Haywire (1980)

It can be argued that Lee Remick never gave a bad performance.  We have already seen her in Nutcracker: Money, Madness, Murder, where she gave one of the greatest miniseries performances of all time in a true story.

That may have been Lee's best work, but wait until you see "Haywire," where Lee plays actress Margaret Sullavan, alongside Jason Robards as her husband Leland Hayward.  "Haywire," technically the name of a Hayward estate, is a metaphor for what this family went through.  This is a character so full of knotty quirks that she defies any simple description.  It takes an actress like Lee Remick to make that believable, and, more importantly for a television audience, likable.

"Haywire" is based on a book by daughter Brooke Hayward from 1977.  Stop!  I know what you're thinking.  Don't even put this in a category with "Mommie Dearest" because bashing mom is not the point of the story.  Brooke states up front in her book that she owes it to her siblings to have their full stories told and it's really more about them than her parents, but what has made "Haywire" endure as a book where "Mommie Dearest" is trashy fun, is Brooke's penetrating ability to dissect her family members with staggering objectivity, not turning them into ghouls, in order to understand the tragedy that befell nearly all of them.  Basically, her parents married and loved each other and producing three kids.  However, after they divorced and the kids got older, problems really started to appear.  Brooke's sister and brother were both sent to mental institutions, Margaret killed herself, as did Brooke's sister and her brother did as well, but in 2008, long after the book was written and the miniseries made.  Leland spent the last months of his life as a shell of a human being after a series of strokes.

What makes the book "Haywire" so compelling is how three kids coped with what went on around them, all so differently.  Leland was a father typical of the times, putting business first and admitting he didn't understand fatherhood.  Margaret all but retired once she had kids, which led to some peculiar rules and typical teenager-parent battles, but this is not "Mommie Dearest" or "Detour" or any celeb's kid trying to make bank off a crazy parent.  It is about the children and how they ended up the way they did.  Both parents were loving, but their brands of love could be frustrating.  There are no midnight rampages, no cutting down of shrubbery, no heavy drinking or drugs, no abuse (in fact, the book has a very touching moment where Leland is forced to spank Brooke and promises while he's doing it never to do so again, a promise he remembers giving on his deathbed).

Brooke Hayward's memoir would be interesting simply because of the tragedy of her family life, especially since she's the ultimate survivor (a fact that she seems uncomfortable noting, but which is amazingly true), and the movie version just as touching.  However, the story is rather esoteric.  This is not Joan Crawford, Lana Turner or Bette Davis.  This is Margaret Sullavan, who made only a handful of movies and by the book's 1977 appearance was pretty much forgotten (outside of a few lovely movies with Jimmy Stewart).  This is also Leland Hayward, who was an entertainment "super agent" before the term exists and a producer of both film and theater, but a behind-the-scenes man, the kind only remembered decades later by those with whom he worked, not the general public.

That puts a lot of pressure on a movie version (produced in part by Brooke's brother Bill), because it means the movie version cannot trade on celebrity name to be noticed, and certainly not on camp (like "Mommie Dearest") because the story has none.  It means that a movie version has to be excellent and stand on its own, and luckily, 30+ years after it first aired on television, "Haywire" is just that.  I encourage everyone to read "Haywire," but if you can't do that, at least see "Haywire," because it is truly that special.  The movie is so faithful to the book that the screenplay often seems to be a dramatic reading of the text, which is not at all problematic as Brooke's writing is magnificent on the page.  Considering the shredding we have seen of other books-to-miniseries affairs, this one is a marvel of tact, taste and dignity.

"This is a story of carelessness and guilt, of people who lived in extremes, a story of one family, my own.  A family that had everything, grace and joy, a fair share of beauty, privilege and power…They seemed to be the fulfillment of the American dream, but something went dreadfully wrong…What distinguishes this particular story is the extraordinary effect my parents had on their children.  They failed as they succeeded, on a massive scale.  How could it have happened to us?  Why?"

That, folks, is the opening narration of this movie!  Daring, wouldn't you say?

The movie actually opens the same was as the book, with tragedy.  As plucky Brooke (Deborah Raffin, before "Lace II" killed off her career) is on her way to the theater where she is performing in an off-Broadway play, New Year's Eve, 1960.  When she calls to wish her mother and stepfather a Happy New Year, she gets the grim news that her mother died, suicide.  As Brooke sits on the train, she remembers snippets of her life, almost cinematic, becoming angrier and angrier that "just as I need her most," Margaret (Lee Remick) could have done such a thing.  Things get worse when she arrives at the theater, where her father's secretary informs her he's had the performance canceled out of respect, which infuriates Brooke.

Papa Leland Hayward (Jason Robards) is making all the arrangements for an ex-wife (one of many) he had barely spoken to in over a decade.  Seeing her father reminds her of a time he took the family to an airstrip (Leland was a licensed pilot and one of his hobbies was flying) where Brooke watched a plane plummet and kill the pilot.  Margaret wants to take Brooke, Bridget and Bill home, but Leland says, "nope, we're going up," intending to fulfill a promise he made to his children and also building them up, as strange as it may seem, to be fearless.

"Haywire" is smart enough to follow Brooke's lead on how it's written, which is a purposeful garble of time periods.  The scene with the children flying is followed by Leland telling Brooke every detail of Margaret's suicide, not sparing her anything.  That might seem callous somewhere else, but it's been established in "Haywire" already (just about 10 minutes in), that it's playing by its own rules (or Brooke's rules).

Brooke's portrait of her family members is always honest and the movie follows that lead too.  Little Brooke is in her mother's dressing rule at one point when Margaret talks about how much she hates acting and would love nothing more than to just be a wife and mother.  "I'd much rather you knew me the way I am at home, or any place but here," she tells her sensitive six-year old daughter as she tries to talk her out of seeing the play.  Margaret continues her rant after the performance, though Brooke was enchanted, saying "actors do not make good mothers and fathers, I see it all the time."  That's an awfully chilling line and the ones that follow are no nicer to the profession.

In fact, Margaret apparently went to great pains to make sure her children had no idea what her job was.  There is a harrowing scene where Margaret takes the children to the park and is followed by an autograph seeker.  Not only does she deny she's Margaret Sullavan, she launches into a blistering tirade at the woman for assuming she can get "a little bit of a person" by having a signature put into a book, but apologizes to her kids for "thoroughly bad manners" in how she treated the woman.  That's a fair and balanced portrait.

