A Killing Affair

Pretty routine TV Movie of the week, watch this for Liz Montgomery and a creepy performance by Dean Stockwell. Otherwise, thin plot about some murder that Liz and O.J. are working on. Liz's character is supposed to be the type that only goes after rich men who drive Jaguars. She ends up falling for the Juice (no pun intended) O.J. Simpson, that is. Trouble is he is married to Rosalind Cash who is the type of wife that probably makes the mice jump on chairs when she walks into the kitchen. I love Liz and think she should have won Emmys for "A Case of Rape" AND "Lizzie Borden" but she is miscast as a cop. Dean Stockwell, however is quite creepy (or at least his hair is here!) as a cold blooded killer. How ironic O.J. leaves his Black wife for a blonde white chick here (just like he did in real life)....for 1977 the clothes are pretty tasteful, just some of those awful oversize sweaters in puky colors. There is some great L.A. location shooting here...not a horrible movie but not as good as some of Liz's previous or later work.

The "Killing Affair" is a 1977 tv movie where OJ Simpson plays a cop. And Elizabeth Montgomery as his seasoned world weary "new" partner. As time goes by they develop an attraction and have an affair. No big problem except, OJ is married. And his son is Todd Bridges.

There's nothing really special about "A Killing Affair," although Montgomery is quite good. This movie is mostly a curio, for those that are still Simpson obsessed. Also it's interesting to see a young Todd bridges as well. All in all it's not really bad entertainment, particularly if you have nothing to do on a friday night. It might even be fun.

I saw this forgotten TV movie just once, on a cloudy, muggy summer evening 20 years ago. It struck me as one of the oddest and creepiest things I had ever seen on TV. I don't remember too much of the storyline, but I vividly recall its bleak, bad- dreamy moral and physical atmosphere. The direction was extremely artsy for a TV movie. Like a Welles or Hitchcock wannabe did it. Especially memorable was a shooting in some greasy spoon, with dramatic close-ups of eyeglasses flying and ketchup bottles shattering. Also, Elizabeth Montgomery's tough-gal detective character, when threatened with death, was not above whimpering and blubbering and begging for her life. It was a little TOO realistic. A far cry from Emma Peel. Don't recall OJ at all.

**SPOILERS** Tailor-made for O.J Simpson "A Killing Affair" has the Juice playing a "Dirty Harry" like L.A cop who's not too fond of the law that he's sworn to enforce. Because of his quick temper and trigger finger Officer Woody York, O.J Simpson, was taken off the beat and put behind a desk. We see Woodys contempt for the law earlier in the film as he shoots a suspected rapist in the back as he's fleeing from the police killing him.

You would have expected Woody to be canned from the police department and not just put on desk duty but put on trial for manslaughter but things like that just don't happen to Woody in the film. Woody instead is given a raise in rank to homicide detective and also given sexy and some ten years older then him Vikki Eaton ,Elizabeth Montgomery, as his partner! And they say crime, or police brutality, doesn't pay!

The film "A Killing affair" has at least three stories running through it all at the same time which makes it very hard to follow and digest; a trigger happy African-American cop, Woody, who's married to Bev, Rosalind Cash,his pretty African-American wife and involved in an interracial affair with his white and sexy woman detective partner, Vikki. Added to all that there's a homicidal lunatic Kenneth Switzer, Dean Stockwell, who's also very hip with the law which he uses to get him off from at least three murders charges. On top of everything else Switzer has a vendetta against woody for running him in and threatening to put him behind bars, or in his grave, for life or even longer.

The romantic relationship between Woody and Vikki comes across a bit strained with the fact that the two coming from totally different and racial backgrounds are paired together. Yet the stations police Captain Bullis, Allan Rich,is shocked when he hears rumors, which turn out to be true, that Woody and Vikki are having an affair? What did he expect?

Woody and Vikki are called into their chief's Let. Scotty Neilson,Dolph Sweet, office and told in no uncertain terms that their no longer partners and not to have anything to do with each other, on or off duty. Yet we see almost in the very next scene, right in the police stations parking lot, the two together talking to each other about their "secret" affair!

The movie picks up a bit when Woody is on the trail of serial killer Kenneth Switzer and finds out later that he and his accomplice junkie girlfriend Olive, Valentina Quinn, had been captured in San Francisco. Woody takes off on a flight to SF to bring Kenneth back to L.A but has Vikki go along with him! Weren't the two told not to have anything to do with each other by their police bosses? We even see Woody & Vikki later, semi-nude, later share a hotel room together!

Switzer who knows the law inside and out has his arrest for murder thrown out of court. Instead of counting his blessings and having nothing to do with the outraged and almost uncontrollable Woody he attempts to murder him, with a couple of his hoodlum friends, later at a bar & Grill parking lot. This has Switzer get shot and killed together with his fellow hoods, by both Woody and his detective partner Flager, John P. Ryan, who both ended up in the hospital with bullet wounds.

Everything straightens out at the end of the movie with Woody & Bev back together again, after they just were divorced. As for Vikki she's happily transfered out of the police station never to tempt Woody again in leaving his wife and young 12 year-old son Todd, Todd Bridges.

Only worth watching to see how bad an actor O.J Simpson really was back then in 1977 and how his acting may have gotten even worse, if thats at all possible, in the next 15 or so years. This after he made over a dozen or more cheesy and mindless motion pictures until his illustrious career came to a screeching end in his arrest, though not conviction, for the murders of his wife Nicole and young Ron Goldman on June 12, 1994.

P.S Who knows what more precious cinematic gems we would have gotten from O.J had he been able to make motion pictures over the last ten years. But unfortunately his personal life, and deeds, not only interrupted but put an end to his meteoric rise in the world of bad, and utterly ridicules, movies like "A Killing Affair".

I like Elizabeth Montgomery, but she is miscast as a police detective who has an affair with her black partner O.J. Simpson. Her performance seemed detached and forced and the two stars have absolutely no onscreen charisma. In 1977 America, trying to make an edgy movie about biracial issues was not surprising but in order to make it work you must have characters who generate compassion and sympathy for their plight. Neither of these feelings came through for me. The writing was awful and Elizabeth could not pull off the "hip" language of the time. O.J. once again showed us why he never won any trophies for acting. Overall, an awful script and worse presentation but look for a cute , young Todd Bridges as O.J.'s son.