parents of a generic American family that also includes teenaged kids DeeDee (Susan Dey) and Steve (Kristoffer Tabori). Packed into their spacious RV, the Gwyns head to a remote beach for some quiet camping, but they soon realize they’ve picked the same spot as an aggressive youth gang that may or may not be a cult. Writer Bill Svanoe and director Paul Wendkos don’t worry too much about narrative credibility, providing only the thinnest explanations for why the Gwyns don’t flee during their many opportunities to do so, but the rote storytelling steers things down the exciting Straw Dogs path of a gentle man discovering his capacity for violence. (Richard’s inner brute surfaces once he realizes his wimmin-folk are at risk, so don’t look to Terror on the Beach for advanced thoughts on gender issues.) Aside from the leading performances, which are sufficiently florid to keep things lively, Terror on the Beach offers visual appeal thanks to Wendkos’ use of wide-angle lenses; when the movie’s really cooking, Wendkos portrays the rampaging gang members like Fellini-esque grotesques popping out from behind dunes. Throw in some creepy music and the inherent loneliness of a near-empty beach, and the piece starts to show some style. Plus, just to ensure there’s something for everyone, Wendkos keeps Dey’s figure on ample display. The Partridge Family beauty, who was around 20 when she made this picture, spends much of her screen time in a bikini, to the obvious enjoyment of the male gang members who ogle her.

Terror on the Beach: FUNKY

Footsteps (1972)

          Nominated for a Golden Globe as the best TV movie of its year, Footsteps is a hard-driving character drama set in the competitive world of college football. Yet instead of focusing on the tribulations of athletes, as is the norm for the genre, Footsteps explores the psychology of a ruthless coach whose belligerence, drinking, and shady ethics have made him a pariah among top schools. Richard Crenna, putting his customary intensity to great use, stars as Paddy O’Connor, a cocky ex-player with a good record of guiding teams toward victory, but a bad record of holding onto jobs.
          When the movie begins, he arrives in a small Southwestern town to start work as a defensive coordinator at a regional college. Since the school’s head coach, Jonas Kane (Clu Gulager), once played for O’Connor, O’Connor bristles at taking orders from a former subordinate. O’Connor also angles for Kane’s job, sleeps with Kane’s secretary to get inside information, cozies up to a deep-pocketed sponsor (Forrest Tucker) in order to have a star player moved to defense, and makes passes at Kane’s girlfriend, beautiful drama teacher Sarah Allison (Joanna Pettet). For a while, O’Connor gets away with his behavior by delivering a winning season, but things come to a head when moral crises reveal how conscience sometimes inhibits ambition.

          Although it suffers from brevity, running the standard 74 minutes for a ’70s TV movie, Footsteps is quite solid. Featuring a script co-written by future Oscar winner Alvin Sargent, the movie has several compelling confrontations. Moreover, the O’Connor character is such a force of nature that it’s fascinating to parse how much of his act is bluster and how much is justifiable confidence. Though generally not the deepest actor, Crenna slips into this role comfortably and delivers a virile performance. The supporting cast is fine as well, with Bill Overton doing strong work as O’Connor’s star player. (Ned Beatty is wasted in a tiny role.) Veteran TV director Paul Wendkos accentuates the story’s inherent tension with tight compositions placing actors in close proximity, and the filmmakers employ trippy effects like solarization and split-screens to enliven big-game montages that were obviously cobbled together from stock footage.

Footsteps: GROOVY