Oliver_Lenhardt

Hal Holbrook, as reliably strong an actor as they come, plays Paul Steward, a successful publisher of a scientific journal, and married with three children. The character is introduced to the audience as he begins what will become a tragic day, his gloomy narration immediately setting the tone for the film and, in no uncertain terms, announcing that he intends to kill his family and himself. One of the first hints of Paul's dementia is when he climbs into bed with his sleeping wife, Miriam (Louise Fletcher, tremendous), and masturbates against her back. Waking, she blithely asks for a tissue; clearly she is not new to this routine.

Through his matter-of-fact recitations of a life lived, Paul reveals that his marriage to Miriam is in tatters, partly because she suffered a nervous breakdown years earlier and has not recovered. He describes how he feels estranged from his kids (of whom we learn virtually nothing), and that his work no longer yields even marginal satisfaction. He is implacably unhappy and an inveterate existentialist. Throughout the fateful day chronicled, Paul behaves with finality, summarily and cavalierly rejecting articles proffered for his magazine, spending his lunch hour in an orgiastic session at a nearby brothel, then listening halfheartedly as his friend, Harry (Jose Ferrer, outstanding in a small role), a Holocaust survivor who takes note of Paul's despair, tries to counsel him.

NATURAL ENEMIES is deeply, deeply pessimistic. Any glimmer of hope, of which there are few, is quickly usurped by obsidian darkness. Especially depressing is the final scene, in which Miriam, aware of her husband's violent ideation, makes a heartfelt, lucid plea for his heart and mind. Paul listens, stone-faced, before the shot freeze-frames on him, and the soundtrack crackles with a news report of the mass-murder-suicide to come. Writer-Director Kanew, who has yet to again craft something as substantial as this, handles the sensitive material with the earnestness it requires, and he has a top-flight cast to buttress his work. The dialogue is rife with meaningful ruminations on the origins of happiness. A false note is the script's implicit contention that such familial slaughters were epidemic at the time (not true, despite such high-profile contemporary cases as those of John List and Brad Bishop), and the dubious conclusion that these acts stem from patriarchal society's dim view of the chances a man's family has should he become incapacitated mentally or physically.

**Caution: Plot Spoilers** This is one of dozens of films, most from the '70s, that were loosely inspired by a city-folk-confronting-a-wilderness-full-of-unfriendly-fellow-humans framework most succinctly (but not most effectively) delineated by DELIVERANCE (1972).

"Plunge Into Darkness" is a brisk 76 minutes, proficiently directed and acted, but rife with illogical character choices which strain credulity to near the breaking point; and any viewer who has ever seen a suspense film will foresee the climactic "twist" about 20 mins in; the omens are risibly obvious.

Two convicts, brothers, escape from a remote prison; it is immediately established that they pose some danger when they club a prison guard after he stumbles upon them stealing some rations. Next we are introduced to a man and his wife who want to drive out to the country for a holiday. He is an erstwhile Alpha-male, a former champion runner who refuses to accept an age-related decline in his athleticism (read: virility). Some distance into their journey, the couple passes by a deserted house with a dog barking furiously at a scarecrow nearby. For some reason this intrigues the wife, and she insists that they double back to investigate. As it turns out, the scarecrow is actually a murdered man, and his better half is also found killed inside the empty house. An ostensibly frightened boy evades the sojourners' attempts to question him until the husband finally collars him. The adolescent, apparently in shock, sputters something unintelligible, and our protagonist couple assumes him to be the son of the two homicide victims. Naturally, both cars on-scene happen to, by screenwriter's convenience, suddenly not start. Instead of staying for a while to try to repair one of the cars, wait for help, or even search the house for a means of alerting authorities (!!), hubby rashly makes the brilliant decision to run 28 km by himself to the nearest town for help, leaving his wife and the boy (about whom he knows nothing) behind to fend for themselves?!

As it turns out, the boy, thought to be newly orphaned, is a hair-trigger psychotic, who murdered the two victims after they picked him up hitchhiking. Meanwhile, panting, halfway to his destination, hubby bumps into the escaped cons and, in another Ivy-league moment, sends them gratefully in the direction of his wife. Licking their chops, they are equally grateful.

Suffice it to say, all turns out okay for the innocent couple by the time this silliness winds down. Despite how I've made it sound, "Plunge into Darkness" is not bad, as long as you can suspend a significant chunk of your disbelief and submit to the fairly involving chain of events.

