moonspinner55

Non-stereotypical gay romantic drama from Argentina has two very pretty men nonchalantly spying each other on a beach in Barcelona. They eventually hook up but quickly part ways, yet fate brings them together again--this time for an actual date--when they realize they've met and been intimate before...20 years ago! The basic flaw in this concept is that a gay man wouldn't remember a fling from two decades prior, and this nitpick is made to seem even more reasonable once the film goes into flashback mode and the two actors look and act exactly the same. There's nothing unique about the characters: one man introduces himself as a poet via New York City when he's really on vacation from a marketing job in Madrid. The other man is apparently bisexual (though this word is never used) and has a daughter and a male lover of four years. There's one sweet, subtle twist to this story: in the third act, the poet imagines what life would have been like with this man as his partner for the last 20 years. It's a surprising, moving flight-of-fancy, one that gives gravitas to the film, making it more than just another erotic roll in the hay. ** from ****

Heavy-handed (and uncredited) rewrite of a real-life crime case from 1965 involving Alice Crimmins, party girl and unashamed man-lover who was tried and convicted for the murders of her two children--a conviction based almost solely on the prejudices facing a "loose" woman. Tuesday Weld has the lead (now named Doris Winters) and she approaches the part with understated flash. Not the glinty-eyed seductress one may expect, Weld is ticklish and kittenish with men--making it hard to determine whether she's guilty or innocent (the long, hard looks she gives to police detective Ron Liebman may tell a different story). Tried without much evidence in the courtroom (though the media was ready to hang her), it's not hard to guess where Alice Crimmins ended up; however, this watered-down-for-television version ends just when Crimmins' life was going into its third chapter. ** from ****

Two episodes from the UK mystery series "Journey to the Unknown", hosted by Joan Crawford, begins with the odd tale "Matakitas is Coming" starring Vera Miles as a present day mystery writer for a magazine doing research on a murder from the 1920s which occurred in the very same library she's working from. Locked in after hours, Miles encounters the young murder victim and realizes (slowly) she's gone back in time 42 years to witness the girl's demise. Time travel stories are always fun--and Miles is likably pithy and grounded (rather like an intelligent, stubborn Kim Novak)--but writer Robert Heverly has her acting too matter-of-fact about going back in time (she calls a movie theater from the library, is told they're showing a Valentino picture, and shrugs it off). In the second installment, "The Last Visitor", nervous Patty Duke has been ordered by her doctor to take a week's rest, checking into a seaside inn where she's bothered by one of the other guests--or so she thinks. Written by Alfred Shaughnessy, it's a chatty, perplexing tale, though Duke (with thick, full hair) looks lovely and gives a solid performance.