The People vs. Jean Harris

The text-page that comes up at the end of this courtroom drama should have come up at the beginning. It tells us what we'd been wondering all through the trial - was this the verbatim transcript that it sounded like? Well, two hours and twelve minutes is a long time for a film with just one scene, but it is not as long as three months, which is how long the trial (incredibly) lasted. So the testimony and the lawyers' statements have been distilled down, but the essential story comes through clearly enough, and the character of this particular odd couple, millionaire dietician Dr. Hy Tarnower and his lover, girls-school headmistress Jean Harris, revealed in depth.

It is the contrast between these two that made the case so sensational, as well as controversial. The rough-hewn Tarnower was basking in the success of his popular slimming diet, and exploiting his bachelor status with a string of willing mistresses. ("Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen" could have been coined for the cynical, chuckling seducer.) By contrast, Harris was the very image of ladyship, strait-laced and genteel, setting a virtuous example to her school.

She hadn't been overly concerned about her various love-rivals, until Tarnower proposed to her - typically, with a huge, vulgar engagement ring - but then admitted that he wouldn't be able to go through with it, carefully avoiding any mention that he was actually ditching Harris for a (much) younger model. It was when she suddenly came across someone else's clothes strewn all over the bathroom that she settled on her suicide plan, which ended in the accidental murder for which she was jailed.

The casting of the three main characters - defendant, lawyer and judge - is superb. Ellen Burstyn carries total conviction as the respectable pillar of society, struggling to cope with the stresses of her midlife crisis. Martin Balsam (the detective from 'Psycho') is highly believable as her counsel, except when he is pretending to check details that would already have been front-of-mind with him. And Richard Dysart manages to be everything a judge ought to be - the man who has spent his career listening to a lot of lying villains, yet has never lost his integrity or his hope.

Absent from the story are two themes that must have been featured in the real proceedings. The drugs she was addicted to, apparently prescribed by Tarnower, presumably to keep her dependent on him. And the strange episode of a school strike, in protest at the management, which can only have meant Harris in person.

Okay, I was expecting a little more from this film. I haven't seen Mrs. Harris with Annette Bening. Of course, I believe Ellen Burstyn gives a brilliant complex performance as Mrs. Jean Harris who shot her lover of 14 years, Dr. Herman Tarmhower nicknamed the Scarsdale Diet Doctor. Ellen brings Jean's character to life making her complex, complicated, strong, vulnerable, weak, emotional, and completely real to the audience. You understand her and you wonder why she went to prison. Of course, Dr. Tarmhower or Hi as he was called by her had another mistress, a divorced Lynn Triforest who never testified at the trial. Mrs. Harris was a beautiful, intelligent woman who wanted Hi's company, companionship, rather than force him to marry her. She made the trips from Virginia and often drove up to see him and not the other way around. Somehow they were together for many years, the thought of a break-up was just unbearable for Jean who loved Hi completely with faults and all. She was his cerebral companion as well as lover but Hi needed more. Maybe she just didn't live up to his expectations in the bedroom, who knows since he has been gone for 27 years? Mrs. Harris was not a stupid woman only when it came to love and the Scarsdale Diet Doctor. There is no man worthy enough to kill yourself for in this world. Mrs. Harris felt insecure, unattractive, and inadequate only because her partner, Hi, made her feel that way. This case raises a lot of points about relationships including selfishness and possessiveness on both sides. I believe Ellen deserved an Emmy. I felt the courtroom version was both too long because it never left the courtroom.

If you rent The People vs. Jean Harris, you're in for a long haul. This two-and-a-half hour tv movie feels like five hours - which is realistic in one aspect. Anyone who's had jury duty knows that most trials aren't as exciting and fast-paced as the movies will have you believe. There are long-winded testimonials, lots of technical questions, and details that seem to have nothing to do with the case. However, George Lefferts's teleplay should have been severely edited. He drew from the actual court transcripts, but if he didn't want his audience to fall asleep or change the channel, he didn't do his job very well.

Ellen Burstyn's performance was shockingly blasé. Her character was charged with the second-degree murder of the man she was deeply in love with, and she acted like she was just taken off the street and asked to describe her latest trip to the grocery store. If I had a nickel for how many times she said, "and then," I would have been able to buy a car by the time the movie was over. She couldn't stop talking, even when asked to by the judge. She smiled, joked with the jury, and described the most irrelevant, mundane details, resulting in a very long movie. It was so irritating, I highly recommend fast-forwarding large swaths. The end summation will fill you in on anything you missed.

In addition to being horrendously irritating, I also found Ellen unlikable and impossible to root for. Her defense attorney, Martin Balsam (based on his track record in the movies, he should give up the law) bases the case on an accidental struggle with the gun. Instead of doing a tap dance or a marionette number like Richard Gere did in Chicago while singing "They Both Reached for the Gun", he merely lets his client talk and talk and talk and talk on the stand about every single detail. Where she walked, how many steps she took, which bathroom she used, what she was thinking when she washed her hands at the sink. . . Anyway, Ellen claims that she had no intention of shooting her lover when she drove to his house in the middle of the night - then why did she have a gun in her purse? Because she apparently was so depressed she wanted to kill herself and wanted to talk to him in person before she did it - then why didn't she talk to him, leave his house, and kill herself in private? Because she was so depressed, she just wanted to die - then after the first shot was fired was lodged in her lover's hand, why didn't she realize her aim was bad and she should leave before things get worse?

Now she has me doing it: using "then" to string together long sentences! Seriously, folks, if you want any chance of ever wanting to watch Ellen Burstyn in another movie, don't watch her in this. I was actively rooting for Peter Coyote to win the case of the prosecution. I have one more question: if she wanted to die so badly (which is the basis of her defense), why bother pleading innocent? Why is she not plagued with such guilt over killing the man she loved that, in combination with her depression, she welcomes the electric chair? I guess those are two questions; once again, Ellen's long-windedness must be catching.

In his opening speech the prosecutor tells the jury that he will not be able to put up a projector and show them what happened on a screen. This interesting movie remains true to that announcement and documents in a chronological order what went on in the courtroom in the trial against Jean Harris, accused of having murdered her long time lover, a well known doctor. The viewers have more or less the viewpoint of a member of the jury.

What is being said seems to come straight out of a protocol. The atmosphere in the courtroom is one of tolerance and also patience. Witnesses, not least the prime witness, the accused herself, often start to meander in their statements and it usually takes quite a while for the judge to interrupt them in a civil tone. The patient viewer is rewarded with an insight into the psyche of a strong willed, intelligent career woman to whom fate dealt cruel blows and who could just not take it anymore.

The acting is very good, Ellen Burstyn is absolutely convincing as Jean Harris and Martin Balsam gives a beautifully laid back performance as her lawyer. The judge, played by Richard A. Dysart, is one of the most uplifting movie judges I have ever seen. He shows great respect for all the people concerned and really is the conductor of the court proceedings which he has, tolerance non-withstanding, in a firm grip.