John Carpenter's SOMEONE'S WATCHING ME! is an undisguised homage to REAR WINDOW, with nods to BLACK CHRISTMAS (an avowed favourite of Carpenter's) and the Italian Giallo genre, specifically Argento's DEEP RED. One elaborate scene, wherein the anxious heroine drops a knife through a grate, and then squeezes laboriously into the crawlspace beneath to hide, is a clear riff on giallo scenography.

The material is stale, but the execution is not. Carpenter's virtuoso use of gliding camera shots, shadow detail, composition, and mise en scene, ratchets up the suspense even during what would otherwise be incidental scenes in another director's hands. On occasion, TV-movie limpness creeps in momentarily, but, in the main, the picture's production is very professionally handled.

One major irritant is Lauren Hutton's protagonist, Leigh. She is endlessly spunky, constantly talking to herself, always rushing headlong into situations. It's grating right from the start, but as events unfold, her happy-go-lucky ebullience morphs (in the viewers' eyes) into a kind of blithe stupidity. Most thinking people would have closed their curtains, locked their doors, taken the prank calls more seriously, or perhaps moved away (pride be damned), much sooner than did she. Certainly most people wouldn't have walked knowingly into the stalker's trap, as Leigh does at the very end. "Someone's Watching Me" is nerve-wracking enough for one to suspend one's incredulity, and good enough to belong in, or just below, the rarefied sphere of Carpenter's two best, HALLOWEEN and THE THING.

The plot of A TASTE OF EVIL is a pastiche of cliches. Stop me if you've heard this before: A young woman, raped as a child and just released after years in a mental institution, comes home only to find herself seeing and hearing things that prove elusive when she summons witnesses. Is she still mentally unfit? Cue heroine waking up to thumping noise, wandering through darkened mansion, finding open window with shutters banging against frame and curtains billowing in gale-force winds. In fact, thunder storms and billowing curtains are repeating motifs in this unimaginative film. Drag in dog-eared scenes involving rustling bushes, haunted voices calling, a dimwitted butler who may or may not have been the girl's rapist, shadowy figures standing in the yard, disappearing corpses, a treacherous relative's inheritance-lust, etc. Even a plot this hackneyed can be revived to a certain extent, but "A Taste of Evil" is just uninspired through-and-through. Director Moxey reused these hoary story elements to better effect a decade later in NO PLACE TO HIDE. Still achingly familiar, at least that film was considerably more suspenseful, and contained one or two surprises.

"A Taste of Evil" is efficient enough within its very limited aspirations, and Stanwick makes an impression in her role, but the film still several notches below the high standard of numerous made-for-TV suspensers of the seventies.

...WANDA is nonetheless a stirring portrait of a woman who has lost her direction in life; that is, assuming she wasn't just going through the societally-mandated paces from the start, which I suspect.

Abandoning her husband and children without a second thought, she sets off on a journey to...nowhere in particular. Latching ignobly onto any man who will pick her up for a quickie, Wanda, played with remarkable veracity by the film's director Barbara Loden, drifts for a while until she stumbles upon a nomadic, dyspeptic robber, whom she meekly accompanies in his run from the law. After a series of escalating events which could have led to tragedy for her, Wanda is given a reprieve. Instead of taking advantage of her second chance, her detached indolence is too strong to overcome, and the cycle of soul-searching is apparently ordained to continue ad infinitum.

Recalling such contemporary cinematic works as FIVE EASY PIECES (1970), A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974), the great GOIN' DOWN THE ROAD (1970), and TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (1971) in its characters' aimlessness and blind existentialism, "Wanda" also has echoes of Bresson's oeuvre; most of all, the film seems to have been a direct influence on Susan Seidelman's SMITHEREENS (1982), an equally good picture.

To the film's detriment, its characters are such pathetic no-hopers that they are not easy to relate to, especially since they are given no biographical framework whatsoever. Moreover, the cinema verite direction is a little too self-consciously austere, lingering unduly on some scenes. Loden seems unaware of the misconception that merely letting the camera run on automatically lends a scene profundity; sometimes the film seems as hollow as its characters. Then again, that's the point. I liked "Wanda" quite a bit, but it takes patience to tease out its nuances, and is hence not for all tastes.

