BLACK WIDOW (1987)

Theresa Russell

BLACK WIDOW (1987). Director: Bob Rafelson.

Catharine (Theresa Russell) has made a career of marrying and murdering a number of wealthy men, and has gotten away with it. However, a Justice Department employee named Alexandra (Debra Winger) thinks she has uncovered Catharine's deadly game and bucks her superiors to go after the woman. People think that Alexandra has become obsessed. Catharine takes on various identities as she pursues her victims, and Alexandra eventually does the same, relocating to Hawaii under an assumed name so she can finally meet and even bond with her prey. Now it's a battle of wits and it's hard to tell who will win out in the end. Black Widow is a very entertaining picture with good performances -- Russell is especially effective -- even if Rafelson's direction is pedestrian and the score mediocre. The movie resembles a somewhat more expensive Lifetime crime thriller. Homoerotic undertones in the "relationship" between the two women go unexplored and seem unnecessary anyway. D. W. Moffett, Terry O'Quinn, Rutyana Alda, Dennis Hopper, Lois Smith, Nicole Williamson, Sami Frey, and Diane Ladd all have supporting parts, but the stand-out in the cast is James Hong as the lazy and amusing private eye, Shin. Cher was offered the role of Catharine but turned it down, which is good because Russell was more suited to the role. One wishes that we got to know a bit more about Alexandra, but perhaps the point was that she had no real life outside of her work. Nowadays the two leading ladies of this film, who are in their sixties, do mostly television work. Not to be confused with The Black Widow serial of 1947 (not that it would be!), or the 1954 Black Widow with Ginger Rogers, among others.

Verdict: This lacks real bite and intensity but it has a good plot and some very good acting. ***.

THINGS I'VE SAID, BUT PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE Bruce Dern

THINGS I'VE SAID, BUT PROBABLY SHOULDN'T HAVE: An Unrepentant Memoir. Bruce Dern with Christopher Fryer and Robert Crane. John Wiley and Sons; 2007.

Bruce Dern has had a long career as a working actor, mostly in films, with occasional television work, and sometimes he's given the lead role, as in Silent Running. He was married to actress Diane Ladd (who directed him in a movie where she apparently hurled out her bitterness over a bad marriage which he admits was all his fault) and is the father of Laura Dern. He apparently had a weird relationship with his wealthy family. The films Dern covers the most include John Frankenheimer's Black Sunday, Coming Home (in which he was especially excellent), The King of Marvin Gardens, The Great Gatsby (with Robert Redford), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot, and Monster, but he doesn't neglect more embarrassing assignments such as The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, more power to him. I also admire him for coming out in support of Elia Kazan, because "three quarters of the room did not stand up" when the director received an honorary Oscar. Appalled by this, Dern asks "What were Kazan's choices?" (One can only imagine what Kazan's detractors would have done were they in the same situation). Of course, Dern can be as guilty of egomania and diva behavior as anyone. In an unintentionally comical anecdote Dern writes how he and very beautiful co-star Maud Adams supposedly had to fight to keep their hands off of each other off-set during filming of the erotic film Tattoo, but one senses Adams wasn't really that interested in the first place. While Dern does talk about the changes in the movie business, different approaches to acting, and other things of interest, the book isn't well-edited, and even two other writers can't make Things I've Said especially coherent. There is no linear, chronological progression; Dern bounces all over the lot. Long, long conversations from decades in the past are reproduced verbatim (either Dern has an encyclopedic memory or he is merely capturing the gist of these conversations -- even so), and some of his memories seem a little suspicious. (I simply can't believe some of the comments he attributes to Alfred Hitchcock.)  Most criminally, Dern mentions Bette Davis with admiration more than once, but says virtually nothing about Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, or about Joan Crawford's participation before she walked off the movie. Inquiring minds want to know! Dern can be forgiven his "name-dropping," however, because these were all people that he knew and worked with.

Verdict: Good actor, mediocre book. **1/2.