Love in the Present Tense (1982) (TV)

Director:

Tony Mordente

Writer:

Barbara London (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

An accident, A broken career...Then love walks in!

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Deborah Foreman	...	Heather Jenkins
Jourdan Fremin	...	Vicky
Rita Gam	...	Mitzi
Harvey Grant	...	Hank (as Hank Grant)
Jack Riley	...	Alex
Barbara London	...	Roz
Tom McGreevy	...	Rick (as Thomas MacGreevy)
Millie Perkins	...	Vera Jenkins
Doris Roberts	...	Maggie
Kelly Bennett
Joanne Casey
Daniel Leon
Bill Richards

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Quotes:

Rick: [after Heather confesses to having a crush on Rick] I thought you had a crush on Antonio?
Daughter: [laughing] I do.

Inane Potboiler Along Predictable Lines.

One from a grouping of largely mawkish feature films created for television and released under a rubric of Romance Theatre, with Louis Jourdan offering thankfully brief introductions in Gallic tones that are meant to outline major characteristics of Woman, this effort is perhaps the sloppiest made of the lot, due to substandard production values and a shallowly crafted script. Millie Perkins is cast as Vera Jenkins, one-time renowned fashion model whose career washes out following the death of her husband in a road accident that also took the life of his clandestine lover, a pregnant Vera therewith, to avoid marital scandal discussion, deciding upon remaining distant from New York fashion runways until 18 years later when her daughter Heather (Deborah Foreman) determines that she will follow along her mother's path toward modeling glory. As action opens, famed fashion photographer Rick Willis (Thomas MacGreevy) is doing a shoot of Heather, witnessed by Vera and, as shall be expected, liberties are taken at the expense of logic as he and Vera promptly fall in love, an event to which his most recent inamorata is clearly allergic, her malaise extending to the origination of gossip material about the lovestruck couple, thereby also reducing the likelihood of Heather's success in her newborn career. This gives mother and daughter natural opportunities for each to utilize toward saving the other from some form of heartbreak, a danger without which films of this Soap Opera genre would fall to incomprehensibility, a state nonetheless quite possible in this case as both dialogue and playing are designed to remain completely predictable. The storyline will be devoid of interest for most viewers, with nearly every scene being poorly wrought, and there are a great many of them, with fades a-plenty leading into manifest commercial interruptions. Since the work is shot from videotape, using only single takes, acting is often awkward, replete with swallowed words in addition to forgotten and fumbled lines. Direction is marked by poor setups, and while the budget is low, production characteristics are lower yet, with notably low-grade sets. Dialogue is frequently risible, a favourite line belonging to Rick as he gazes randily at Vera: "If this wasn't a work day, I would ravage you now." One (as well as Vera) might hope that the screenplay uses "ravish" since it is probable that only the sensibilities of clear-witted viewers are apt to be ravaged if a choice has been made to sit through this pap - certainly, this is one to be missed