Probably the most self-critical Vietnam-related film to have been made in the U.S. (which might explain its scarcity), WINTER SOLDIER is a frequently moving and disturbing documentary about the inculcation of eager, pliable young American men, of a conscienceless barbarism. The fact that the panel of 'Nam vets, convened in front of spectators and a camera crew to convey their opposition to the war, is made up predominantly of articulate, sensitive-seeming men may point to why these particular people broke free of the bonds of pleasure-killing faceless innocent civilians ("gooks"), and came to realize the profound inhumanity of their and their peers' actions and, far worse, the actions of the U.S. military in creating them.

Unlike the callousness of the soldiers interviewed in documentaries like INTERVIEWS WITH MY LAI VETERANS and MILLS OF THE GODS, these speakers appear ashamed, penitent, and destined to spend the rest of their days with horrible memories of the torture and massacres they took part in, as well as anger at a government that made them pawns, not only in an imperialistic gambit disguised as a mercy mission, but also in a morality-play tug-of-war back home.

Arletty (Marianna Hill) travels to the coastal California town of Point Dune to visit her bohemian father, from whom she has received worrisome letters of late. Once there she discovers he has vanished, leaving behind cryptic diary entries. Joined by aristocratic loafer Thom (Michael Greer) and his two "groupies" (Joy Bang and Anitra Ford), Arletty investigates her father's disappearance and is struck by the strange behavior of the townsfolk.

MESSIAH OF EVIL (DEAD PEOPLE) is an inchoate, jumbled narrative, given a boost by some of the more atmospheric scenes in the horror genre: The opening encounter with the albino at the gas station; Anitra Ford stumbling upon some late-night grocery store scavengers; Joy Bang sitting in a movie theatre while the seats around her gradually fill with the undead; the climactic raid on the beach house during which attackers crash down through the skylights; to mention just a few.

On the other hand, aspects of the film such as the morose, faux-literate narration, and the Thom character, are pretentious. Michael Greer is a good actor, but his role isn't well fleshed out. Joy Bang is a hot little number with an infectious petulance, but not much of an actress. Choppy editing and a surfeit of inconsequential scenes are also detriments. Furthermore, we are never given an adequate explanation as to what causes the zombification to spread and why. The entire basis of the film's horror is not fully formed. In that respect (as well as in others) I was reminded of LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH, John Hancock's creepy 1971 classic. Both films are conceptually confused - as a matter of fact, the latter even more so since it's never clear whether the monsters are zombies, vampires, or ghosts...or all three - , both films begin and end with a voice-over account from the heroine, and both involve the intrusion of a mentally fragile woman in a small town full of altered, threatening beings. "Let's Scare Jessica to Death", ignoring the ludicrous title, is easily the better of the two. It has a much more evocative sense of specific location ambience, and is, on the whole, more satisfying and cohesive.

Complaints aside, "Messiah of Evil" is a good find for 1970s Horror aficionados. A remastered, re-edited version would be welcome.

First I must confess that I'm not a big fan of gialli. I've seen enough of them to know that they almost invariably play gleefully on the audience's prurient and senselessly violent impulses, and, to boot, a good percentage of them are inept in the filmmaking department. There usually isn't much of interest for someone looking for quality cinema. THE DOUBLE is one of the exceptions.

The film shares its flashback structure with Claude Sautet's poignant French drama LE CHOSES DE LA VIE. In addition, "The Double" would be a very fitting companion piece to Aldo Lado's MALASTRANA, a giallo which it closely resembles, and which also stars Jean Sorel.

Frank (Sorel) is an indolent playboy living off proceeds from his father's business. As the film begins, Frank drives his Citroen into a Rome parking garage and is shot by a mysterious bearded man. The remainder of the story is a series of flashbacks, as the dying Frank recollects how he arrived at his present circumstance: Frank was married to the lovely but dimwitted Lucia(Ewa Aulin), but secretly pined after her mirror-image, more sophisticated mother Nora(Lucia Bose). When Nora became involved with an American drifter, Eddie(Sergio Doria), Frank was green with envy. Things spiral out of control....but not as one would expect. By the climax, the moral comes into focus: Keeping one's passions unchecked can lead to ruin. Not exactly a new notion, but it's intriguingly explored here.

"The Double" is not without its flaws. The (customarily, for an Italian film) incongruous folk music and the anything-goes attitude towards sex and lounging about are badly dated; early sections of the film are languorous and convoluted; the final scene is not quite clear, at least in the version I saw. I would love to see a subtitled incarnation of the film, as dubbing is oft disconcerting and poorly recorded.

Director Romolo Guerrieri is the real star of the proceedings. His commanding style and aplomb with the intercutting is impressive. There are countless striking visual flourishes throughout.