Brooke, as a child, was enthralled by her mother.  The kids were not allowed to see her movies, but understood that she would simply disappear for a job and reappear "like a comet," claiming to be "just a working mother."

At the funeral, Brooke narrates that "the two people I loved most in the world were my sister Bridget (Dianne Hull) and my brother Bill (Hart Bochner), though they had not been particularly close in the years leading up to Margaret's death.  Brooke and Bridget had a complicated relationship.  While riding in the hearse, Brooke remembers a time her sister was sleeping and she took the opportunity to tell mom how much she hated her little sister, causing Bridget to pop up from fake sleep and curse at her.  The difference between the sisters, which will manifest itself in increasingly bizarre ways, is evident from the way the view their mother's suicide.  Brooke wonders how someone could be so selfish and not think of her family, but Bridget says, "it was her life, she did what she wanted" without any trace of bitterness.

In truth, Margaret did have a selfish streak, evident on a grand scale when she moved the family to Connecticut from California where Leland's work is.  Without consulting him, she saw a house and bought it, moving the gang 3000 miles away.  Leland tries to reason with her, about his business and the kids friends, but Margaret trumps even that by saying their closest friends, Jane and Peter Fonda, are moving East as well (Henry Fonda being one of Margaret's ex-husbands did not get in the way of the closeness of their children).

In Brooke's book, perhaps the most interesting scene, full of contradictory emotions, is when Margaret insists the kids watch chicken being killed.  "It's part of nature's law," she says.  Leland refuses to watch and they bicker in terms that would frighten any child.  "Don't look," Leland says to Brooke, turning them both around as Margaret explains that the chicken will continue to run around after its head is cut off.  Brooke has her head buried in her father, but the other two watch and cringe in horror.

Leland catches Margaret writing in her journal about an almost venal need to be the perfect mother to her kids, whom she feels are slipping away, yet then dashes off to London for six months to do a play.  Rather than simply being a megabitch, Margaret is a complex woman, confident and assured, yet about what, she herself never quite understands.  Not only does that make for fascinating characterization, but imagine what Brooke must have gone through trying to figure out her mother before, during and after writing her book.

Margaret's three kids are not brought closer by their mother's death.  Bridget notes that the only way she imagined she could end her "struggles with mother" was to "push her in the river…I'd jump in after her and drown."  Bridget s the darkest of the kids, the most like her mother, which made their relationship the most complex in the family.  During their myriad arguments, which go in circles of mutual frustration, Margaret always uses the trump card of sending her to live with Leland, though Bridget sees through that ruse for what it is, a ploy for attention and guilt.

As for brother Bill, he had issues with his mother, but worse ones with his disapproving and distant father.  In a psychiatry session where both are present because Bill was kicked out of school for bringing a loaded guy ("I collect guns" is his defense, and a perfectly natural one to him), even the shrink feels Bill is best left in an institution, where he spent many years.  Bridget also spent her share of time in "nut houses," as Bill calls them, both resenting what they feel is Brooke's normalcy.

When Margaret goes to London to do a play, things crack.  First, she decrees that the kids cannot make a scene or cry as she leaves.  Leland begs her not to go and she chides him, saying, "you're breaking a rule."  In Margaret's desire to maintain order and perfect motherhood, she has a tendency to undermine or belittle emotion, which will have frightening repercussions.  Leland, who indulges the kids rather than parenting them in her absence, stops a drive at one point to reveal that when his parents divorced, "it ruined my whole life…I never understood my mother, never forgave her, cut me in half."  That, as we can all guess, is foreshadowing (in the book, Leland's mother is shown to be a rather charming eccentric who dotes on Leland and the children).  He then tells the kids, "that's one thing you'll never have to go through."

Is it any wonder that Bill would have certain conflicting emotions concerning Leland, who joked with his children at a young age that none of the things they wanted to be when they grow up would net them enough money to support him?  Even as a joke, that sort of things screws with a young mind.

The summer Margaret spent in London is the turning point for everyone.  "Somehow, life was never as bright again," Brooke narrates.  Margaret's return brings on a "family conference," the news that she and Leland are separating.  "You can't let this happen, you made me a promise," Brooke protests to Leland, who can't deny he messed that one up.

Though not in a Crawford-esque way, there is something ghoulish about Brooke's thought pattern regarding what divorce will mean.  For instance, though Margaret is careful to tell Brooke Leland's new woman is attractive and will probably be wonderful to the kids, Brooke says, "if she were dead, then there wouldn't be a divorce."  Margaret doesn't exactly disavow the notion, rather launching into an overdone Southern drawl (she was from the South) for a discourse on pride.

Leland marries socialite Nan "Slim" Hawks (Linda Gray), while Margaret starts to date British Kenneth Wagg (Richard Johnson), and the kids decide their mother will be happiest married again, so they do all they can to help Kenneth win her hand.

As the kids grow up, Margaret's nastiness regarding Leland intensifies.  He is more fun of the two parents because he lavishes them with gifts and let's them be carefree while Margaret is refusing to acknowledge they are growing up and forming impressions of their own.  Margaret sees clothes as "expensive presents," while Leland says they are "necessities" and buys his girls only the best.

Brooke is strong enough to see her parents for what they are, but Bridget's psyche undergoes irreparable damage.  She feels herself constantly living in Brooke's shadow, which is not true.  It's her stepmother who tries to coax her from her shell and be a positive influence.  Nan tells her that when she goes to boarding school in Switzerland, it will be her "chance to fly" and the advice is dead on.  On her own in Switzerland, she becomes both happy and unique.

Brooke does well at boarding school in Virginia, but Bill is having the most trouble, with plummeting grades and mischievous behavior.  Unfortunately for Bridget, "who had discovered a taste for living" while apart from her mother's smothering, Margaret decides that she cannot spend the summer before her senior year in Switzerland, mainly because she's lonely (Kenneth, his sons and Brooke are off in Scotland).

Cleaning up Bridget's room, Margaret finds a trove of stolen items that give her a window in her daughter's blackening soul, but there is worse not so hidden in the room.  According to Brooke's account, Bridget very carefully left a letter to a friend where it could be found.  The letter says, "I don't like mother.  The truth is, I hate her."  Bridget doesn't actually deny any of it.  Margaret sees the stealing as taking "little bits of people you love," but Bridget snaps that, "it's more than I ever had from you."  This scene exists in every Hollywood child's memoir, the part where a child is told, "you have been given everything," but this story has a few twists.  First, it's actually true.  Smothering though she may be, Margaret very clearly loves her children.  They are not props to her.  Second, Bridget has a plan beyond simply goading her mother into an argument (there is no "why did you adopt me?" harangue here); she wants to go live with her father.  It's not self-pity so much as budding self-awareness.

