SPOILERS.
A not too badly done courtroom drama about a society murder case, with an offstage romance between Linda Purl as the defense attorney and Steve Read as the prosecutor.
The level of everything, from the performances to the art direction, is professional, about at the level of an average TV movie, maybe a bit more.
Read comes across as handsome, caring, divorced, and successful -- every woman's fantasy. He's even from the wrong side of Atlanta's social tracks, which only adds to his allure. Linda Purl is an underrated actress, I think. She has never had the kind of bravura role that would shoot out the lights, never played an amputee or a schizophrenic. Her roles have been pretty much whitebread, although her background is rather more interesting than that. (The Japanese theater and whatnot.) Barbara Rush too gives a decent performance, Smithfield smoked ham, her voice dripping with honey and hemlock. She passes a critical test -- how to play a social snob without turning the character into a mean bitch.
The story centers on a murder that some young sloppy guy may or may not have committed. Purl finds herself facing Read, who has become her new boyfriend, across the aisle in the courtroom. They fall in love, I guess, since they "see the sunrise" together at Read's pad.
But, as Sir Walter Scott observed, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." Frankly the plot lost me at one or two point. I was confused by the cars and the tracking of their owners but I did manage to get the general drift of the evidence.
The story turns out to be less plausible than I'd hoped -- a fake thief tries to off Purl when he was only supposed to "scare" her -- and the ending torpedoes what has gone before. Purl discovers in the course of her investigation that Read was present at the murder scene, and he confesses to everything in the judge's chambers (is that what his office is called?). A court recorder takes the whole rambling tale down as he spills the beans. Straight out of Perry Mason. I can't imagine the perp breaking down at the climax of very many trials.
Interesting observations on the social order of a caste-ridden city, now undergoing lots of change.
A not too badly done courtroom drama about a society murder case, with an offstage romance between Linda Purl as the defense attorney and Steve Read as the prosecutor.
The level of everything, from the performances to the art direction, is professional, about at the level of an average TV movie, maybe a bit more.
Read comes across as handsome, caring, divorced, and successful -- every woman's fantasy. He's even from the wrong side of Atlanta's social tracks, which only adds to his allure. Linda Purl is an underrated actress, I think. She has never had the kind of bravura role that would shoot out the lights, never played an amputee or a schizophrenic. Her roles have been pretty much whitebread, although her background is rather more interesting than that. (The Japanese theater and whatnot.) Barbara Rush too gives a decent performance, Smithfield smoked ham, her voice dripping with honey and hemlock. She passes a critical test -- how to play a social snob without turning the character into a mean bitch.
The story centers on a murder that some young sloppy guy may or may not have committed. Purl finds herself facing Read, who has become her new boyfriend, across the aisle in the courtroom. They fall in love, I guess, since they "see the sunrise" together at Read's pad.
But, as Sir Walter Scott observed, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." Frankly the plot lost me at one or two point. I was confused by the cars and the tracking of their owners but I did manage to get the general drift of the evidence.
The story turns out to be less plausible than I'd hoped -- a fake thief tries to off Purl when he was only supposed to "scare" her -- and the ending torpedoes what has gone before. Purl discovers in the course of her investigation that Read was present at the murder scene, and he confesses to everything in the judge's chambers (is that what his office is called?). A court recorder takes the whole rambling tale down as he spills the beans. Straight out of Perry Mason. I can't imagine the perp breaking down at the climax of very many trials.
Interesting observations on the social order of a caste-ridden city, now undergoing lots of change.