There's something alluring about Dana Delaney in this and some of her other work. She's really beautiful. But not in a striking way like Elizabeth Taylor, or ethereally like Gene Tierney. Something about her slight chin, dark eyes, dimples, and the way her lower lip folds under its upper counterpart suggests that, though she might be provoked into anger, she would never be spiteful or vicious. This hard-to-define quality is an odd blend of sensuality and nurturance. Any normal man, if distraught, would be tempted to lay his head on her bosom and let himself be comforted and, if things worked out, have her babies.
Bronson, at 72, is still Bronson, doing his best to act, apparently having a little trouble slinging bodies downstairs and kicking in doors, but that's okay with me. He should get an award for being able to lift his foot as high as the doorknob.
Xander Berkeley as the disdainful nun rapist and murderer is fine. He has the appearance and demeanor of a wealthy and self-satisfied upper-middle-class snob.
That may be the chief weakness of the story. It's a routine serial killer movie -- told almost exclusively from the point of view of the father/daughter team of Bronson and Delaney. It was filmed in Los Angeles and, like the city itself, it looks like the ordinary, soulless, uninspired, smog-ridden spiritual void that it is.
There is virtually no local color, even granted that it's hard to find in the first place. It was reassuring, though, to see the Bradley Building put to use as a location once again. The first time I remember seeing it was in "Double Indemnity" (1943).
But none of the character seem to be FROM anyplace. Bronson is a Lithuanian from some small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania, but you wouldn't know it. Neither would you guess that Xander Berkeley was born in Brooklyn or that Dana Delaney, born in New York City, attended Philips Andover or had any history at all. The characters are "blanks", like the body that King Donovan finds on his pool table in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." It makes one long for The Dead End Kids, almost.
Bronson, at 72, is still Bronson, doing his best to act, apparently having a little trouble slinging bodies downstairs and kicking in doors, but that's okay with me. He should get an award for being able to lift his foot as high as the doorknob.
Xander Berkeley as the disdainful nun rapist and murderer is fine. He has the appearance and demeanor of a wealthy and self-satisfied upper-middle-class snob.
That may be the chief weakness of the story. It's a routine serial killer movie -- told almost exclusively from the point of view of the father/daughter team of Bronson and Delaney. It was filmed in Los Angeles and, like the city itself, it looks like the ordinary, soulless, uninspired, smog-ridden spiritual void that it is.
There is virtually no local color, even granted that it's hard to find in the first place. It was reassuring, though, to see the Bradley Building put to use as a location once again. The first time I remember seeing it was in "Double Indemnity" (1943).
But none of the character seem to be FROM anyplace. Bronson is a Lithuanian from some small coal-mining town in Pennsylvania, but you wouldn't know it. Neither would you guess that Xander Berkeley was born in Brooklyn or that Dana Delaney, born in New York City, attended Philips Andover or had any history at all. The characters are "blanks", like the body that King Donovan finds on his pool table in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." It makes one long for The Dead End Kids, almost.