However, Margaret, somewhat understandably, does lapse into dramatics snarling at Bill that she supposed he wants to go live with Leland too.  She writes a lengthy letter to Brooke in Scotland, so Brooke and Kenneth rush home as Kenneth figures Margaret has "gone off the deep end."  When they spot her at the airport, gaunt and lacking in sleep, Brooke whispers to Kenneth that "she looks terrible" and Margaret crumples into their arms, muttering "hold me, hold me."  Brooke does her best to support her mother, who is still baffled by what she sees as the ultimate betrayal of two of her kids.  "Maybe parents shouldn't be an example.  Maybe they should be a warning to their children," Margaret tells Brooke in another of the movie's most frightening moments.

Bill is as adamant about leaving as Bridget.  Brooke finds both of them "stubborn" and "selfish," but Bill has his reasons for leaving, mainly that Margaret is always miserable and "she doesn't want to let us grow up."  "You're deserting me too, you know," Brooke tells him.  "I just assumed you'd come with us," Bill replies, figuring the three siblings share the same feelings.  When Margaret interrupts the conversation to help Bill pack, her self-control is gone almost immediately and turns so pathetic begging Bill to stay that Brooke has to turn away from watching the crumbling woman at the center of the scene.  So out of her mind is Margaret that she chases the car before falling on the grass in a crumpled mess.  "It will never be all right again," Margaret sobs.

"Mother was right, nothing was ever the same again," Brooke narrates, describing how Margaret, Bridget and Bill all ended up in asylums as "goodbye was to become the most common word in our vocabulary."

Fast forward to 1971, where Brooke is two-times divorce with three kids.  Bill calls to urge her back to NYC as Leland has had a stroke and is in the hospital.  The once-vital Leland Hayward, who could manage movies, movie stars and more all at once, is now a "slave to technology," as Brooke sees her helpless father in the bed.

This reminds Brooke of a pact she had with her father.  When she and Bridget were very young, they were singing in their bedroom during a party their parents were hosting.  Margaret repeatedly warned them to stop and threatened spankings.  When they disobeyed one last time, Leland tried to step in, but Margaret snaps, "it is not a parent's job to be popular.  You don't have the guts for it" and forges ahead with the spankings.  Leland has no heart for it and promises her after attempting it once, that he would never do it again, keeping his word as already noted.

Back in the past is the only way we can keep Bridget's story going.  Brooke remembers when Bridget was released from the institution and went to live on her own.  Though seemingly better, lines like "you   can have the clock when I die," anger and worry Brooke.

One of the most shocking scenes in Brooke's book turns into one of the most shocking scenes in "Haywire," if only because it's so utterly ludicrous (and way ahead of its time).  Brooke and Bill want Leland unhooked from all of the medical equipment to die at home with dignity  The doctor is aghast that anyone would willing let someone go, no matter the quality of life.  "Think of him as a pet…a creature you're fond of, that you love, that needs you to look after him," the doctor tells them.  "You know, doc, you're loonier than I ever was," Bill says, for once the voice of reason since Brooke is too shocked to reply.

Back in the past, 11 years earlier to be exact, right after Bill and Bridget left home, Margaret descending into wild self-pity faster than into the bottle, decides to go back to work as an actress.  Playing a nun on a television broadcast.  A misplaced prop causes a huge argument between Margaret and the young director (Christopher Guest), ending only when she storms off the set and refuses to return, all within 24 hours of the broadcast.  She ends up at their old family house in Connecticut, lying in the dirt in a depressed semi-coma.  Brooke visits her, informing Margaret that she's taking acting classes, much to the latter's chagrin.

In 1971, Leland is begging his children to let him die at home.  "Get me out," he says in a rare moment of lucidity.  Back into the past we go, this time following one of Bill's escape attempts from his Midwestern institution.  He and his rather ditzy companion are captured the next day.  Brooke tries to get Leland to free him, but Leland is adamant that Bill stay incarcerated.  Ultimately, Leland caves and rescues his son from jail.  Though not before Jason Robards makes sure to snag a whopper speech for himself (Lee Remick has gotten all of the good tirades so far).  A hissing Leland threatens to cut Bill out of the will, though Bill gets the upper hand quickly when Leland admits he and Nan are kaput.  Bill seems awfully sane, raging that Leland had him committed without a trial or any defense.  Bill works some kind of charm on his father, who gets the institution to keep him only three more months and then free him.

Also back in the past is Bridget, who has gotten a summer internship at the Williamstown Theater Festival after being released from her confinement.  She may even have fallen in love, but rather than enjoy it, she picks a fight with Brooke, only to then turning sugary sweet to end it.  She is quickly quickly slipping into a terrible fight with depression and medication, not to mention alcohol.

In and out of the past with Leland, Brooke and Bill seem to make their peace with him.  After a military stint, Bill even went on to co-produce "Easy Rider."  That leaves only Bridget and the summation of her story.  Sometime in the 60s, around the time she was fighting with Brooke at Williamstown she discovered she had epilepsy, which was still then considered by many to be emotional and not physical.  Apparently, this has been going on since she was in school in Switzerland and declared legally dead at one point!

Bill asks Leland who the top 10 most beautiful women are and sickly Leland has answers ready.  Three he married (twice to Lola, once to Margaret, once to Nan, though his current wife Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman is not mentioned), Kate Hepburn, Garbo, Fay Wray, a shock to all of them, Dietrich, Isak Deniesen, Justine Johnson and Esme O'Brian.  The last two are completely unknown to the kids, but when an attendant comes in to unhook him to take him home, where everyone has agreed he should be when he dies, he asks where Bridget is, a sign of certain confusion, though Brooke lets it pass without correcting him.

It's at this moment, very near the end of the movie, that the miniseries veers from the book, and really only for dramatic purposes.  What happens in the next few scenes with Brooke are actually part of the opening of the book.  There is no judgment to be made here.  The book had a very specific structure that used the past to explain the present, where the movie does have to make sure it keeps the drama going at regular intervals.  The outcome is the same and faithful to Brooke's interpretation.

