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. ***. 

MURDER BY NATURAL CAUSES

Katherine Ross and Barry Bostwick

MURDER BY NATURAL CAUSES (1979 telefilm). Director: Robert Day.

Arthur Sinclair (Hal Holbrook) is a famous "mentalist" who claims psychic powers that may or may not be real. His younger wife, Alison (Katharine Ross), is having an affair with the struggling actor, Gil Weston (Barry Bostwick), and she urges him to help her carry out a plot to kill Arthur. Of course nothing runs smoothly, but there are other players in the drama who may have their own schemes at work ... Murder By Natural Causes has a typically twisty and satisfying plot by Richard Levinson and William Link, and boasts top performances by Holbook and Bostwick, who really score in a cat and mouse sequence inside Arthur's imposing mansion. Ross [Games] and Richard Anderson [The Night Strangler], who plays the Sinclairs' lawyer, are competent and effective but a cut below the other two. In addition to many other mystery scripts, Levinson and Link also wrote That Certain Summer, which also starred Holbrook.

Verdict: This pic won't make you "mental." ***.

GAMES

Simone Signoret

GAMES (1967). Director: Curtis Harrington.

"I'm afraid I'm accustomed to infinitely more exciting -- and dangerous -- games."

Jennifer Montgomery (Katharine Ross) is a wealthy gal with an artist husband, Paul (James Caan), and a beautiful Manhattan townhouse. Alas, Jennifer isn't too bright. When a cosmetics saleslady named Lisa Schindler (Simone Signoret) shows up at her doorstep and faints from hunger or something, Jennifer invites this total stranger to stay and the woman simply moves in. If you can buy that utterly improbable scenario [I mean, give her a meal and send her on her way] you might buy the rest of this admittedly entertaining but often stupid movie that borrows a plot device or two from Signoret's better known film Diabolique. Paul has a game room full of macabre pinball machines and the like but Lisa tells him his games are tame as, say, compared to Russian roulette, and before long the members of this strange household are playing increasingly violent practical jokes on one another, with delivery man Don Stroud eventually becoming an unintended victim. But there's even more intrigue afoot after that ... Signoret gives a very good, enigmatic performance and Stroud is fine, while Ross and Caan will probably not consider this one of the better showcases for their talents -- they both "underplay" so much after someone is shot in their house that it's almost unintentionally comical. The movie itself cries out for more atmosphere and more inventive direction. Florence Marly of Harrington's Queen of Blood plays a baroness and party guest in one sequence; Kent Smith is the family retainer; Estelle Winwood is a neighbor with cats; and Ian Wolfe is a doctor -- all are on the money. Signoret won a well-deserved Oscar for her work in Room at the Top, which this in no way resembles.

Verdict: These games are a little too familiar. **1/2.