I don't know why this hasn't been issued on DVD. It's so much better than most of the rubbish now being pumped out in major motion pictures. The ax murders that took place in Fall River, Massachussetts in 1892, were among the most notorious in American history. Can't really understand why. A couple of blows to the head with an ax and you have two dead bodies. The viewer doesn't even get to see an Uzi. I suppose the fact that Lizzie Borden was brought to trial for the killings had something to do with it -- Lizzie being a woman, subject to hanging, possibly a patricide. She was acquitted, inherited with her sister Emma what was left of the family fortune (after legal expenses), and lived a secluded life in a more comfortable home in a more comfortable Fall River neighborhood. The morbid and the curious, or the simply morbidly curious, can not only visit the original Borden home but can rent one of the rooms, since the place is now a privately owned bed-and-breakfast. If the breakfast is curried mutton broth, avoid it.
The movie tells the story in a dark, straightforward fashion, much of it covering Lizzie's trial. As Lizzie, Elizabeth Montgomery is quite good. A few angry or hysterical outbursts aside, she's portrayed as a pretty cold fish. Community opinion turned against her because she didn't wear black and showed no grief during the inquest or funeral. (I wonder if Albert Camus was familiar with this story.) The rest of the performances are equally laudable. Richard Dysart is a fine prosecutor. Fionulla Flanagan, as Bridget Sullivan, the maid, has a minor role but presents a startling image with her wide, sympathetic eyes.
The film has two subtexts, based on much conjecture and even more deliberately fictional private conversations. One is that men don't understand women's burdens. (Dysart complains to his wife that Lizzie is hiding behind her skirts, although if she was, it managed to slip by me. "Next thing, they'll be wanting the vote," he tells her.) The second subtext is that Lizzie did the whole thing, and the film spells out exactly how she could have pulled it off, and why.
Part of what I find appealing about the movie is its period detail. It's supposed to be hot, and it LOOKS hot. Everyone seems to be sweating under the necessity of wearing all those layers of clothing. When the women go to bed they wear bonnets and nightgowns that button all the way up to the chin. Lizzie's alibi is that during the killings she was out in the barn looking for sinkers and eating pears. Now, how quotidian can you get? Looking for sinkers. (She planned to go fishing.)
Fritz Weaver as Father Borden, ex undertaker and major skinflint is simply great. As an actor he's usually under-rated. The movie isn't very kind to his character. If there were a book in his house besides the Bible it would be the collected sermons of John Calvin. As a child (we are supposed to believe) Lizzie peeped in on him while he was feeling up one of the corpses in his undertaking establishment. Later, there are suggestions of incest. This, together with his stinginess, I suppose is to make us sympathize with the downtrodden and finally murderous Lizzie. It doesn't do it for me. The necrophilia and incest are fictional. There's not a hint of it in the historical record.
What we DO know is that the old man was a cheapskate and insisted, despite his million dollars, in living in an old house with tiny rooms and an indoor latrine, and denying his daughters the fancier dresses they craved. (It's not in the movie but his last recorded public act was picking up a discarded padlock with no key, examining it to see if it might be put to use, and pocketing it. "Waste not, want not!", he cries.) And we know that Borden's wife -- Lizzy's and Emma's stepmother -- stood in the way of that inheritance.
Cui bono?, ask the lawyers. Lizzy and Emma, that's who. We don't really need the feminism layered on.
The direction by Paul Wendkos isn't exceptional but he's a competent professional. The score is sarcastically melodious ragtime with at one point, I swear, a statement of Kane's theme from "Citizen Kane." A generally nice job by just about everyone concerned.
The movie tells the story in a dark, straightforward fashion, much of it covering Lizzie's trial. As Lizzie, Elizabeth Montgomery is quite good. A few angry or hysterical outbursts aside, she's portrayed as a pretty cold fish. Community opinion turned against her because she didn't wear black and showed no grief during the inquest or funeral. (I wonder if Albert Camus was familiar with this story.) The rest of the performances are equally laudable. Richard Dysart is a fine prosecutor. Fionulla Flanagan, as Bridget Sullivan, the maid, has a minor role but presents a startling image with her wide, sympathetic eyes.
The film has two subtexts, based on much conjecture and even more deliberately fictional private conversations. One is that men don't understand women's burdens. (Dysart complains to his wife that Lizzie is hiding behind her skirts, although if she was, it managed to slip by me. "Next thing, they'll be wanting the vote," he tells her.) The second subtext is that Lizzie did the whole thing, and the film spells out exactly how she could have pulled it off, and why.
Part of what I find appealing about the movie is its period detail. It's supposed to be hot, and it LOOKS hot. Everyone seems to be sweating under the necessity of wearing all those layers of clothing. When the women go to bed they wear bonnets and nightgowns that button all the way up to the chin. Lizzie's alibi is that during the killings she was out in the barn looking for sinkers and eating pears. Now, how quotidian can you get? Looking for sinkers. (She planned to go fishing.)
Fritz Weaver as Father Borden, ex undertaker and major skinflint is simply great. As an actor he's usually under-rated. The movie isn't very kind to his character. If there were a book in his house besides the Bible it would be the collected sermons of John Calvin. As a child (we are supposed to believe) Lizzie peeped in on him while he was feeling up one of the corpses in his undertaking establishment. Later, there are suggestions of incest. This, together with his stinginess, I suppose is to make us sympathize with the downtrodden and finally murderous Lizzie. It doesn't do it for me. The necrophilia and incest are fictional. There's not a hint of it in the historical record.
What we DO know is that the old man was a cheapskate and insisted, despite his million dollars, in living in an old house with tiny rooms and an indoor latrine, and denying his daughters the fancier dresses they craved. (It's not in the movie but his last recorded public act was picking up a discarded padlock with no key, examining it to see if it might be put to use, and pocketing it. "Waste not, want not!", he cries.) And we know that Borden's wife -- Lizzy's and Emma's stepmother -- stood in the way of that inheritance.
Cui bono?, ask the lawyers. Lizzy and Emma, that's who. We don't really need the feminism layered on.
The direction by Paul Wendkos isn't exceptional but he's a competent professional. The score is sarcastically melodious ragtime with at one point, I swear, a statement of Kane's theme from "Citizen Kane." A generally nice job by just about everyone concerned.