I watched part of this in Dallas in 1987, but true to the atmosphere of the film, a thunderstorm knocked out my power. I didn't catch it again until the 1990s, and then only the last part. By then the end credits were filled with disclaimers of prosecutorial misconduct. I finally got to see the whole thing last night on youtube - a weird way to spend Christmas eve I know.
Peter Coyote plays a Rasputin like teacher, William Bradfield, at a high school outside Upper Merion township in Pennsylvania. Bradfield is an academic and a con man extraordinaire. He cons the woman he has been living with for over a decade - Sue Myers (Cindy Pickett). And he also cons two male teachers who absolutely adore him - he seems to feed off of that adoration. And then there are two other women in his life. One is Susan Reinart (Stockard Channing) , a mousy divorced woman who dreams of having someone take her away from all of this. The other is a former student who probably idolizes Bradfield because he is an older man.
Susan is convinced she is marrying Bradfield and moving to Europe. The "three weak people" - the two male teachers and Bradfield's live in girlfriend - are convinced by Bradfield that principal Jay Smith (Robert Loggia) is going to kill Susan Reinert because Bradfield tells them that the two are lovers and Smith has discovered that Reinert goes to bars and has affairs.
Coyote has never been better than he is in this role, and Loggia is wonderfully enigmatic as principal Jay Smith. What is so good about this film? What you don't see. You never see Bradfield and Smith interact in any meaningful way, and you don't see Susan Reinert interact with Bradfield in such a way that would contradict Bradfield's story about their relationship. Is her engagement, in fact, wishful thinking on her part? And yet from all of the other cons Bradfield is doing, you figure something is up.
Part two of this four hour film introduces who really turns out to be the main character of the film - Gary Cole as Pennsylvania State trooper Jack Holtz. He is on the investigation from the discovery of Reinert's body in 1979 until the conclusion of the case in 1986. How weird to see Gary Cole play a sociopathic murderer in "Fatal Vision" and see him play a cop on the trail of a sociopathic murderer in this mini-series.
All of those disclaimers at the end of the film I was talking about? It had to do with the prosecutor holding back the possibly exculpatory evidence from the defense at Smith's murder trial indicating that there was sand found between the toes of Susan Reinert's body during the autopsy. Jay Smith was never anywhere near the beach the weekend of her death, yet Bradfield and those three weak people were. In fact it was Bradfield's alibi. What happened? Since everybody involved is dead, we may never know.
I highly recommend this. Even if this was complete fiction it would be fascinating.
Peter Coyote plays a Rasputin like teacher, William Bradfield, at a high school outside Upper Merion township in Pennsylvania. Bradfield is an academic and a con man extraordinaire. He cons the woman he has been living with for over a decade - Sue Myers (Cindy Pickett). And he also cons two male teachers who absolutely adore him - he seems to feed off of that adoration. And then there are two other women in his life. One is Susan Reinart (Stockard Channing) , a mousy divorced woman who dreams of having someone take her away from all of this. The other is a former student who probably idolizes Bradfield because he is an older man.
Susan is convinced she is marrying Bradfield and moving to Europe. The "three weak people" - the two male teachers and Bradfield's live in girlfriend - are convinced by Bradfield that principal Jay Smith (Robert Loggia) is going to kill Susan Reinert because Bradfield tells them that the two are lovers and Smith has discovered that Reinert goes to bars and has affairs.
Coyote has never been better than he is in this role, and Loggia is wonderfully enigmatic as principal Jay Smith. What is so good about this film? What you don't see. You never see Bradfield and Smith interact in any meaningful way, and you don't see Susan Reinert interact with Bradfield in such a way that would contradict Bradfield's story about their relationship. Is her engagement, in fact, wishful thinking on her part? And yet from all of the other cons Bradfield is doing, you figure something is up.
Part two of this four hour film introduces who really turns out to be the main character of the film - Gary Cole as Pennsylvania State trooper Jack Holtz. He is on the investigation from the discovery of Reinert's body in 1979 until the conclusion of the case in 1986. How weird to see Gary Cole play a sociopathic murderer in "Fatal Vision" and see him play a cop on the trail of a sociopathic murderer in this mini-series.
All of those disclaimers at the end of the film I was talking about? It had to do with the prosecutor holding back the possibly exculpatory evidence from the defense at Smith's murder trial indicating that there was sand found between the toes of Susan Reinert's body during the autopsy. Jay Smith was never anywhere near the beach the weekend of her death, yet Bradfield and those three weak people were. In fact it was Bradfield's alibi. What happened? Since everybody involved is dead, we may never know.
I highly recommend this. Even if this was complete fiction it would be fascinating.