That causes Brooke to flash back to a night about a decade before when a chipper Bridget called in the middle of the night to tell Brooke she was pregnant and that the next morning, she would cook her big sister a great breakfast.  It's an odd conversation, no matter how you look at it, unless you are Brooke.  From the outside, it's clear Bridget is suffering a manic episode, extreme happiness that slowly mutates into something darker, even if just barely.  Bridget herself even recognizes all is to well and brings up examples from the past to illustrate it.  However, Brooke, though puzzled, just chalks it up to a bit of sisterly strangeness.

Brooke shows up the next morning as planned and as she pounds on the door yelling Bridget's name, it's intercut with Kenneth doing the same to Margaret back in 1960.  Without having to say a word, it's clear what has happened to Bridget.  However, Brooke does have have the door burst down, because she had, in her own words, and "intense" desire to maintain Bridget's beloved privacy.  It's not until after a day of errands that Brooke arrives home to hear the news of her sister's death.

At a memorial service for Bridget, a friend tells Brooke that yes, she had the worst genetics a family can concoct, so "you either go over to that window and jump or you go on."  Back in the present, Leland asks her what is the one time in her life to which she would most eagerly return.  She declines an immediate answer.  He is taken home to die and soon Brooke is summoned to his home, but by the time she arrives, Leland has died.  She insists on seeing him, saying "there's something I have to tell him, I promised."  The theme of promises kept and broken is remaining potent and integral through the final moments.

The moment Brooke wants back?  A time Leland decided to drive to see Margaret, long after the divorce, to discuss Bridget's problems.  After a 12-year separation, Margaret is very nervous, but manages a calmness once she actually shows.  The tension is quickly broken and perhaps some wounds are healed.  In the present, Brooke becomes a mess of tears as she realizes her parents always loved each other, no matter the time spent apart and that was the moment that made it clear to her.  This she relays to her father's corpse.

"I wept for my family, all of us.  For excesses, our delusions, our inconsistencies.  Not that we cared too much or too little, but that we had been careless with the best of our resources, each other.  It's as if we had taken for granted, like our talents and interests and riches, another chance, another summer, another Maggie, another Leland, another Brooke or Bridget or Bill," Brooke narrates to close the miniseries.

What a perfect ending!  Why?  Because nowhere in that sentence is there even a scrap of Hollywood self-pity.  If it hasn't been obvious since the beginning, what makes "Haywire" so interesting is that it's about a typical family.  It may not seems so since there are famous names involved, but the celebrity aspect of these character is rarely even a plot point.  Compare that with most star or child of star autobiographies.  No, "Haywire" is almost a mental health primer for coping with the ups and downs of its various forms.  Most of the time, this family of five got it wrong and the consequences were sadly permanent.  However, that does not make them special as this story is endlessly repeated by hundreds, thousands, of families who lose control to such debilitating conditions.

So "Haywire" exists sui generis as a miniseries.  It's neither romance, history nor adventure.  It's the story of a family full of unique individuals who were like molecules bouncing a million times a minute, trying to get away from each other, when the reasons they were doing so were just what should have been keeping them together: it's the inside of the American dream, what goes on behind the picket fences and manicured lawns, behind the frozen smiles and apple pies.  It's the truths of the Hayward family, unpleasant, forlorn, depressing, yet accessible and understandable.

Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder (1987)

Here we have the ripped-from-the-headlines sensationalized miniseries, but not hiding behind fake names like the Dominick Dunne stories.  Oh, no.  Frances Schreuder's case was very real, but very bizarre.  Made in 1987, "Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder" would probably nowadays be just a "Law and Order" plot line, but it was quite sensational at the time.

In the wrong hands, this movie could go entirely off-kilter and seem just plain exploitative.  Think of Betty Broderick as not played by Meredith Baxter, just some lunatic killer who couldn't let go of her husband.  But here, Frances should be honored to be played by Lee Remick, one of film's all-time greatest actresses giving a dazzling performance.  Where other actresses might be content to just have fun playing a lunatic, Lee gives it all she has.  Those who prize the performances of her early career may object, but I would rate this as one of her finest acting gigs.  There isn't a trick she doesn't use, and her arsenal of them is more than most actresses could ever dream of.  As sadistic and cruel as her Frances Schreuder is, she's also utterly captivating and when she's not in a scene, you just can't wait until her return. 

To be fair, everyone here is excellent, from Tate Donovan as Frances' Oedipally-confused son to Elizabeth Wilson as her dimwitted mother and Inga Swenson as her rational sister.  As always, one can count on John Glover to ace his role, this time that of Frances' ultra-wacko best friend. 

By 1987, the American miniseries had seen its best entries, no doubt about it, but that doesn't mean that it was a completely flaccid genre.  "Nutcracker: Money, Madness and Murder" does not have the historical sweep or grand romantic passion of the most beloved miniseries titles, but it is certainly one of the best, a model of tight construction, an engaging story and sublime acting.  Five hours fly by, with very little in the way of fat to be trimmed. 

The opening is a montage of scenes, of a crying child, of the ballet and a trial.  It's as confusing as the mind of a madwoman, the perfect intro to the story of one.  Things start to make sense with a flashback to Frances Schreuder's college days at Bryn Mawr.  Okay, Lee is a bit old for a college student, but actually, she looks better than any of the gals in "Lace" who tried a similar gimmick.  Talking to her roommate over drinks, Frances suddenly goes into a rage, yelling "I don't care what you think" and pounding on the walls to her roommate Paula's (Zina Bethune) shock.  After that, Frances is off to the school guidance counselor, where we find out she's once swallowed an entire bottle of aspirin and is generally a hot-headed pushy know-it-all.  It all goes back to her childhood, where her mother called her "a difficult child," such a big crier that the entire family had to sing to her to try to get her to sleep. 

Intercut with the past are scenes from Frances' trial.  First to testify is her sister Marilyn (Inga Swenson).  Marilyn says the two had a wonderful relationship for most of their lives.  Then things started to change, and not for the better.  She became, in the words of the lawyer, "nervous" and "upset," and Marilyn can't argue. 

Frances realizes her dream of moving to New York City, which she considers the center of the world, but having grown up in Salt Lake City, that's certainly understandable.  Lunching with Paula one afternoon, Frances meets Vittorio (Tony Musante), a ridiculously cheesy Italian who drenches every line with sexual overtones.  Paula knows when she's had enough of these two high-strung people and when she leaves, Frances shouts, "you were more fun when you drank" and "you can be a real drag sometimes, Paula!"  Frances switches personalities faster than slimy Vittorio gets her into his car.  After a night with him, Frances bounces off to Marilyn, who has to pay for everything and remind Frances of the bills she's rung up in everyone else's name.  No one else is brave enough to talk to Frances about it, lest she make one of her "fusses," as Marilyn politely calls them. 

