Death Sentence

Cloris Leachman plays a wife and mother about to go on vacation with her husband when she's picked for jury duty on a murder trial; naturally, she's eager to be a good citizen, becoming emotionally (and personally) involved in the legal proceedings. Aaron Spelling-Leonard Goldberg production for TV isn't a flashy vehicle for the leading actress, but it doesn't need to be. Leachman is an appealing 'ordinary' woman, a good listener with a compassionate nature, and both her home life and her dedication to finding the truth in the murder case are engaging. Nick Nolte has an early role as the accused killer, and Laurence Luckinbill is appropriately smug as Leachman's spouse. The plot, adapted from the novel "After the Trial" by Eric Roman, is far-fetched, but waiting to see how writer John Neufeld and director E.W. Swackhamer work out all the angles is entertaining.

One out of dozens and dozens of tightly constructed TV movies of the 1970's (some hilariously bad, some unforgettably distinctive, most - sadly - missing in action!) Hincks is a clinging mistress, desperate to hang on to her married lover (Luckinbill) despite her own good-looking, but hard-drinking husband (Nolte.) When she pushes too far, Luckinbill does her in, but lets Nolte take the rap. Leachman plays a sincere and naive jurist at the trial who begins to doubt Nolte's guilt despite everyone else's sense that he killed her. When she begins to put the pieces together, she finds that she may have imposed a death sentence on herself! Made when Leachman was still knocking them dead on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and about to embark on "Phyllis", she clearly tries to downplay her glamor and attractiveness for this "serious" role. The result is high comedy almost as funny as what she did in her sitcoms! With mousy hair parted in the center, no make-up and some really ugly glasses, she spends the entire movie with the same pinched, unappealing expression on her face. Her character is dippy to begin with, but she adds extra hilarity through her wooden reactions to the events around her until she is forced to confront the killer personally, at which point the film soars into the comic stratosphere. Sopping wet, wearing ugly cream-colored heels and with her glasses all smeared, she creates the most abhorrent expressions paired with the zaniest physical manifestations. She flails around at the end like someone who's being zapped with a cattle prod! All this work and her name isn't even printed on the DVD case! Luckinbill gives a decent double-edged performance. Nolte, at the very start of his career, has almost nothing to do (and his case is never properly resolved.) Various familiar TV actors dot the cast such as Oppenheimer and Schallert as lawyers and Lang (famous for her hysterical turn in "The Birds") as the victim's devastated and opinionated mother. As loony as it is (and there is one twist to the tale not divulged here), it's great to see some of these old films turning up as they are too enjoyable (for either the right or the wrong reasons) to stay buried in a vault somewhere.

"It was a dark and stormy night," typed Snoopy, writing the final scene of this murder mystery movie of the week.

"Death Sentence" was quite an enjoyable picture with many moments of tension and suspense. And it's always fun to see familiar television actors picking up a few extra bucks between seasons. I did wonder what audiences in 1974 thought of flighty and flaky Phyllis Lindstrom playing it straight as a tightly wound mousy housewife with undiagnosed OCD, meticulously recording her car's mileage after each jaunt. The producers did take pains to disguise her usual effervescent appearance, but nothing could hide Leachman's signature halting stop-start speech pattern. I thought she did a fine job in this subtle and unglamourous role.

Also cast against type were sitcom vets Alan Oppenheimer and William Schallert playing the poor man's Perry Mason and Hamilton Burger. Their comedic default settings were on display, however, with Oppenheimer's mischievous grins as he made outrageous speculations he knew would be stricken from the record (even if not the minds of the jury). And Schallert's apoplectic objections were akin to those Mr. Pomfritt once made to Dobie and Maynard's monkeyshines.

Special mention must be made of Laurence Luckinbill toggling between calm reserve and wild-eyed wacko and whose manic facial expressions brought to mind his over-the-top performance as Sybok in STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER. He was well cast and it was his unpredictability that lent the story much of its suspense. I loved him looming from the balcony and idly plucking a leaf as a metaphor for... murder.