Nothing revolutionary here; just impeccably elegant, restrained cinema.

GARDE A VUE is confined almost exclusively to a drab police station, and mostly to one interrogation room, but director Claude Miller (who made the wonderful film THIS SWEET SICKNESS, among others) intercalates spare glimpses of exterior tableaux as minimalist locale scenography. Miller's restraint, especially early on, is breathtaking, and his exquisite handling of the consequently-pivotal interior mise-en-scene makes for captivating viewing.

Lino Ventura is superb as usual, succeeding to legitimize a character that, on paper, is cliche: the laconic, hard-nosed, world-weary homicide detective. Ventura lives the role, making it completely believable, even though the script allows us little access to his inner workings; the film ends at the very moment it appears he will be forced to confront his failure for the first time.

Michel Serrault is equal to the task as the suspected child-killer who shrewdly spars with the single-minded flic. The exchanges between the two are more-often-than-not pregnant with tension and the aura of a constantly metamorphosing playing field for a battle of wits. Serrault's character is by turns deplorably haughty and cunning, and pitiable; then later....

The "message" of GARDE A VUE, if one were to search for one, is a condemnation of police methodology and the kind of pressures that make a cop over-zealous to, if necessary, close cases at the expense of justice. For most of its length though the film shines as nothing more than an exemplar of how to turn a potentially soporific set-bound scenario into a suspenseful drama of the utmost cinematic economy.

THE BITTER CHAMBER is considered a remake of Pupi Avati's masterly HOUSE WITH WINDOWS THAT LAUGHED, however it bears only a superficial resemblance to the earlier film, and it doesn't begin to approach its creepy effectiveness.

"The Bitter Chamber" is an exercise in style with little behind it and few chills. It is well produced, with consistently dark, solemn atmospherics, but the screenplay's austerity and plodding familiarity (we've seen variations of this plot many times before) don't support the aesthetics, and fail to hold one's interest for very long.

The lead actor has few expressions beyond a doe-eyed, open-mouthed observational perplexity. His blandness soon makes him an enervating, not to mention slight, presence.

The film deserves some praise for its technical aptitude, but the memory of it is as evanescent and wispy as a fleeting encounter with someone unremarkable.

(Mis)directed by Paul Leder, this is an early "Disturbed 'Nam Vet" flick. Greg Mullavy's fine performance as the central character cannot obviate the wretchedness of the filmmaking. For technical incompetence, the film falls just this side of Ed Wood's oeuvre. A dull script further ensures a thoroughly unengrossing viewing experience.

Pass this one by. An unearthed gem is not to be found here.

AGENCY is another of those Canadian-made pictures posing as an American film, replete with big-name U.S. actors, and featuring Montreal unconvincingly standing in for Washington, D.C.

With a premise that is more intriguing and timely now than ever - subliminal messages in TV ads - one would have wished for a sincere, thoughtful approach. Instead, the wretched script is awash with bad dialogue and, in the second half, silly corporate intrigue scenes involving Lee Majors slinking about the ad agency at night, trying to get to the bottom of boss Robert Mitchum's nefarious political machinations. Mitchum's henchmen are so laughable-looking and inept that they appear to have been recruited straight from a Pink Panther film. Parts of the film border on outright comedy.

Still, the film is not completely without merit. The first half is promising; Majors makes an affable protagonist; Saul Rubinek is quite good as the harried eccentric who first discovers Mitchum's conspiracy (although his open contempt of his boss makes his continued employment at the agency another implausible factor). Valerie Perrine, however, appears in an entirely disposable role as the obligatory concerned wife.

Finally, all production elements are professional, and AGENCY at least turns out to be a diverting, if daft and disappointing, thriller. I was not bored.

"Waterwalker" is a chronicle of artist/filmmaker/canoeist Bill Mason's experiences during several months spent "roughing it" in the beautiful, rugged, unsullied wilds around Lake Superior.

Nothing extraordinary happens; it's simply a man canoeing and enjoying nature, completely unencumbered by thoughts of the stress, obligations, pollution, and fast pace of city life. Mason paddles aimlessly from here to there (followed by his cameraman, who does a superb job juggling the difficult logistics), occasionally stopping to pull out his painting gear to capture a particularly scenic view; as an added bonus, his paintings are quite accomplished. Mason's laid back, sometimes wry narration adds to the film's captivating serenity, but his intermittent religious musings, although innocuous, become wearisome after a while. The pretentious use of the voice-over of a Native Indian solemnly intoning platitudes also detracts slightly.

