Word: winterizer
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Although this winter has been unusually cold and snowy, officials at the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) said that it is still not safe to walk or skate on the Charles River, even if it appears to be completely frozen over...
...three films are tales of an innocent person drawn into a web of complicity and accused of murder. All three trade in multiple female identities and tease the viewer into hoping the heroine will take one more step in the dark. Now for the differences. Winter is a dud in a handsome shell. Window has a cunning plot but not much craft. Widow rides smoothly on Hitchcockian tracks until it finds its own detours of style and psychology...
Hitchcock's Rope begins with a brutal murder performed by two homoerotic psychopaths. Dead of Winter could be the events leading up to that crime. Dr. Lewis (Jan Rubes) is an elderly psychiatrist; Mr. Murray (Roddy McDowall) is his aide-de-camp in blackmailing. As part of their scheme to defraud a wealthy ( woman, they hire an actress, Katie McGovern (Mary Steenburgen), to impersonate the woman's dead sister. Katie doesn't realize she is taping a video ransom note. Ever conscientious, she tells her sly captors, "I'm gonna take a beat after the line 'There was blood everywhere...
...dead woman, her scheming sister and the plucky gal who must literally act to save her own life, Steenburgen finds a few shadings in each caricature. But the script (by Marc Shmuger and Mark Malone) begins with intrigue, caroms into implausibility and finally sinks the film. Dead of Winter is like an all-frills flight: good service and a smooth ride, but at the end you find you've gone nowhere...
...titles of these Hitchcock knock-offs may be as confusing as the identities of a slinky serial killer. Winter? Window? Widow? Which is the winner? Easy: the one with Winger. Of the recent thrillers that measure themselves against the old Master of Suspense, Black Widow is the one that measures...