THE BETSY

Lesley-Anne Down and Tommy Lee Jones

THE BETSY (1978). Director: Daniel Petrie. 

"It's not the stock, it's not the money -- it's the car!" 

Loren Hardeman (Laurence Olivier of Richard III) wants a racer named Angelo (Tommy Lee Jones) to work with him on a new fuel-efficient engine and a brand new car he will name after his granddaughter (Kathleen Beller): the Betsy. However, Loren's grandson, Loren Hardeman III (Robert Duvall), who hates him and now runs the company, is completely against the idea, and pulls a few dirty tricks of his own. Loren III has a wife (Jane Alexander) and a mistress (Lesly-Anne Down of Countess Dracula), who also dallies with Angelo, but Betsy develops feelings for him as well. Meanwhile long intermittent flashbacks take us back to the thirties and to the story of Hardeman's gay son (Paul Rudd), his conspiring boyfriend (Clifford David), his wife (Katharine Ross of Games), who has an affair with her father-in-law, and an act of suicide which will have consequences in the present day. 

Father and son: Paul Rudd and Olivier

Based on a novel by schlockmeister Harold Robbins, The Betsy is actually an entertaining and well-acted potboiler. In addition to the very capable actors already named, there's good work from Joseph Wiseman as a mobster, Edward Herrmann as an assistant, and others. Olivier is simply too old for the flashback sequences -- no amount of hair dye or make up can make him look fifty years younger -- and while Duvall is generally excellent, he underplays way too much in his climactic confrontation with his grandfather. There is a nice score by John Barry. A very strange sequence has Angelo being beaten up not by tough guys but what appear to be businessmen on the verge of senior citizenship! The gay aspects are rather dated, but as this section of the story takes place long before Stonewall this is almost inevitable. Daniel Petrie also directed The Idol and many, many others. 

Verdict: Not too many likable characters in this, but it's absorbing. ***. 

SYBIL (1976)

Nutty as a fruitcake: Sally Field

SYBIL (1976 four hour two-part mini-series. Director: Daniel Petrie.

Sybil (Sally Field) is a young substitute teacher in New York City who tries to hide the fact that she has blank spots in her memory and often wakes up days or even months later with no idea of what she's been doing. After an accident, she meets a sympathetic psychiatrist named Dr. Wilbur (Joanne Woodward), who discovers that Sybil has several different personalities. Using hypnosis and interviewing people from her patient's past, Wilbur determines to discover what happened in Sybil's childhood that made her this way, but Sybil may not like the answers.

Gullible as a guppie: Joanne Woodward

Sybil has much in common with an earlier theatrical film (this one about reincarnation) entitled The Search for Bridey Murphy. Both films were based on best-selling "non-fiction" works that caused a sensation, influenced millions of people, and, incidentally, made much money for their authors. Both books have also turned out to be, mostly, crap. Dissociative Identity Disorder, as its now called, was popularized by the book Sybil, but a new 2011 book entitled Sybil Exposed reveals that, while there may be a few genuine cases of DID, the real woman who was called Sybil was actually faking. "Sybil" confessed this to gullible Wilbur, but Wilbur chose not to believe her. Both women had very good reasons not to own up: Wilbur had her reputation to think of, as well as the money from the book (she worked with a professional writer); and Sybil, who became like a daughter to Wilbur, was virtually supported by her. 

Be a clown: Brad Davis and Sally Field

So while this strips the telefilm of much of its power, we have to look at what remains, and the answer is: not much. Three hours long without commercial breaks, Sybil eventually becomes tedious, with too many repetitious flashbacks, a slow pace, and padding. Emmy-winning Field is quite good, and she gets wonderful support from Woodward and Brad Davis as a free-spirited young neighbor that she dates, as well as others, but after awhile all of those "personalities," male and female, become rather irritating, and the whole thing nearly collapses into farce when "Sybil" turns into her own grandmother on the street. Woodward, of course, appeared in her own multiple personality picture, The Three Faces of Eve (which was also based on a non-fiction book), which engendered the similar Lizzie with Eleanor Parker. Sybil was remade as a TV movie in 2007.

Verdict: Field is impressive, but this is a turgid and unconvincing mini-series. **. 

BUSTER AND BILLIE

Jan-Michael Vincent

BUSTER AND BILLIE (1974). Director: Daniel Petrie.

In 1948 Georgia, handsome and popular teen Buster Lane (Jan-Michael Vincent) is engaged to one of the high school's prettiest gals, Margie (Pamela Sue Martin). Margie, however, won't "put out," so Buster decides to try a date with the town tramp, a shy young lady named Billie Jo (Joan Goodfellow). Although Buster's primary interest in the girl is sex, he develops tender feelings for her, breaking off his engagement and defying the town's attitude towards this gal of easy virtue. Unfortunately, the two are headed down a tragic path ...

Joan Goodfellow

I really wanted to love this ill-fated romance, which I haven't seen since it was released in '74, but it just isn't as convincing as it needs to be. Vincent offers a very good performance, showing the sensitive man inside the brash youth, but Goodfellow is weak, and the script doesn't help to develop her character so that we can really care about what happens to her. Buster's switch from Margie to Billie Jo happens so abruptly that you might wonder how the man who cares for Billie Jo despite everyone's opinions of her can be the same man who so suddenly, almost cruelly, breaks things off with his fiancee. Most of the supporting characters in the film are fairly shadowy. One of the more interesting characters, Buster's friend "Whitey," is well-played by Robert Englund of Freddy Krueger fame. There's some nice music by Al De Lory.

Verdict: Lots of possibilities in this, but it never really catches fire. **1/2. 

STOLEN HOURS aka SUMMER FLIGHT

Susan Hayward

STOLEN HOURS (aka Summer Flight/1963). Director: Daniel Petrie.

In this remake of Dark Victory, Laura Pember (Susan Hayward) is experiencing headaches and vision problems and is scared to see a doctor. In a wholly contrived scene, her friend, racing car driver Mike (Edward Judd), brings Dr. John Carmody (Michael Craig) to see Laura at a party she's throwing for her younger sister, Ellie (Diane Baker). It isn't long before Laura is being operated on [there's less technical information in this than in the original], thinking she's had a full recovery, and falling in love with her rather dreamy doctor. She doesn't know that her condition will reoccur and she'll be dead in a few months ... As in the original, Laura will experience no symptoms until the very end, and can die looking beautiful. At 46, Hayward is slightly too old to play the very youthful Laura, but her performance is generally very good. Judd [Island of Terror] and Baker are suitable support. Michael Craig [Doctor in Love] is required mostly to be handsome and certainly fills the bill. This version ups the tear factor by having Laura bond with a lonely little boy, Peter (quite well acted by Robert Bacon, who had only this one film credit), whose mother is an alcoholic. Laura takes the mother's place at a parent-child celebration, and holds a party for him and his friends. Although it's absurd that Laura would send away her husband and sister when the "moment" approaches -- does she want to drop dead in front of a bunch of unsupervised children? -- the ending is still quite poignant. Mort Lindsey's score is a help as are the beautiful shots of the Cornish coastline [Harry Waxman]. The most interesting scene has Laura objecting when paramedics want to cover the face of a badly injured man at a race track. "Don't cover his face while he's alive," she says. "Let him see as long as he can see." (Of course, the whole notion of paramedics covering a living person's face, no matter how injured or unconscious, is highly improbable anyway.) Petrie also directed Moon of the Wolf and many other movies.

Verdict: Has its moments, but stick with the original. **1/2.