In bed with Vittorio, Frances prattles on, jumping from the subject of a married sister to her brother's lobotomy to her father's incredible wealth, all of which seems to bore Vittorio somewhat.  "I'll be fabulously wealthy when he dies," she says of her father, though Vittorio only wants her to drink more champagne. 

Frances is tossed out of college and it's Marilyn who brings her obviously psycho sister home to recover, not to mention avoid a slew of criminal charges.  Her parents (Elizabeth Wilson, at her grandest and creepiest and G.D. Spradlin) and sister Elaine (Linda Kelsey) are not the most sympathetic bunch.  Mother Berenice is against getting Frances any help, preferring a wait-and-see method, to which Elaine snaps, "why don't we all just go and sing to her?"  After getting her uncle to cover for one of the crimes involving faked stock certificates, she slips away from home and flies back to NYC and Vittorio.  "You are a liar and a cheat and you tried to steal my money...and I am mortified that everyone here knows what you did," Father Franklin tells her, nearly having a heart attack spitting out the words.  His rage is matched by Frances over the phone, who barks that she no longer needs his money.  "My husband will support me," she says and hangs up, leaving Franklin puzzled.

Berenice is completely blind to her daughter's issues, calling Elaine to crow about the upcoming wedding.  "All I can say is 'praise the Lord!' I think all our troubles are over," she wails, though Elaine knows trouble is coming.  Soon Frances and Vittorio are the parents of two boys.  The marriage doesn't last since Frances can't stop her wild ways and stay put.  Frances sure as hell knows how to argue!  Coming home at 2am one night, she and Vittorio have a huge blow-up, and she comes up with a classic line that most spouses wouldn't dare use: "If you're so insanely jealous that you're checking up on me, you deserve what you get.  You deserve to think all the filthy things you think!"  Wow, that's a good one!  They hit each other and then Frances tries to jump out of the window, with her young boys watching.  Vittorio thinks she's calm, but then she reaches for a bottle of pills and downs as many as she can. 

And Frances has a lot more crazy to dish out.  Vittorio comes home one day to find the apartment bare, with "Heil Mussolini" and "Heil Hitler" scrawled on the walls. 

Called to testify is Richard Behrens (John Glover), who met Frances in the early 60s in church.  Richard picks up on Frances not being "shy and retiring" as she jokes, an equally forward man.  "DICK...Behrens," he introduces himself, and Frances counters with a flirty handshake and an introduction of her name, "at least until my divorce is final."  "I only know three French phrases and I don't know you well enough to say the other two," Frances chirps as Richard gives her a cigarette at the church coffee social. 

Give Frances a witness stand, and she lights up!  In 1964, she's divorcing Vittorio and seems delighted by the proceedings.  After telling the court they had sex only once in nearly a year and a half, she claims he told her he "had an allergy to sex" and lists the men Vittorio accused her of having sex with (she says none of it is true, but she's awfully proud when listing).  During the trial, she's upset that she has to get up early to take care of the kids.  However, even fresh out of bed, Frances is capable of one hell of an argument, going rounds with her mother while the boys eat breakfast. 

Frances' father receives information "sent in confidence" proving Frances' bad actions, time with men, etc. and when she hears about it, she goes bonkers, first on her mother and then on her father.  Vittorio moves back to Italy after the divorce since he's bankrupt and loses contact with his sons for over five years.  Marilyn has even reported Frances to the police because she had disappeared and when Marilyn went to check on her, found "the door wide open" and the boys looking "like a couple of animals...eating chocolate cake and french fries.  They had gone down to the deli and begged for food."  Marilyn and her mother decide "something had to be done," but Berenice refuses to think of hospitalization due to the issues with her son.

While Frances lunches with Richard and they try to remember what happened during recent drunken binges, Marilyn and Berenice steal the kids.  Berenice leaves a note, but Frances doesn't discover it immediately because she has brought a strange man home.  Once she does find out, however, she books an airline ticket while stabbing the note with a huge kitchen knife.  To say Frances is pissed when she arrives in Salt Lake City is an understatement.  She physically assaults her mother, pushing her against a class China cabinet and takes her kids.  On the flight back, Frances pens a letter to her mother, not only full of rage, but also claiming that she's a better mother because she actually loves her kids and they love her, calling them "sincere emotions." 

Time shows that Frances' children are seriously disturbed.  She puts one in a special school, where he is diagnosed with "psychosis," but Frances doesn't pay the school's bills.  Is it any wonder?  Frances and Richard discuss this diagnosis over Chinese food (Frances doesn't cook) with both kids present.  She even compares her son to "The Bad Seed."  The poor kid believes what he hears, even though his brother tries to comfort him.  He won't sleep, instead banging his head against the bed, acting crazy like everyone says he is.  He has every reason to be worried, because in the next room, Frances is telling Richard that not only is she going to send the boys to Utah for the summer (sending them to the family she so despises, just to get rid of them), and plans to leave Lorenzo there because "he's getting to be an evil influence on Marco."

The boys actually flourish in Utah, allowed to have fun and enjoying the quiet.  "It's not so noisy...like New York," Marco says, with "New York" meaning "Mom."  Both sons are very upset when they hear Lorenzo is not to return to New York, though Lorenzo tries to pretend he's okay with it.  The look in his eyes when Marco leaves looks like a killer in the making.

Meanwhile, Frances marries again, to a Dutch businessman named Frederick Schreuder (Charles Howerton).  Someone had the fantastic idea to condense Frederick's ordeal to a wacky medley that shows a smiling wedding and a screaming couple in alternating snippets.  Frances is full on lunatic, destroying rooms, swallowing pills, a "best of" crazy Frances antics.  The union produces a child and her older boys are now called Marc and Larry, though officially adopted by Frederick, who never actually gets a line. 

In the hospital, Berenice prattles on that she finally convinced her husband to make a will and Frances only wants to know how much she's going to get of the $50 million Berenice claims her husband must have.  "A question never asked is a question never answered" she tells a clucking Marilyn when Frances asks how much, but refuses to give any details.  At the end of the monologue about money, without taking a breath, Berenice says to Frances, "you look sort of depressed."  "She seems sort of Frances to me," Marilyn says with a withering demeanor. 

