Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder

I just purchased the book by Shana Alexander. The television film version which includes Lee Remick as Frances Bradshaw Schreuder and Inga Swenson as her older sister Marilyn Reagan. They are both not only memorable. But I kept thinking about them while I was reading this book. This is one of the most bizarre murder cases in American history. When you learn that Frances' sons prefer prison to living at home with mom, I think you have to wonder what is wrong with this situation. Lee Remick earth-shattering performance as Frances is very reminiscent of Meredith Baxter playing Betty Broderick in "A Woman Scorned." Unlike that movie which only lasted two hours, this story was an intriguing mini-series which television has all but abandoned like the sitcom genre. The story of Frances Schreuder is compelling, chilling, and even frightening in the book and less on the screen but it is still worth watching. I don't think anybody would believe a woman was capable of such harm and was not stopped sooner. In fact, her family rejected that she needed the psychiatric problems in the book earlier in her life like in college which may suggest a lesson to be learned. Take care of the problem early before it accelerates. Frances is definitely a narcissist who used her children to gain acceptance and money to gain power and acceptance in a society which really had no interest in her. Sadly, her children suffered. If she was not stopped, Ariadne would have suffered in her hands.

Superb 3-part miniseries details the greed and insanity of Frances Schreuder, a would-be New York socialite who drove one son to lunacy and another to murder. And it's all true!

Lee Remick gives a towering performance as the crazy woman who goes thru money and men like water, Her father is a wealthy miser in Salt Lake City, and she's constantly after him for money to support her lavish lifestyle. She uses her sons to shame him and her mother (Elizabeth Wilson in a great performance) into sending money that she then spends on herself.

She so completely dominates her sons, that they steal from their grandfather by swiping cash, bonds, stock certificates or anything else that isn't nailed down. They send it all to mama and she cashes it in. At one point, she blithely explains to a grasping friend (John Glover) how she'd simply obtain a fake driver's license and open a fake bank account to cash in some bonds.

Remick plays a woman who is totally ruthless in her pursuit of money and a lavish lifestyle among the elite. She sacrifices husbands, friends, and eventually even her sons without batting a false eyelash.

Remick plays a true monster, but she's enabled by her own mother (Wilson) who ignores her other daughters and husband to support her favorite daughter. Neither one seems to have a conscience or any sense of morality. Remick's character finally gets hers, but it's an exhausting ride in one of television's great miniseries.

Besides Remick, Wilson, and Glover (who were all nominated for Emmy Awards), the cast includes Inga Swenson as Marylyn, the oldest (and jealous) sister, Tate Donovan as the murderous son, G.D. Spradlin as the miserly father, Linda Kelsey as the middle sister who can't get far enough away from her family, Tony Musante as the first husband, Frank Military as the son driven to lunacy, Daniel Hugh Kelly as an investigator, and Don Starr as a judge.

One of the lessons this story tells is how money and privilege can help ward off the law and social services despite decades of abuse. Nothing has changed. Truly frightening.

This movie is unpredictable, suspenseful, and superbly acted.

Add to this the fact that it is based on a true story, and you will be hooked; read the book after the movie.

It is a sad story about greed, murder, madness and family. Lee Remick is excellent, although physically she is different from the actual Frances, her acting ability transcends this. Both sons, Larry and Marc, are tragically intertwined in this story; This movie is worth watching,unlike so many TV movies; If you are still intrigued, read Jonathan Coleman's "Ät Mother's Request", which delineates the true story, delves into psychology and motives behind the madness. It is well worth it.

This TV mini-series, based on an early eighties murder case, was the better of two such efforts that, if I remember correctly, competed against each other on different networks. The story concerns Frances Schreuder, an unbalanced jet-setter whose insiduous control over her sons prompts her to use her youngest son, Marc, in a plot to kill her father, wealthy owner of a successful auto parts franchise. Of the two efforts, this one is the better portrayal. The other film starred Stefanie Powers as an unattractive, vitriolic Frances; Lee Remick's portrayal made Schreuder less of a frumpish harpy and more of a charming, chilling psychopath; her Frances exudes stylishness as well as madness. There's a sense of something . . . not quite sympathy, but at least interest in what this attractive woman will do, but more importantly, WHY she does it, the reasons for which are never fully explained(although it is alluded to that the instability is inherent from her childhood). Remick makes her character beguiling and creepy at the same time; we can't take our eyes off of her. The sons' roles in their mother's sick plan is explored more thoroughly in this film than in the Stefanie Powers version. One of the better explorations of the workings of the deranged mind to come on TV in the 80s. Fascinating.

I think I recall some legal problems in getting the full details of Frances Schreuder's involvement with the New York City Ballet into the miniseries; those details can be found in the Shana Alexander document, in which Balanchine at least is mentioned as having seen her from a distance.

She wanted to buy out of her Mormon background and her skinflint bore of a father. As an unscrupulous person in the extreme, she trained her sons in crime and got one of them to kill his grandfather, her father.

With his money, she gave a huge sum to the New York City Ballet and got on their governing board, major equipment for her ambitions as a Manhattan socialite. Balanchine's most expensive ballet up to that point, 'Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze', was financed with Schreuder money (it was interesting to see the ballet after knowing the story: Suzanne Farrell was still appearing in it in 1986; I doubt if any of these glorious dancers gave this another thought--although I certainly did; in any case, a number of them had known her before she was found out. Even after her trial was well under way, she would follow them up to Saratoga in the summer, I think as late as 1983.) I believe it was Lincoln Kirstein's testimony which ultimately saved her from the death penalty.

In any case, Frances Schreuder died just over a month ago.

Beautiful Lee Remick, of the ravishing smile, a hardworking and occasionally brilliant actress if ever there was one, died in 1993. This miniseries could have been a lot better if the NYCB involvement could have been emphasized and developed in some reasonable depth, but it got the essential story across, especially if you also read the Alexander account. And Remick's performance was pyrotechnical, fabulous with vitriol and every conceivable nuance of rage and hate.

Such governing boards began applying more stringent measures such as doing some research into the backgrounds of overly generous donors whose money they might not find as useful as once it has seemed when it just arrives unannounced in the mail--and an angel is not necessarily behind it...