THE GROUP

THE GROUP (1963). Director: Sidney Lumet. 

"Who'da thunk it?" -- various.

"Sacrifice is dated. You don't reform a man. They just drag you down." -- Dottie.

In 1933 a group of women friends graduate from Vassar. The first to get married is Kay (Joanna Pettet), whose husband is a philandering playwright named Harald (Larry Hagman) whose mistress, Norine (Carrie Nye), also went to Vassar (but is not part of the group). Helena (Kathleen Widdoes) is the one who sends out a newsletter detailing the activities of the others. Priss (Elizabeth Hartman of The Beguiled) gets married to a controlling doctor, while Dottie (Joan Hackett) disillusioned by her first lover (Richard Mulligan), marries a much older man. Although she seems man-hungry, the bitchy Libby (Jessica Walter) reveals that she's a virgin when one suitor tries to assault her. Lakey (Candice Bergen) turns out to be a committed lesbian who comes back from Europe with a German baroness in tow. Polly (Shirley Knight) dallies with a married publisher (Hal Holbrook) before uniting with a doctor (James Broderick) who befriends her somewhat unusual father (Robert Emhardt). Pokey (Mary Robin-Redd) is a friendly and plump gal who seems a bit on the fringes of the group.  As the years go by the women interact, have babies, divorces, break-ups and react to world events such as communism and Hitler. Then one of their lives takes a decided and tragic turn for the worse. 

Lidia Prochnicka as the baroness with Bergen 

The Group is an interesting if very talky movie with some well-drawn characters and excellent performances. In the early scenes, of course, the actors all seem too old for their parts, but that isn't a problem in the later sequences. You expect -- and get -- memorable  performances from such as Joan Hackett, Jessica Walter (although perhaps a bit too arch and brittle at times), Kathleen Widdoes, and Hartman, but there's also good work from Candice Bergen and excellent work from Joanna Pettet, who is essentially the main character and is on top of things every step of the way. 

Bill Fletcher (seated) with some of the ladies

Larry Hagman has some good moments, as do the other fellows, with Broderick perhaps getting the most time on screen. Doreen Lang (of The Birds) makes a highly sympathetic nurse in one sequence. Bill Fletcher makes an impression as a rude actor who takes on Harald at a party. Sidney Buchman's screenplay seems to be fairly faithful to the novel (judging by a synopsis) while Sidney Lumet's direction covers the action competently but isn't especially inspired. There are no wipes, dissolves or other segues in the movie and nothing whatsoever to denote the passage of time, although there is period atmosphere. The ladies all had many credits after this film, with Bergen, Hackett, Knight, and Walter having the highest profiles. Kathleen Widdoes did work on the soaps. 

Verdict: If you can take all the cute nicknames -- what, no "Pukey?" -- this is an absorbing film with some fine performances. ***.  

THE EVIL

Richard Crenna

THE EVIL (1978 aka House of Evil). Director: Gus Trikonis.

C. J. Arnold (Richard Crenna) and his doctor wife, Carolyn (Joanna Pettet of Casino Royale), decide to renovate a brooding, half-dilapidated old mansion with the help of some friends and colleagues. These include teacher Raymond Guy (Andrew Prine), his student-girlfriend, Laurie (Mary Louise Weller), young Pete (George O. Hanlon Jr.), who plays dumb practical jokes, Felicia (Lynn Moody), and Mary (Cassie Yates), who brings her German shepherd along. Unfortunately, there's some sort of presence in the house that C. J. inadvertently lets loose when he opens up a pit in the basement. It isn't long before the group finds itself trapped in the mansion, with the doors and windows literally sealed by some force that won't let them break through no matter what. Needless to say, the members of the group die in various awful ways, often related to electrocution. The Evil is not a terrible picture -- it has some atmosphere and suspense as well as some creepy situations -- but in making its evil Satanic force so literal at the end it's almost comical. Some of the actors are on occasion defeated by the melodramatic sequences they find themselves in, although Victor Buono [The Strangler] proves effective (despite the absurdity of his role) in the film's finale. Somewhat reminiscent of The Legend of Hell House, which came out five years earlier.

Verdict: Not much subtlety to this! **1/2.

ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY Season 3

Mickey Rooney as a mob boss with a problem

NIGHT GALLERY Season 3.1972.

The best thing one can say about the third and final season of Rod Serling's Night Gallery is that each episode was now only half an hour long and there weren't that many of them. Rod Serling returned as host, of course, and, unfortunately, along with him came producer and sometime writer Jack Laird, who had absolutely no feel for the dark fantasy genre and whose contributions to the series, generally those awful black-outs, were abysmal.

First, let's take a look at one of the show's many lesser episodes, "Spectre in Tap Shoes" [although Laird did not write the script, he wrote the story for the episode and generated the "idea"]. Sandra Dee plays a woman whose sister, who was a tap dancer, commits suicide. She is haunted by visions and the sound of tapping and is visited by Dane Clark, who wants to buy her house. I doubt that I am giving anything away to reveal that it turns out that Clark is behind the ghostly sounds and visions, and that at the end it is still suggested that something supernatural has nonetheless happened. Sheesh -- the old business of someone creating a ghost to get someone out of their house probably pre-dates Nancy Drew's The Hidden Staircase and by 1972 had become the hoariest of cliches. And there were other, equally unoriginal plot lines, most of which had flat endings that made the viewer groan in quite the wrong way.

There were a couple of passable moments in the third season and two reasonably memorable episodes. Largely because of the acting, "Die Now, Pay Later" is notable, as Will Geer and Slim Pickens enact a story of an undertaker who's offering a sale on coffins and the like, and a sheriff who notes that there have been many more deaths since the sale began ... The bizarre thing about this episode is that it was never aired and can only be seen on the DVD. "Other Way Out" features Ross Martin and Burl Ives in a suspense story of a murderer confronting a blackmailer way out in the desert and the trap he finds himself in; fairly standard stuff, perhaps, but better than most of the episodes, and again, well-acted. Although "Rare Objects" is not that memorable, it does boast a fine performance from Mickey Rooney as a mob boss who desperately wants to find a way out of his predicament, when the various attempts on his life become more numerous and deadly. "You Can Come Up Now," about a dizzy scientist who experiments on his own wife (starring Ozzie and Harriet!) is ironic, a little bit sad, but, again, very predictable. Other notable guest stars this season include Vincent Price, Joanna Pettet [who appeared frequently on the show and was always very good], Geraldine Page, and Agnes Moorehead in an un-aired black-out about witches.

Verdict: Distinctly third-rate horror-fantasy anthology. **.