Who Killed 'Winter Kills'?

The 1979 movie "Winter Kills," based on a book by "The Manchurian Candidate" novelist Richard Condon, was certainly an acquired taste. I found the movie to be a darkly funny and twisted fictional take on the various conspiracy theories of the JFK assassination. Other viewers were confused and very insulted by the story.

The 2003 documentary short Who Killed "Winter Kills"? is a talky but very fascinating look at the movie and its struggling path from pre-production to post-production. Anchor Bay produced the documentary as a supplement for the 2003 DVD release of "Winter Kills."

As a fan of movie-making as well as a fan of movies, I have a feeling that even if I did not like "Winter Kills," it was interesting to hear the various production anecdotes from writer/director William Richert, cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, production designer Robert F. Boyle and actors Jeff Bridges and Belinda Bauer.

I saw the movie on cable TV a year after its extremely brief release in theaters and I am amazed that this movie somehow was completed despite three production shutdowns because of bankruptcy, two executive producers who apparently were marijuana dealers (one of them was gruesomely murdered a few weeks before the film was finally released because he did not pay his debts) and how the audacity of Richert, in his directorial debut, was able to get several notable actors in supporting and cameo roles including John Huston, Richard Boone, Sterling Hayden, Dorothy Malone, Eli Wallach, Ralph Meeker, Toshirô Mifune and Elizabeth Taylor.

The documentary does make me want to recheck the movie to see what it took for people who were dedicated to create and complete a film.