L'éternel soupçon

This telefilm pulls no punches and can be tough to watch, but the central performance, the handling and the plot (which doesn't feel mechanized) makes it worthwhile. Perky Sally Struthers is attacked by two masked thugs in her home, who degrade and humiliate her; she breaks free and grabs her gun, but is later dragged through legal mud before facing one of her attackers yet again. Struthers takes a 'typical housewife' character and makes her immediate and dear to us; she's such a natural that her ordeal here is quite gripping. We follow her through the messy circumstances--which blessedly steer clear of courtroom melodrama--and we are most definitely on her side. In a downsized (but certainly no less important) way, this drama could be the "Death Wish" of the small screen.

Emily Cates (Sally Struthers) - respectable and strait-laced (dorky even) businesswoman & wife of airline pilot Joe (David Ackroyd) is frightened about the skyrocketing crime rate. It is getting bad specifically in her neighbourhood - one plagued by a string of burglaries. Home alone with a young daughter she and Joe are justifiably concerned.

In diminutive and little-girl voiced Emily, a wishy-washy liberal, the audience is given a heroine with no discernible sense of threat. The tone of the narrative suggests she will inevitably find herself at the mercy of darker elements and lack even the inclination to try to defend herself.

The notion of purchasing a firearm for home protection is one she resists until she begins sensing suspicious activity around her house. Joe does not object to the purchase nor does he encourage the decision.

She gets one but must wait through a legislated time period. During that time she takes a course in how to use it and makes all the mistakes that neophytes make when first firing a gun.

Little does she know how quickly she will be called upon to use it. Little does she know that even in an encounter in which she is obviously the victim that she will zealously be persecuted as a victimizer by a tool of a flawed justice system in the person of the local district attorney (Jeffrey Tambor - very effective in a non-comedic role) - a warped incompetent with an axe to grind.

This CBS TV movie was very much a product of its time and circumstances. Aspects of legislation enacted to correct social inequity which was thought to create crime instead made the state a soft touch with criminal elements who were the actual cause. Crime was thus considerably worse especially from the late 1960s to the early 1990s when it rapidly declined.

NBC pioneered the genre of social issue made-for-TV flicks in the 1970s. Most of them were terrible. Some of them were good. A scant few were great. Whatever the quality they began to reliably deliver enough of an audience to continue to be made. The other networks took notice and delivered their own versions of varying quality.

As production of them evolved (or mutated) the most sensationalistic and alarmist of them tended to deliver the biggest audiences. In the case of this film there is such a lack of subtlety that there might just as well be an announcer's voice warning audiences that thugs are right outside their homes watching the movie with them through a window. That is fully the level of overstatement the narrative makes. You either accept that and keep watching or take it as an insult.

Many have said that this film features the finest acting performance Sally Struthers ever gave and I agree. It was likely the result of a great deal of hard work. Most importantly Struthers completely relinquished any evident sense of ego or vanity (not an easy thing to subdue in the minds of star actors of whatever level) in the key scene where she is actually called upon to use her gun.

In that one remarkable scene where is dehumanized by inexplicably hateful criminals and all that she holds dear faces a grisly ending she is transformed. It is a profound change in the character arc we see staged in but a few minutes of shocking screen time though it has been adequately foreshadowed in the lead up.

That scene is so effectively staged that no preconceived impression can endure. In that moment one forgets that Struthers portrayed Meathead's wife from All in the Family or that you never found her attractive or that her voice is irritating or that this is even an actress. We are given an uncomfortably close view of a human being pushed to the very brink.

Sadly almost everything else in the movie clumsily falls flat in attempts at crafting a heavy-handed morality play. Thus it is primarily of interest for the aforementioned key scene where she is confronted by the rapist/burglars and a surprising but not wholly unexpected result occurs.

This film is one that could have become a propaganda piece for one side or the other. But, the writers did well to tread the line.

Seeing the wife, played by Sally Struthers, take the upper hand against the creeps who attack her, is very satisfying. She made mistakes by shooting in a panic rather than trying to get her cool back. But then, many people would make mistakes in that situation.

Also, the overzealous DA is, unfortunately, a too-common problem in the real world. Fortunately, in this case, he didn't get a chance to berate the victim, as happens in real life.

The last scene is good, and shows how good the writers are at not forcing an agenda. You just have to see it, and depending on your politics, can draw your own ending.

Other commentators have said Sally should have gotten an Emmy, and she probably would have gotten one, but again politics can be blamed. The left-wingers of Hollywood wouldn't have given her an award, because "we wouldn't want people to get ideas." That's how I see it.

A movie with a moral about guns, the law and self defense. Sally Struthers gives an emotional performance in this made-for-tv fare. One scene, daring for 1981 television, is watching uncomfortably as the intruders humiliate their victim. If you ever see it in the listings, is worth catching. Also, the actor who plays the rapist is well cast...eww.

There is only one scene worth watching and it's not worth watching this entire film just to see it. It's really not "must see this" scene either... just the only one in the film that makes you think the film is going to get good from that point on but it doesn't.

The point of this made for TV film is to get you buy a gun - just in case something like this happens to you. They show ol' Sally at the firing range learning how to use one. Later on the "one good scene" happens and the two guys in masks broke in to her place without a gun on her but she happens to have a gun now and knows how to use it. (The film goes back to being lame after that).

It's really a get a gun and learn how to use it film - it's nothing more than that.

1/10