The Woman Hunter

Just watched this Barbara Eden made-for-TV movie on YouTube. She plays Dina Hunter, a rich woman with husband Robert Vaughn on vacation in Central Ameraca after getting in a car accident in which she may have caused something awful. A man named Paul Carter (Stuart Whitman) is posing as an artist and following them. Oh, and the movie begins at a party in which a woman is murdered and has her necklace taken from her which for a while seems unrelated to the rest of the picture. And Larry Storch is one of those patrons who tells lame jokes at his only appearance. I'll stop there and just say that I liked the whole premise including the twist ending and was also intrigued by the music score and some nice glamorous shots of Ms. Eden. So on that note, I consider The Woman Hunter worth a look for anyone interested in these obscure telefilms.

If your main goal in life is to watch old films with LOTS of footage of the beautiful Barbara Eden wearing bikinis, fashionable clothes and traipsing about Mexico, then I have a film for you! One reviewer gave this very ordinary film a 10--mostly because this was what they were looking for in a movie! Clearly, this is among their favorite films! However, for most viewers this isn't really enough reason to recommend "The Woman Hunter"--an at best ordinary made for TV film from the 1970s. While Miss Eden IS radiant here, some of her other work of this period (such as the creepy made for TV film, "The Stranger Within") is much better.

Eden plays Dina Hunter--a super-rich heiress who is emotionally ill following a tragic accident. Not helping much is her husband, Jerry (Robert Vaughn)--a man who seems more interested in business than spending time with his sexy wife on a Mexico vacation. During this time, a stranger, Paul Carter (Stuart Whitman) obviously deliberately ingratiates himself with the family and soon Dina realizes this was no accident. What follows is mildly interesting at times, but too often it just seems very rushed and sloppy. Even the surprising twist at the end doesn't save the film because it's handled VERY poorly--ending with an impossibly well-aimed rock and an explosion that seems to come out of no where. All in all, the film had some decent ideas but comes off as very superficial and silly.

Stuart Whitman is stalking Barbara Eden. She's an heiress married to Robert Vaughan, and she's just gotten out of the hospital, so they take a vacation in Mexico, where Larry Storch tells stories at night, and Whitman is their next-door neighbor. He is a painter, so after meeting Eden (whose character is named Dina Hunter; the Hunter woman, get it) on the beach, and catching her in a bikini, he offers to paint her portrait. Then he 'runs into' Vaughan in town, and sticks himself in the middle of their lives. As Miss Eden grows more and more uneasy, Vaughan tries to remember where he's seen Whitman before. Well, the man's career was shrinking in prominence.

It's a TV movie of the 'cozy mystery' variety that now seems to run all the time on the Lifetime cable channel. Director Bernie Kowalski does a decent job with his highly professional cast and standard camerawork.It's nice to see Vaughan play a decent guy, and Miss Eden in a bikini. It looks like editor Melvin Shapiro had to leave the end to a couple of subplots on the cutting room floor.

When I grade a movie, I start at five and add or subtract the pros and cons from there. There are a couple of things which I like about this film: Its ability not to betray its ending, and its scenery (mother nature sure was kind to this spot in Mexico AND to Barbara Eden). But, in my opinion, it has more cons than pros: It shows a few too many times bare from the waist up, the character, "Paul"'s aging bod, and him recording his babblings of his encounters with the "Hunter" couple. (The latter is extensively written into the flow of the pic.) Is it also a BAD thing that there are so many shots of Miss Eden? Other impressions are of its excessive slow-movingness and, at times, echoy audio (especially during some indoor scenes). The basic story is of a wealthy couple, vacationing in Acapulco, being of interest to artist "Paul", of whom Mrs. Hunter becomes increasingly suspicious, after some initial sparks between the two. (She is tempted, no doubt, as a result of her husband mixing too much business with what was supposed to be post-wreck pleasure for her.) I wouldn't discourage anyone from spending time and/or a little money for THE WOMAN HUNTER. Maybe this person's negatives will be somebody else's positives.

This was like a dull television show. I would hope that when a director looks at a script, he or she would make an effort to produce something that teaches or delights or does something to make the effort worthwhile. There is really nothing here. Barbara Eden is honeymooning with Robert Vaughn. He seems only interested in business. She has recently lost her first husband in a terrible accident. There have been some recent jewel thefts and a woman has been murdered. Barbara becomes attracted to a handsome young artist, and he becomes the murder suspect. There are efforts made to gaslight Barbara, but she knows what she knows. The movie grinds along to a contrived conclusion. We do get to see Barbara in all kinds of outfits. It's really not worth an hour and a half of your time.