I wondered if Woody Allen of all people caught this movie on an idle evening. The crazy mistress scene has striking parallels to the similar confrontation between Anjelica Huston and Martin Landau in CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS. One almost sympathizes with the adulterous man who ends the affair with dignity and grace and suddenly faces an unhinged hell-hath-no-fury spurned woman shrieking threats of exposing him to his wife and community. I mean, did Marilyn really think screaming about ruining his life would win his heart and woo him away from his wife and children?

Vicki Lawrence taught me not to trust my soul to no backwoods southern lawyer. I would add sitcom stars playing lawyers in TV movies. Two glaring oversights by the attorneys in this case: (1) the scarf was left wrapped around the neck of the victim. Since it had been for two winters wrapped around the neck of the murderer, it likely had tell-tale hairs, cologne or aftershave traces or other incriminating evidence embedded within it. No mention was made of a forensic test ever being conducted, just the banal fact it was a common scarf available in a lot of local stores.

And (2) was what should have been the defense's trump card: The coroner declared the victim was killed at 10pm with a window of an hour each way. The bartender and the policeman should have been subpoenaed to testify that Nick Nolte's character was languishing in the bar long before 10 o'clock, long enough to drink himself into a stupor. And if Nolte had murdered his wife, would he (a) have left the body on the floor, and (b) have allowed a policeman to take him all the way inside his home?

I think these incontrovertible facts would have punctured even Mr. Bracken's premature and impenetrable conviction that Nolte was guilty. But they were inexplicably never raised.

A quibble that could have quashed the testimony of Mayberry's own Hope Summers: She testified to watching her game show from 8:30 to 9. She later adds she went to bed at 10, "right after my movie." Huh? What movie runs one hour? And besides, we clearly hear a game show ending when she turns off the set and announces "show's over." There never was a movie.

Another quibble: What was with Murray MacLeod hemming and hawing and keeping it fair until provoked, then suddenly vividly recalling the car was a cream-colored station wagon? His cheeky testimony should have been impeached not chuckled along with.

A credits quibble: Herb Voland played the harrumphing jury foreman Mr. Bracken, not Lew Brown as the credits read. Brown played the man holding out on a verdict, while the woman going all Henry Fonda was played by Meg Wylie. Of course, Cloris was holding out too but wasn't questioned. She had her reasons... very compelling ones too, as it turned out.

But it was Cloris' cake in the rain moment racing about and imagining things through windows where the movie kinda lost me (and lost a star). It also lost momentum as the conversation between Leachman and Luckinbill dragged on when we all knew what happened and what was going to happen. Cloris had to know if her husband murdered Marilyn he would kill her too.

A sequestered juror escaping would probably result in a mistrial, but of course startling new evidence was uncovered. I'm glad the movie ended where it did, leaving me confident that Nolte would be acquitted and free to murder his mother-in-law Doreen Lang, who knew all along he was innocent and her daughter pregnant by a paramour. But that's just fiction. Pity poor Luckinbill, whose real-life mother-in-law was Lucille Ball o' Fire, the original henna-rinse ginger.

This is a TV movie that has Nick Nolte in a minor role. He does not have many lines in this one. If I remember right, Chloris Leachman is actually the star of this film which is a predictable court room drama and is not indicative of Nolte's acting talents at all.

The box for this film has Nolte pictured on it but he is very seldom seen in this film.

I bought this DVD for $.88 and has Nick Nolte larger on the cover than Cloris Leachman. The mistress' acting in this movie was so bad I was delighted she was offed quickly. During the court scenes I kept hoping to maybe see a flashback or two of Nolte and his relationship with the deceased, but nope .. then again as I said, her acting was so bad anyway, I gave up caring. What little lines they handed out for Nolte were disappointing. Cloris Leachman appeared pained in struggling to give each and every one of her lines as if to say, "Nobody could be this dimwitted."

When Lawrence Luckinbill, Leachman's husband in the movie was preparing to strangle her, I was almost hoping the movie was going to improve. What little of Nolte was in this movie, the only thing that was on my mind was if he was wearing a wig or not since the hair didn't move when his forehead moved. Pass on this one folks .. it is so bad it qualifies for its' own death sentence.