The movie hits a definitely snag whenever it comes to the topic of money, but the snags are unfortunately necessary to understand the family dynamics regarding money.  Basically, Franklin is a "miser," Berenice wants to spend all of their money on her children and grandchildren and it gets so bad that Frances sues Franklin for stocks she believes are hers.  He counter sues, claiming Frances' "fiscal irresponsibility."  "I don't know how much longer this family can go on unless that crazy old man kicks the bucket," Frances says to herself, decked out wonderfully by the ocean on Fire Island.

At the trial, it's Marc's (Tate Donovan) turn to testify.  He testifies that he lived under constant pressure from his mother.  "You just don't say no to Mom," he says, "and if you did say no, she would scream and yell and go into hysterics and threaten to..." without finishing with "commit suicide." 

As the boys grow up (Larry is played by Frank Military), life stays as unbalanced as ever.  Frances never pays the bills and Marc has to hide a camera he bought in triple suitcases with locks so she won't hock it.  When Larry comes for a visit, he makes the mistake of not only mentioning Frederick, but also Aunt Marilyn, saying he wants to visit the latter.  "If you do, don't expect to come back here.  Is that understood?" Frances threatens. 

Frances is ever the manipulator.  Upon hearing Franklin is sick with the flu, she dictates a flowery letter for Marc to write, gushing over his ailing grandfather, who thinks it's "the nicest darn letter I've ever received."  Everyone believes it's real!  This comes about because there are rumors Franklin discussed rewriting his will to cut out Frances and her kids.  Frances, on a grand bed with a tray of food and plenty of luxury, gripes to Marc that if money doesn't come from her parents soon, she'll have to move to Harlem, although she prefers that to Salt Lake City when Marc suggests that as an option.  In this same conversation, she also talks for the first time of her father dying of "unnatural causes." 

Our darling Frances actually means it.  She asks Richard to get her a gun because "she wanted to kill her father." 

As daughter Ariadne is becoming a little girl, Frances decides "you're going to be a dancer," tossing around the room with her mother.  Ariadne isn't sure if she wants to do it, but Frances has already decided it's to be.  She's just as nutso with Marc, who is quite the school brainiac.  On a phone call, she treats him almost like a lover, but also wants to discuss a certain subject that Marc is hoping to avoid.  It can't be mentioned over the phone, because a drinking and pill-popping Frances thinks her phones are tapped.  "The discussion part of the situation is rapidly drawing to a close," she says. 

Frances has a howler of a conversation with Richard.  It starts with getting Ariadne into a proper elementary school and then moves on to her favorite topic of patricide.  Richard jokes she should get a hit man, but Frances says, "I have two," her sons, "although they don't know it yet.  It's time they did something for their mother after all the sacrifices I've made for them" and then finishes that sentence back on the topic of her daughter's education. 

By the mid-70s, Vittorio is back.  "I'd say money-wise, your new wife did a lot better than I did," Frances says to him as they try to have a friendly lunch.  The argue a bit about Larry and she talks of plans for a house in The Hamptons.  He wonders where the money is coming from, but she remains coy.  She certainly acts like a woman with money.  When she takes her daughter to be enrolled in a fancy school, she hires a limousine to do it!

Back on the witness stand, Marc tells the court that in the summer of 1977, they were sent to Salt Lake City.  Why?  "We came out to steal some money for Mom and at the same time, we were supposed to kill Grandfather," he says.  Well, that's succinct.  How she got them to do it is really just her old manipulation tricks.  She guilts them about going to fancy schools while "your little sister and I will walk the streets of Harlem."  Frances assures them that "if you do it right, you won't get caught.  Do you know how many people do that to each other every day and never get caught?"  Playing cards later, she tells them to pretend it's an intruder.  No, Granny will wake up.  How about setting fire to the warehouse when he's alone?  Larry seems to get into it, wanting to do it in the bathtub.  Ideas come, ideas go, but one finally sticks.  "We were supposed to put amphetamines in his food...to induce a heart attack," Marc testifies.  Larry doesn't want to do it, but Marc tells him "we'll be locked out forever" if they don't. 

With pills sewn into stuffed animals, the boys head to Salt Lake City as planned.  Marc finds stealing money very easy, and Frances is thrilled.  "What about the primary objective?...I want a progress report every day!" she tells Marc, as if this is a precise military action.  She's downright giddy with all that's going on.  Of course, it helps that she's at an opulent summer home, the kind of place that makes anyone giddy, preparing for murder or not.  When the murder is constantly delayed, Frances goes on a tirade, berating Marc into tears, but the movie is mute, playing music instead of dialogue, a very clever device.

Franklin figures out the boys have been ripping him off.  He throws the boys out of the warehouse.  The bank is willing to replace the money, but only if Franklin deals with "the federal offense" of theft.  Unbelievably, Franklin is still conflicted, because "it's still family."  He does add a rider to his will cutting out Frances and the boys.  "If Larry had only done what he was supposed to do, none of this would have happened.  He blew it!" she bellows at Richard.  After dealing with "amateurs," Frances decides "it's time to go professional" and wants Richard to find someone.  She even tells Vittorio proudly, but he doesn't take any action to stop her. 

Frances blows through the stolen money in no time and calls her mother for money.  She lists all of her bills, but her mother says she can't afford to pay them.  Frances says she's sending the bills to her mother "return mail and if you don't pay them, I will never speak to you again!"  Her mother does forge checks in her husband's name.

Through Richard, Frances meets Waring (Harris Laskawy), who is to do the hit.  He asks a lot of questions she doesn't want to answer, so she contents him by saying it's a financial matter.  "It usually is," he says dryly.  Once again, as the plan is put in motion, the dialogue is muted, but we get the point as Frances hands Waring pictures and cash.  According to his testimony, he never actually intended to do it, "that it couldn't be done."  Frances, though upset at being ripped off, is not finished with the idea of bumping off her father. 

Any of you who read about "North and South" in this column will remember the power of Inga Swenson's Christmas Sing-a-Long, and wouldn't you know, she gets to repeat the act here!  This time, it's the 1970s and she's with her parents in Salt Lake City, but there is our girl, belting out Christmas numbers to cheer her family.  Afterwards, Marilyn and her mother discuss Frances and her kids, who have stopped talked to the rest of the family (except for Larry).  Marilyn asks if Franklin ever revised his will formally and Berenice doesn't know, but if he did, "that certainly puts you in the cat bird seat," without realizing how frightening that is, since the new will would make her executor, and therefore the target of Frances' ire. 

