In the Glitter Palace

After a few bit parts on TV detective shows, Diana Scarwid made her movie debut here as a young lesbian falsely accused of murdering a blackmailer; luckily, her lover works with--and used to date--a straight male lawyer, who takes the case but is quickly pressured by the girl's wealthy father not to go to trial. Tacky movie-of-the-week for NBC did venture out on that taboo TV branch of the 1970s: going inside a gay bar to show life on the other side! The cast is a good one, including Chad Everett (looking rather like '70s-era Rock Hudson), Barbara Hershey, Howard Duff, David Wayne, Carole Cook (as an "out" entertainer happy to show off her "true colors"), Salome Jens, Gloria Stuart, Mary Woronov in a bit as a lesbian bartender, and Anthony Zerbe. Almost worth seeing for Diana Scarwid's lovely performance; she's handled gingerly by director Robert Butler, who otherwise barrels through this thing like a hack on a tight schedule. *1/2 from ****

Made in Canada according to the DVD jacket, although it also says the DVD creation was done by John Matarazzo and Logan Strand at Stone River Studios, Saddle River Valley, NY.

The DVD jacket says, The rising star at a high profile law firm is asked by the woman he loves to defend her best friend who is charged with a vicious murder which she says she didn't commit. He agrees to defend her and the intrigue begins.

This is a decent enough movie as far as the plot and the acting goes; Chad's character is mentored by the always watchable and affable David Craig; however, the lighting and picture quality was not well done in the transfer to DVD, and the sound was horrendous. The background street noises, bar scenes and other music completely overwhelmed the dialogue and when it wasn't, there was still a most annoying scratchy old-record white noise. Only extreme stubbornness and a long-running appreciation of Chad Everett's many charms, along with a faint hope that improvement was imminent, kept me hanging in till the bitter end. Do yourself a favor and wait for this to show up on TV - maybe write a note to TVLand about airing some of the good old made for TV movies.