Bruce Cockburn's folksy music score complements the film nicely though.

"Waterwalker" casts a spell on those of us who are enthralled by the tranquility and timelessness of the natural world. We live Mason's adventures vicariously, and the film instills a yearning to follow his lead and "chuck it all".

Jose Larraz is a very skilled filmmaker. His SYMPTOMS (1974) is among the most atmospheric and best of horror pictures. It boasts a miasma of nuanced menace that is not unlike Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW (1973). Immediately after "Symptoms" Larraz made the stylish but sleazy VAMPYRES, and thence charted a course of exploitation films.

DEVIATION is one of his earliest films. In terms of quality it falls somewhere in between "Symptoms" and "Vampyres". The intense, unsettling, fabulously edited pre-credits sequence, replete with a pulse-pounding score by Stelvio Cipriani, had me prepared to proclaim Larraz one of the pre-eminent horror directors. The following 20 minutes or so are also very good, as the story follows a young couple that becomes stranded in the middle of nowhere and is offered overnight refuge in a large English manor. The male half of the duo senses something is wrong and investigates. He is quickly despatched, and the house's inhabitants, a sadistic brother and sister, turn their lascivious attentions to the female boarder, who is blissfully unaware of any peculiarities.

Sadly, the middle section of the film, involving a tiresome succession of drug orgies and couplings, isn't nearly as strong. Larraz's command of the cinematics, however, remains consistently excellent. He has an innate ability to craft scares and suspense, but it is sometimes simply supplanted by his predilection for (fairly innocuous) sex scenes.

Despite the unevenness, "Deviation" is well worth seeking out.

These comments refer only to the original 65 min. film titled WALTER (1983). ***Mild Spoilers***

WALTER is without question one of the bleakest, most deeply saddening films ever made. As a chronicle of the pathetic life of one of Britain's retarded citizens, the film records one indignity visited upon him after another. Walter is mistreated by almost everyone he comes into contact with, only, so good-natured and unknowing is he that he doesn't fully realize the contempt with which people view him; still, some of it does reach even his muddled brain: Subconsciously he knows he is considered something less than human.

When not toiling away in a monotonous, mockery-laden job situation, or suffering relentless hectoring from his mother, Walter takes refuge with a beloved flock of pigeons given to him by his father. They are the only creatures who see him without judgment, and he seems completely at peace in their presence.

His gruff, overburdened parents love him out of filial commitment, but, being deeply religious, they see him as a curse, a blight on their lives and on society. After her husband passes away, Walter's mother loses the will to live and, in short order, she too dies. Walter discovers her one morning in bed and is unable to rouse her. For several days Walter remains housebound, helpless as his mother decomposes. He releases his pigeons in her bedroom, and soon she and the room are covered in their waste. Eventually, a friend of his mother's drops by, and Walter is promptly carted off to a nightmarish institution, where his debased, pitiable "life" only continues. Being one of the less disabled inmates of this hellhole, Walter must help out with the others, some of whom are psychotic and predatory. Soon enough though, he has grown accustomed to his new circumstances, and soldiers on.

WALTER is depressing beyond words, but in this case that's a compliment. Such a story deserves telling without undue sentimentalization; it thereby becomes all the more moving. Frears's direction is stark and uncluttered, accentuating the grim surroundings.

Now, all of this would have been irrelevant and perhaps disastrous were it not for the absolutely MASTERLY performance of Ian MacKellen. The film's success hinges largely on his acting, and he delivers with flying colors. He literally inhabits his role like no other actor I've ever seen. It's a devastating portrayal. WALTER is one of my favorite films. Be warned though, it's not easy to watch for anyone with a heart. 10/10

Having not read the book, I can't comment on how the movie fares in comparison.

Two serious missteps struck me immediately: First and most egregious, the dialogue is entirely in English, even when the Germans are speaking amongst themselves. The accents (when such are even attempted) are fifth-rate. That the film was not written and performed in German by German actors was a severe blow to any sense of veracity right off the bat.

Secondly, Hauer's character is far too noble to be credible. Always the consummate thespian, Hauer almost manages to pull off limning the paper-thin persona.

I'm not suggesting that skeptical Nazis didn't exist, but not to a point, I believe, where one would risk his life in the face of such an uncertain outcome and such unfavorable odds. Miranda Richardson is fairly respectable as the American reporter, but her role doesn't provide much depth either.

