With Murder in Mind

Before I give my comment on the TV-movie With Murder In Mind I would like to apologize if my English is not correct, for it is not my native language (I am Dutch).

I saw the movie on Friday the 30th of July on ARD (German television) at 12.30 A.M.. Although I expected that the movie would be nothing much, I watched it because I happen to like American TV-movies, especially when they are based on true facts, because the story is often easy to follow without really watching it all of the time. But this time I was really shocked, especially by the last act. As if it is not enough that she wins, the victim, a typical middle-class woman (the heroine), gets the good news (at least for her) on the television of the conviction of the alleged perpetrator (the villain) just at the same time (you won't believe it) as there is a family wedding going on at her house. What shocked me in this act was the complete lack of compassion towards the man who was eventually convicted. To me it felt like a justification, like some kind of statement of the director: 'that's what you're going to miss (very special important family occasions like a family wedding) for a long, long time and it serves you right, you dirty bastard!'

And what to think of the indifference of the announcement that the alleged perpetrator was sentenced to 29 up to 75 (!!!) years. With all due respect, but no suffering whatsoever of any victim justifies this kind of sentences. They are only for people who like to believe in simple black and white fairy-tales (and Americans love to do that!). They have absolutely nothing to do with reality. In Holland you can get 20 years of imprisonment at the most! And to me that is fair and realistic. I believe that everybody, and I mean everybody has a right to a certain minimum of compassion, because that is what human rights are all about. I can not help thinking that this is some kind of propaganda against any humane punishment and/or treatment of convicts. I know it is most likely that I am wrong, but if that is the case then I would like to hear that from director Michael Tuchner himself.

That last scene shocked me so much that I could not eat or sleep properly for several days. And even now as I am writing this I still get emotional about it. And I would not have been so upset if this movie had not been based on true facts. That is how I found this Website: I wanted to know the names of the characters involved, because I am very anxious to find out what happened to them after the movie and, if possible, to give Michael Tuchner a peace of my mind in person about this piece of crap.

All in all it turned out to be a very typical American TV-movie: Tuchner has succeeded in reducing a very complex reality into a simple black and white fairy-tale of the cheapest kind. To me that is totally irresponsible, especially in this delicate case (at least to me) where at the time that this movie was made the convict still claimed that he is innocent. And on top of that the story is told from the viewpoint of the winner. And especially in America the winner is always right. It is supposed to be a movie with a message, but I doubt if it was meant to be the message that I got: the only thing that matters is that you win, do not care about what happens to the loser. The winner takes all, be-cause (s)he is oh so righteous that only heaven is good enough and the loser gets nothing, because (s)he is always a devious crook who only deserves to live in hell.

Elizabeth Montgomery as a real estate agent is robbed and shot while showing a house. She later spots the guy, Howard Rollins, at a fairground, where he's a volunteer mounted police officer. She reports him to the police, he's arrested and convicted, and is now serving a long sentence in Attica.

It's hard to know how to assess this movie. Not because of the execution, which is routine, and not because of the acting. The principals -- Montgomery, Rollins, and Foxworth are fine. In fact Montgomery looks rather better than "fine" despite her age and impending terminal illness.

It's that the movie seems to be self contradictory. It wants to assure us that justice has been carried out but what we are shown leaves us with too many doubts.

It is all shown from the victim's point of view, which is okay in itself, except that we must realize that the living victim (this is based on a real incident) is liable to have a bit more weight when it comes to shaping the material than is the convicted black criminal who is now somebody's bitch upstate. We don't get to hear very much from Rollins.

Could Montgomery have been mistaken when she just happened to spot Rollins astride his horse at the fair? Well, she is absolutely certain. But another woman who was a witness says that Rollins resembles the perpetrator, but "on a scale of 10, he's a 7 or 8." (How do you measure something like "reasonable doubt"? What's the scale, and where's the threshold?) And why did Montgomery, having stumbled across the perp by accident and having immediately identified him to her own satisfaction, wait around until the next day to inform the police over a casual lunch about the event?

The trial itself doesn't seem to resolve any of these issues. Montgomery identifies Rollins' voice through a closed door but that's a notoriously poor means of identification. Out of three speakers in the line up, she had one chance in three of guessing Rollins even if he'd been innocent. Rollins may or may not have had some connection with drugs. But he's well spoken and is a prosperous upright citizen. He runs a security business that protects dozens of shopping centers, he goes to church regularly, has a family (which we don't get to see), is a part-time volunteer policeman with a good military record, has never had any run-ins with the law, and spends time working for United Way or something. No physical evidence links Rollins to the crime. Why should a paragon of citizenship like this rob someone of a couple of thousand dollars and shoot people unnecessarily?

