Tabloid

Errol Morris hits a home run with "Tabloid," letting the main subject, Joyce McKinney, pontificate for long stretches at a time; and Ms. McKinney never disappoints. This is a sad and compelling news story from 1977, well known in Britain as "The Manacled Mormon" case. An American Mormon missionary claimed to be abducted and raped by Ms. McKinney and what follows is a tragic but often funny documentary that is truly stranger than fiction. I can't find better adjectives(used by someone interviewed) than barking mad to describe this delusional, obsessed, and sorry figure.

The missing element is Kirk Anderson, the alleged victim and abductee, as he refused to be interviewed. Director Morris has a field day with Mormon beliefs, from magic underwear to planets ruled by deceased true believers. The Salt Lake City elders will not be pleased with this film. I highly recommend it to everyone else.

Errol Morris has throughout his filmmaking career, found some interesting subjects. From the groundbreaking The Thin Blue Line (1988) - that actually produced evidence enough to release a man from death row, - to The Fog of War's (2003) view of modern American political history according to Robert McNamara (reviewed here by Tom previously). And with Tabloid, he has yet again discovered a story that defies belief.

Joyce McKinney was former Miss Wyoming. She became a British tabloid darling in the late 1970's when she came over to the UK and kidnapped a young man, holding him hostage. The film tells the story of McKinney's various obsessions; she became obsessed with a young Mormon missionary, but his faith was compromised and, as far as Joyce was concerned, the Mormon church stole him away from her, taking him to England to restore his faith.

The levels of obsession are exposed progressively throughout the film. Joyce's fixation on this one person who she claims to love unconditionally is actually quite sad. She states late on in the film that there is only one love, and she loves the Mormon, and will love no other. This stubborn focus on one love has seen through to her old age, as she fills this love with a dog. The obsession of one love is also propagated in her love of her dog, that once dead, she spends thousands of dollars to get it cloned in South Korea.

As with all Morris documentaries, this is a little gem, and is never outwardly judgemental of it's subject matter. It is a tragic tale, and whilst it has been Joyce's own choice, her strong morals are quite touching. However, strip all sympathy aside, and she is simply mental!!

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Trust me. Watch this movie. Grab some popcorn and get ready for a good time.

Even if you know all the lurid details about the Joyce McKinney sex in chains saga, it is still well worth it to listen to the protagonist tell her side of the story. It would have taken a lot of courage/narcissism for anyone to agree to be interviewed for a documentary after going through what Ms. McKinney went through, but what is even more astounding is just how self assured and confident she was throughout the interview.

Ms. McKinney acquitted herself well and leaves the viewer with a sense of her human frailties as she tells the story of her remarkable life. There are those who would condemn her or write her off as sick and demented -- and even in this documentary it is possible to see where these people are coming from -- but the film also presents another side of the woman, one who loved absolutely so much so that she thought nothing of cloning a dog she cared about.

There will probably never be another Joyce McKinney. If you wrote a movie script that was true to her life, it would probably be rejected as too far fetched and absurd. Watch this documentary and judge for yourself what sort of person Joyce McKinney is. I think that is all she would ask of you.

Some stories are so preposterous and delightfully astonishing that they have to be exposed to the masses. Such is the true tale of Joyce McKinney, the former beauty queen who hired a pilot to fly her and an accomplice, Keith May, to England to rescue her boyfriend, Kirk Anderson, from the clutches of the Mormon church. After bringing him to a rented cottage in Devon, where the refrigerator was stocked full of his favorite foods, she bound and seduced him. What ensued was three days of sex, food, and fun, to be forever known as "The Case of the Manacled Mormon".

It sounds like every man's fantasy - a beautiful pageant princess waiting on you hand and foot, satisfying your every whim and fancy. However, Kirk, after reading about his own abduction in the newspaper, fled from his captors and alleged to the police a much different account of what happened. The all-American, charismatic blonde was arrested for kidnapping and raping the Mormon missionary and thrown in the slammer to await trial. The British tabloids had a field day with the bizarre incident.

The Daily Express printed Joyce's side of the story while their rival, The Daily Mirror, delved deep into Joyce's past and uncovered lurid details of her moonlighting as an S&M model and dominatrix for hire, painting her as a manipulative Jezebel that cast a spell over all of the men she met. The accusation did ring true. She often referred to Keith May as her slave and she had another admirer willing to do anything she asked. Even Peter Tory, a reporter for The Daily Express, seems to have fallen for Joyce's delusion that she was simply a girl so profoundly in love with her boyfriend, she risked life and limb in order to save and deprogram him from a cult of polygamists.

Unfortunately, Kirk Anderson declined to participate in Morris's documentary and Keith May passed away in 2004, but there is enough material to fill his absence, like Joyce's decision to travel to Seoul, South Korea to have her beloved rescue dog, Booger, cloned.

The interviews with Joyce, Jackson Shaw (the pilot), Troy Williams (a former Mormon missionary), Peter Tory, Kent Gavin (photographer for The Daily Mirror), and Dr. Hong flow smoothly, with barely any interruption by Mr. Morris. The montage of animated newspaper clippings was a visual treat and the background music fit brilliantly, which normally goes unnoticed in a documentary. The star of the show is Joyce with her animated voice and emphasized gestures. She's a breed of crazy that is sometimes unsettling, sometimes funny, and always entertaining.