Back in New York, things are getting worse.  Larry is locked out of the apartment.  Why?  His grades.  "I told him a 4.0.  A 3.7 just doesn't cut it in this family," Frances rages as Larry bangs at the door and Marc pleads with his mother to allow Larry inside.  When Marc lets him in, Frances has perhaps her scariest moment of the movie yet.  "Okay, Marc, you let him in, you get him out...or you will be out too.  Out," she says, but with a calm demeanor belied only by flashing intense eyes.  It's worse than one of her tirades! 

When it comes to her father's money, Frances is obsessed.  She's back to the idea of killing him and the only one who can do it is Marc, who somehow stays loyal to his insane mother.  He wants to know why he has to do it.  "You're the only one I can trust.  I've told you that a thousand times," she coos before planting a lingering kiss on his lips.  "Life wouldn't be worth living under the current circumstances," she also says, once again threatening to kill herself, which is something Marc can't fathom.  "You want that on your conscience for the rest of your life?" she says, pushing it one step further.  A montage of silent scenes follow, with plans being made, Marc vacillating and finally being thrown out of the house as well, more suicide attempts and lots of Ariadne's dancing. 

Finally, Marc caves, calls a friend in Texas to help him buy a gun and then heads West.  He practices using a gun, spends a nervous night in a motel and then goes to Franklin's warehouse on a Sunday morning when no one else is there but his unsuspecting grandfather.  The tension is high as Franklin chit chats while making a pot of coffee and Marc stands behind him, gun ready.  We don't see the shooting, but we hear it.  We only see Marc leaving the warehouse. 

When the police come to question Berenice, Elizabeth Wilson's hysterics are dead on.  She never gives up her daughter, never suggests there is anything but harmony in the family, though she does admit the will is universally detested.  Larry even seems a bit brainwashed.  "He was a very nice man," he tells the police of his grandfather, also saying he can't think of anyone who would do such a thing.  The police do ask about Frances, but Larry is fairly vague. 

Marc arrives home to a jubilant Frances, though she wants to make sure there were no "hitches."  She tells him to get rid of the gun and he cracks, "you might need it again sometime," to which she icily replies, "I'm going to overlook that impertinent remark and attribute it to the extenuating circumstances of your mental state.  No one saw you at all, right?"  Her motherly affection has its limits.  She's not any smarter than her son when it comes to the gun.  She brings it to Richard to get rid of.  He asks, logically, why she didn't just throw it in the river?  She claims not to be thinking right.  "I only have this dope's word for it that it went all right," she tells Richard, nodding backward at poor Marc.  She's only worried about herself.  Despite Marc's assurances that everything went smoothly, she is only focused on Richard getting rid of the gun. 

Marilyn takes the will to the Detective Campbell (Robert Shenkkan), who begin to hear some stories about Frances and her sons, but only enough to wonder a little.  Even Frances goes to Salt Lake City with her sisters for the funeral.  Elizabeth Wilson gets another great scene with her three girls assembled, crying that after 50 years of marriage, they never had wedding rings.  However, Lee Remick isn't about to let anyone steal so much as a scene from her, so her acting at the funeral is a downright hoot!  Drenched in black, veil at all, she sobs uncontrollably, so much so that everyone in the church, including the police, focus their attention on her. 

Frances then goes to Campbell, still in the veil, and when asked what she knows about the murder, she says only that "he never knew what hit him," which the police find a bit strange.  She turns into a chatterbox about her glamorous life in Europe with Frederick.  She is asked about the stealing of the previous summer and at first pretends to know nothing of it, but at the crucial moment when the cop thinks she is about to spill all, Frances says of the forged checks, "my mother has been doing that for years!"  Campbell is stunned, and, knowing she's gotten him off the scent, at least for now, she puts back on the veil and says she can't talk about it.  Masterful!  Frances claims that, "I knew my father better than anyone else, including my mother!"  She tries just about anything she can to keep the cop thinking of others instead of her. 

Marilyn and Elaine try to get their mother to see the truth, suggesting Larry could have easily pulled off the murder, but Berenice is blind to it (she's his alibi, and she's actually right in her defense of him).  Why would he do it, she wants to know.  "Because someone asked him to," Marilyn says, trading looks with Elaine that come right out of a classic film noir. 

Back in NYC, Frances has one of the most interesting therapy sessions I've ever seen.  She pretty much has herself convinced that her father was killed during a robbery like everyone else.  She jumps from that to the state of the NYC subway system and then to the $3000 a month she is receiving from the estate until the will is sorted out.  That's hardly enough, she claims.

To Marilyn's dismay, Larry passes a lie detector test.  It proves that he did not commit the crime, but it does say that he has "undisclosed knowledge" that means very little since polygraphs do not tell much.  The police are still investigating, but they have gotten nowhere in five months. 

Flush with cash, and speaking like a dictionary on crack, Frances tells her latest suitor that she's been invited to underwrite a New York City Ballet gala.  At the same time, sister Elaine has called the FBI and given them all the information she has on Frances.

But we have to watch out for Richard.  He takes Marc for a walk and ask him "what did it feel like?"  Marc is so brainwashed that he says he had to do it since his mother "is my only friend."  Richard pushes the issue, demanding to know what it actually felt to like to kill another human being. 

Frances does indeed get her gala, but the old guard of the ballet board doesn't like her.  "She's prepared to buy her way onto the board," one old dame croaks.  "It would set the ballet back a generation."  But, Frances is having too much fun playing the rich diva to even notice.  She almost brings the party to a halt when she yells at her mother in an argument about Ariadne's behavior. 

A year and a half after the murder, the Campbell admit to Marilyn that the case is "on the back burner," but she is still convinced Larry did it.  She extracts gossip from her mother that Marc couldn't go to college because he was caught stealing high school property, but that Larry is doing wonderfully in college.

Really?  After sex with a girl, he tells her she's the first he's ever had "without having to pay for it" and that his "roommate is really messing with my head...he's sending out all these alpha waves...I think he's trying to turn me into a girl."  Riiiiiiiiight. 

Richard asks Frances to open a joint bank account with him because he needs to hide some money in order to get a loan. 

Larry snaps over the whole alpha wave issue and bludgeons his roommate with a hammer.  He's locked up in an institution, where Frances treats him like a failure still.  "I don't know why you didn't kill him, which I what I assume your intentions were," she says and then laughs about the alpha waves.  "I suppose a psychotic episode was inevitable sooner or later," she quips.  Berenice still won't believe Larry capable of actual murder when Marilyn uses this as evidence that Larry must have killed his grandfather. 