On the other hand, why should someone in Elizabeth Montgomery's position lie? An interesting question, to which there are several reasonable replies. One is that she may not have been lying. After all a considerable time had passed since the crime. Maybe she was just mistaken.

Another answer, far more conjectural, is that she was acting out a fantasy of victimhood. There seem to be two favorite human fantasies -- the conquering hero and the suffering victim. The former is mostly a male fantasy and the second a feminine one. I don't mean to sound in any way anti-feminist about this. A moment's thought will do to support the idea. Who watches The Action Movie Channel more -- men or women? And for which gender is Lifetime Movies for Women designed? I just watched "With Murder in Mind" on the Lifetime Movies channel. During one of the commercial breaks, an ad asked the audience, "Who would you like to play YOU in a movie about YOUR life????" (The informant's choice was Angelina Jolie. She'd be my choice too but it would be a different kind of movie.)

In a way, this is a movie about the life of Elizabeth Montgomery's character's life and she plays the role of victim to the hilt. After her partial recovery from her wounds she becomes a demanding nervous wreck. She gets to drink too much. She doesn't have to work. She calls 911 every time a car pulls into the driveway. She makes a general nuisance of herself and at the same time gets people to feel sorry for her, which is having your cake and eating it too. Then she gets to be the central figure in a dramatic trial. She winds up seeing someone sent away for a long time based on her testimony and her moral authority as an innocent victim (which she undoubtedly was).

And now there's even a MOVIE about her life -- and she is played by Elizabeth Montgomery! Now, all of that constitutes a lot of reward, which Freud dismissed too easily as unimportant "secondary gains." But Freud was a psychologist, not a sociologist, and he probably never saw a movie in his life. And he certainly never heard of Andy Warhol.

I don't mean to say that the Montgomery character was a fraud, that she dreamed the whole thing up in order to become famous. Lots of times we do things without knowing the real reasons why we're doing them. But I do mean that although she was certain Rollins was the man, I wasn't convinced. And I suspect the writers and producers must have felt ambivalent about the justice of the conviction too, because they seem to hint that the whole case may have been a terrible mistake.

Sometimes it's good to be the suffering victim. I think I might enjoy having a painless and not-disfiguring temporary illness so that a doctor could examine me and tell me, "Spend the next three years in bed. And be sure to drink plenty of fluids."

Where may I find a DVD? I lo e Elizabeth Montgomery. She is one of my favorite actresses.

During my time working in Hollywood, this was the one made for television movie I worked on. I was the post-production supervisor. I had worked for Helios Productions with Brad Wigor and Joe Maurer several times on CBS Schoolbreak specials and they had asked me to take this job on, manning the office in Beverly Hills while they were on location in Atlanta where the film was shot.

The film was edited entirely on film, only going to tape later from the finished print. The old film editing style was quickly being replaced by tape and computers so this was a thrill to work one last time on film.

One of my memories from this film include being assigned to coordinate a meeting in New York between Howard Rollins and producer Brad Wigor. We really wanted Howard to take the part of the bad cop but he was not sure if he wanted to take it. I remember getting Howard on the phone on the day that he had learned of a close friends death. He was very upset. He talked and I listened for a good long while. I'll never forget his voice and the fear he had. In the end, the meeting was arranged and Howard took the part. He was an excellent actor and really turned in a fine performance in this film.

I also cherish meeting both Ronny Cox and Elizabeth Montgomery during the ADR sessions. Ronny had just made an album in Nashville of country music. As a fellow musician, we talked about music and my planned relocation to Nashville. Ms. Montgomery was a class act. She arrived early for her session and she and I had a nice chat in the studio while we waited for the session to begin. I was thrilled to meet her and will never forget her interest and kindness.

As a final footnote, this idea was brought to Helios by our production secretary Joannie Cuff. She had grown up in the Buffalo, NY area and knew of the story. Brad and Joe secured the rights and the movie was made. Joannie was given the well deserved title of Associate Producer for her efforts.

Michael Killen

This movie, though it looked a little boring, actually turned out to be really good. It's about a woman named Gayle Wolfer who sells houses. One day, when she is showing a man a house, the man makes Gayle and the people who live in the house get down on the floor. He ties them up, you know the deal. Then he shoots Gayle about three times. Luckily, she survives, and is determined to find out who the person who wanted to kill her is and where he is at. One day, when she and Bob Sprague are at the county fair, she sees someone and recognizes him as the man who tried to kill her, but hardly anyone believes her. So she goes to a trial in court. This movie may seem like just one of those normal good guy/bad guy movies but it's actually really good, especially the acting.