Autumn Born

It's really much too bad that Dorthy Stratten, who was probably one of the prettiest females to grace this planet, wasn't around longer to make more and better movies. We are left with Galaxina and Autumn Born, the former being the much better known of her two movies. This movie Autumn Born is good at what it is, which, in addition to being a "sexploitation" movie, is almost a perfect, text-book account of how to brainwash someone. Though certainly an unpleasant subject, people should realize that this is a real technique that is used upon unwilling people to cause them to be subjective to other people "the masters". It's a fairly well-made film, for a low-budget feature and one of the only two movies you'll find Dorthy Stratten in, so if your a Stratten fan or interested in brainwashing, then go for it.

If you're a fan of the films of Doris Wishman, you have got to check out the first film featuring "Star 80" Dorothy Stratten. It's a torrid tale of a young heiress who's kidnapped and locked in a room until she agrees to give up her fortune. Beatings, torture and really awful acting ensue.

See Dorothy yell at the walls for the awful music to stop! See Dorothy get whipped repeatedly! See Dorothy bond with a wind-up toy mouse! See Dorothy look humiliated as she takes a bath! See Dorothy engage in softcore lesbianism with a woman that looks like Mary Woronov!

Why this film hasn't gotten a cult rep I don't know. Well, here's my shot at trying.

All the acting is poor. The plot is weak. The film is merely a vehicle to display Dorothy Stratten's body. On that count, well done. But, even that is not enough to maintain an interest to the end.

The fictional filming of this movie is shown in the Bob Fosse film STAR 80, which is about the death of Dorothy Stratten, and is called "Wednesday's Child" instead of "Autumn Born". In STAR 80, Dorothy Stratten, played by Muriel Hemingway, is being slapped by an actor, and she bites into a blood pellet too soon, and the director gets mad at her. And then Eric Roberts, who plays Strattens crazy boyfriend/husband Paul Snider, calls her up and gets her to cry on the set. That's in STAR 80 and the movie "Wednesday's Child" is really this movie, "Autumn Born", and it's plain awful. It looks like a porno, has acting like a porno, has music like a porno, but doesn't pay off at all... There is lesbianism involved but they kiss each others noses and that's it... The sex is all edited out for the most part, and all that's left is horrific acting... They cut out so much sex that it doesn't even seem as if this movie deserves an R rating... It's awful, but somewhat fun to watch I guess. In one scene, Stratten falls in love with a wind up mouse (!!!), and then she hears voices in another room singing the Three Blind Mice song, about the farmer's daughter cutting off the mouse's tail, and Stratten begins crying and trying to hide the mouse inside the walls. Since this film mainly deals with lesbianism, they should have at least shown some real kissing, or something other than badly edited nose pecks. To note: other films mentioned in STAR 80 that in real life starred Stratten are "Ballbearings" that is really "Skatetown USA", and there's the movie "They All Laughed" shown, but that title isn't mentioned in STAR 80. Anyhow, since the Fosse film is one of my all time favorite movies, I checked out this one, "Autumn Born", aka, "Wednesday's Child", and I wish I hadn't, because it was a big tease and nothing more.

Many elements of this movie went into Bob Fosse's film. He watched this movie and took a lot of its music, other things like that for his film. There are many campy elements that Fosse picked up on that have made this a cult movie. Dorothy driving a (I think) Rolls is a beautiful shot, you wish you were blonde and rich in 1979. Dorothy's talking style is similar to many of us girls when people have accused us of talking wooden or stilted when it is our natural speaking voice, which makes a girl feel better that we talk as good as an actress. When she tells the other girl "you're a really nice person" my friend said, she says it just like you and then I knew it wasn't really wooden.

The other actors are quite interesting in their delivery, and there is a weird little music that plays over the intercom. Dorothy yelling, stop playing that bloody music is a high point and makes you feel comfortable, if you grew up hearing people yell bloody fool and things like that.

She looks her stunning self in every scene. The end is quite clear, the uncle is trapped and they will all live in the mansion with the uncle in the little room.

The best campy line is the woman saying, when Dorothy is about to paint her toes, Oh no, I detest that rustic shade! All the elements make it a bizarre, high camp movie. But for soome reason easygoing, tolerant people can barely sit through it once.