Sweet Revenge

Vurrla Kowsky (Stockard Channing) has an eye for a new Ferrari Dino. She's a car thief and gets pulled over. Her public defender Philip Le Clerq (Sam Waterston) assumes that she's a victim of circumstances and tries to reform her. In reality, she gave a false identity and constantly lies to him. She has many aliases and is an unrepentant thief. Philip follows her back to her rundown boarded up place. Only her car radio stealing best friend Edmund knows her real name. Sweet Revenge is her car's name. Philip tries to help her despite continuously being lied to.

This little-seen Stockard Channing indie is a nice showcase for her. The film works best when she's paired with Waterston. It really should be a film about the two of them. The film stagnates without them together even when she does some crazy stuff. Their back and forth injects a fun chemistry into the movie.

A young woman with a long rap sheet who steals cars for a living is befriended by a public defender who tries to steer her straight. But her goal is to steal and subsequently sell enough cars (sometimes the same car more than once) to buy a new Ferrari.

Just like everyone else, I had never heard of this film until it was shown on Turner Classic Movies. And I can understand why it faded away. There is little that stands out about it, and the two stars are not anywhere near A-list (with all due respect). So it makes sense that this would be buried.

But it is not a bad movie by any means, and a fun film. Since it was apparently made by MGM, I would suspect the rights to distribute it are fairly cheap right now (2017) and it might be the kind of title that a specialty Blu-ray label would pick up.

Well, Lenny Maltin thought it was a bomb so you know it's at least worth a look. Nice Tacoma in bleak, rainy winter cinematography from Vilmos Zsigmund, and Stockard Channing gives a very good, take no prisoners type performance as a feckless, teenage car thief (that is, if you can somehow suspend your doubt that this actor looks anything less than thirty). Problem is that Channing is so in your face unattractive and off putting that I stopped liking Vurria (could the screenwriters have come up with a dumber name?) about fifteen minutes in and stopped caring about her shortly thereafter. And once that happens then it's not long before interest starts to fade and you just impatiently wait for the all too predictable, hopeless denouement. It's kind of how I felt with this director's previous foray into 70s, American loser-dom, "Scarecrow". Give it a generous C plus for Vilmos and Stockard.

Looking for a copy of the movie to see if my wife was actually in the movie or a second. Sweet Revenge was filmed at our houseboat and I was a little irate because I couldn't get home from work. Stockard Channing used our bathroom to freshen up and signed her name in lipstick on the mirror; which I thought was a little presumptuous. My wife was watching the production with her hair in curlers which the director liked and wanted to keep her in the film, but since we were going out that night she skipped the last couple of takes. We always wondered if she was in the print or not. We couldn't really tell from the showing. I would sure like to see it one more time. I thought the funniest scene was transposition of the police siren with the ice cream loudspeaker. Otherwise, I agree the plot was a little thin.

Stockard Channing is a young woman who decides to steal the same car again and again, so she can get her dream ride. Sam Waterston is her court-appointed lawyer -- of course -- who finds her low-rent free spirit irresistibly challenging.

This is the 1970s, and in the aftermath of the 1960s, the free spirit, bursting from the bonds of conventionality, is no longer seen as a personal choice, of how an individual kook's defiance of convention can make her happier and give those near to her a new and valid view of the world. We don't get Katherine Hepburn gushing about Cary Grant: "You've got no faith in Johnny, have you, Julia? His little dream may fall flat, you think. Well, so it may, what if it should? There'll be another. Oh, I've got all the faith in the world in Johnny. Whatever he does is all right with me. If he wants to dream for a while, he can dream for a while, and if he wants to come back and sell peanuts, oh, how I'll believe in those peanuts!"

The downside is no longer just the people making bad choices; we get to see the elderly couple talking about how much they love their son, and imagine how they feel when they find out what has actually. Choices have consequences for other people.