Setting these reservations aside for a moment, the film's strengths are the riveting central scenario, the skillful direction, and a memorably sinister music score. The opening file footage, with a narrator explaining how the alternate reality came to be, is brilliantly done. Given such a fascinating reimagination of world history, it's pretty hard not to make the film at least diverting. Actually, I found myself captivated from beginning to....well almost end: The last few scenes entail a series of events that would have people rolling in the aisles with a lesser film, but even here hardly seems less preposterous. The absurd notion that a couple of American reporters could jostle their way through throngs of reverent, chanting Nazi supporters and past a wall of elite SS to hand off some documents to the U.S. President (HIS Secret Service also seems to be conveniently out-to-lunch) as he drives past, AND that selfsame President would glance at the papers and immediately cancel his imminent meeting with "Der Fuehrer", is beyond silliness. It's the dumbed-down American "last minute rescue" version of how such an intriguing story would end. Still, at least the writer didn't cop out when it came to the fates of his protagonists.

FATHERLAND had most of the ingredients to be a great movie, but a few aspects of the production were bungled disastrously. 6.5/10

Disregard the relatively low score and negative comments. MOUSEY is one of the best made-for-TV suspense/horror films of the '70s, and that's saying something.

The film is taut from beginning to end....the sort of sustained low-key tension that keeps you on edge and engrossed, but rarely provides jump-out-of-your-seat moments. The alternate title, CAT AND MOUSE, is more apposite, for that's the game Kirk Douglas's character is playing throughout. How he outwits his ex-wife, her new husband, and their crew of private investigators is wonderfully entertaining.

Douglas's performance is a well-judged balance of pathos, dementia, and understandable spite, that ably evokes sympathy from the viewer. The remainder of the cast is not particularly noteworthy, but the other actors aren't given much to do anyway. It's Douglas's show.

The film's only other liability (minor as it is), aside from the odd snippet of painfully trite expository dialogue, is the music score. It isn't awful, but it doesn't do much to accentuate the suspense at key moments, and the same melancholy theme is repeated a little too often. Director Daniel Petrie's craftsmanship, however, is flawless and understated.

The thrilling conclusion of MOUSEY, a sequence of events that uncannily recalls the memorable, allegedly precedent-setting "call-tracing" scene from the estimable BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974), actually predates its more famous cousin: "Mousey" was broadcast on TV just weeks before "Black Christmas" started filming. Coincidence?

It is a disgrace that this supreme example of the Prison Film has been relegated to complete obscurity. Being that it's a Canadian made-for-TV production means that its drab, flat look will turn away many viewers immediately. That's a shame, because the film is riveting and disquieting from the very beginning, and eventually builds tension to a near fever pitch.

The film would be superb on its own, but what makes it absolutely unforgettable for me is the performance of Shirley Douglas as the "leader" of the prisoners. Without exaggeration, hers is simply the best piece of acting, male or female, that I've ever seen. Her confident swagger, bouffant curly hairdo atop a deeply-lined but exquisitely made-up face, deliciously menacing smile, and devilish eyebrows (easily supplanting Nicholson's patented brows), are only a facet of Douglas's remarkable, multi-layered performance. Those characteristics alone would have made her a superior, albeit one-note, villainess.

To the writer's credit, Douglas is given a couple of moments of introspection and sadness that are absolutely real. In a lesser film, these elements would be written and acted in a way to provoke tears and sympathy. Not so with TURNING TO STONE. What her revelations do is simply to humanize her. She is no less conniving and ruthless than before, but her monologues describing her pitiful childhood and yearning for a normal life on the outside with her son are stated dispassionately as facts. Without the respectability she has gained among her fellow prisoners through intimidation, she would have long since become a victim, she explains.

The bulk of the film's story revolves around an educated, innocent young woman (played by Nicky Guadagni), railroaded by a perfidious boyfriend to smuggle drugs in from Mexico. Sent to prison for seven years, this petite, frail intellectual is completely out of her element, and must somehow survive amidst the rivalries and sexual advances of other prisoners. She soon falls under the wing of Douglas's character who, of course, wants favors in return for her protection services. The tension builds to a curious, effective finale that is both pessimistic and upbeat.

The direction by Eric Till is expert but unobtrusive, and the ancillary performances are all without fault, but the real stand-outs in the film are the superlative script and extraordinary thespian Shirley Douglas.

A humble masterpiece.