Back at the ballet, Frances is still being tolerated by everyone because she throws around money.  She ponies up $350K for a new Balanchine piece and can't even pronounce the man's name right.  "I've really begun to think of him as my spiritual father," she says in another great moment of self-delusion. 

The bank informs Richard that $3K is missing from the joint account and he's furious, wanting it back, but Frances refuses to say she took it.  "Call the police, mother!" she bellows and storms out.  Making an enemy out of Richard is not going to be a good idea.  You can see where this is leading.  Marc has little sympathy for him, saying he should never have gone into a financial venture with Frances of all people (oh, and they mention in passing that Larry got 2-5 years for the attempted murder of his roommate).  Fuming, Richard contacts everyone about the money, including Marilyn.  In one of his many phone calls, Richard tells her that Larry didn't murder Franklin, that Marc did.  He tells her he even has the gun and gives it to her. 

Marilyn takes the gun to the police in New York City, who contact the Salt Lake City police.  She promises Richard she will not tell anyone where she got the gun and sticks to that when Campbell from Utah come to New York.  The cop's next stop is Marc at college, though Marc keeps saying he must want his brother, in jail already for attempted murder.  It should be easy to sell his insane brother down the river.  Marc panics and calls his mother as Campbell goes off to Texas to trace Marc's gun purchase.  Frances is too upset to deal with the news because John Lennon has just been shot.  Her attachment to reality is really slipping.  Finally, Marilyn has to tell the police about Richard.  He's the missing link. 

Naturally, Richard tells all.  "I suddenly realized I was the only person who knew about this," he says, going further that he was worried that Frances has a habit of turning on people and he worried he could be next.  This proves to be enough evidence to arrest Marc.  "Do you know what happens to attractive young boys in jail?" Frances asks her mother, before demanding $125K in bail money.  And she gets it!  Richard and Frances meet, where she berates him for being stupid since he's so involved, but Richard says he has in writing that he is immune from prosecution.  "You've made the most terrible mistake.  I feel really sorry for you," she tells Richard and then tells him to say that none of it is true.  He still wants his money, but she comes up with a great retort for that: "They are out there testing the trap door for the gallows for my son and all you can think about is money!"  Saying "I'm not a nasty person by nature," she threatens Richard that if he doesn't recant, she will tell the cops about his involvement and then goes one very scary step further, that Marc has murdered once in a "drastic situation."  Richard gulps big time hearing that. 

Richard recants his story under threat from Frances.  Campbell is furious and another detective, Mike George (Daniel Hugh Kelly) is brought in to help.  However, the police aren't finished with Richard and arrest him on obstruction of justice. 

Frances, who somehow got herself a position on the ballet board, worries now about Ariadne's audition to its dance company.  She won't let Ariadne eat and when the poor kid asks for a piece of toast, she goes into one of her rambling tirades.  "Can you imagine her eating one of your meals that makes her little tummy bloat like a fatso?" she asks her mother while Ariadne, looking painfully thin and sick, is still at the table.  "Today is the day you become the youngest member of the American Ballet Company and if you don't, I'll put you up for adoption," Frances says with a giggle.  Ariadne is understandably horrified.  Luckily, they take Ariadne, because if they hadn't, one can only guess what Frances would have done!

The police finally have enough evidence to arrest Marc.  How does Frances react to this?  "It's an outrage...luckily it wasn't in the papers, only the Daily News.  I don't know anyone who reads the Daily News.  If it had been The New York Times, I'd have been ruined!"  Basically, just what you would expect from her at this point.  Mike George is given the task of visiting Larry in the institution, but he's of little help until Mike mentions Frances.  At that point, he gets scared.  "My mom has a real irresistible personality," he says. 

The net is closing in on Frances, who threatens Marc that if he gives her up, "I'll be of no used to you if I'm incarcerated."  But, Marilyn is convinced of Frances' guilt and so is Vittorio, who has no idea his son has been arrested until Mike George shows up in his office.  Marc wants to move from his flop house into Frances' apartment, but Frances is resolute, saying "the less you're around me, the better for the both of us."  "It's me they're trying to nail, not you," Marc says and then Frances has the most chilling line of the whole crazy movie: "And that's the way I want to keep it!"  She tries to slither out of that, but we all know it's true.  With a lingering kiss, she sends Marc off, saying "you've been here too long already."  Marc's lawyer insists that Frances was involved and begs Marc to give her up.  His nerves shot, he finally admits it.  At the same time, Richard, promised immunity, tells Mike George his story, recanting his recantation, and tells them even more than they ever expected. 

The police finally arrive to arrest Frances and she tries jumping out the window to avoid arrest.  Marc is extradited to Utah and Frances posts bail at Riker's Island, snapping at the limo driver for being late.  However, once back at home, she's off in her alternate universe!  She delights over the cards sent to her by everyone at the ballet.  She even got a note from Balanchine, but has also heard rumors that they want her off the board.  She celebrates her freedom with her mother and daughter, forcing the latter to eat caviar because one has to learn to love it. 

It's decided to try Marc and Frances separately, but Marc refuses to testify against his mother.  So, his new lawyers decide to put his old lawyer on the stand, with his permission.  Finally, the truth is heard in open court.  Berenice still sticks by her daughter, but Frances of course tells her that Marc is lying and she had no involvement.  Frances continues with life as normal, buying jewelry and soaking her mother for millions.  Marc is sentenced to prison and Frances is doing the social whirl.

A year later, the police ask Marc to reconsider testifying against his mother.  "You help us and we'll help you," they tell him, knowing that he's not exactly enjoying prison!  He agrees and Frances is summoned to Utah for a trial.  Bits of the testimony are repeated in a quick montage.  Frances watches it all, toying with a cigarette lighter and seemingly nonchalant until Marc actually arrives to testify, something she thought would never actually happen.  Frances breaks down during the testimony, and unbelievably, her mother reaches to calm her down.  Berenice still believes Frances will go free because it's all lies.  Wow, the power of self-deception is staggering! 

Frances is found guilty.  She has no reaction to the verdict and is spared the death penalty for life in prison. 

Crime like this was once the lifeblood of TV movies, but this one does it differently.  This one relies on the fascinating character at the center of the horrible crime rather than the crime itself.  The combination of Frances Schreuder and Lee Remick playing her is unbeatable!