SO SAD ABOUT GLORIA

Lori Saunders

SO SAD ABOUT GLORIA (1973). Director: Harry Thomason. NOTE: Some plot points are revealed in this review.

Wealthy Gloria (Lori Saunders) is released from a sanitarium and into the care of her Uncle Fred (Dean Jagger). Apparently she was traumatized when she saw her father die, although the details regarding this are never explained. She meets a novelist named Chris (Robert Ginnaven) and the two quickly fall in love. They move into a house where a young lady was axed to death (a bloody but not terribly graphic sequence depicted early in the movie). When she learns about the still unsolved murder, Gloria becomes a little unhinged, and keeps hearing music even though Chris hears nothing. When Chris goes into town to meet with his publisher, Gloria is left alone in the house as fate rapidly rushes up to engulf her ... 

Robert Ginnaven

The biggest problem with the clumsily directed and edited So Sad About Gloria isn't that you can see the twist coming from a mile away, but that the film leaves the viewer dangling. I have no problem in relating that the identity of the aforementioned axe murderer, who apparently appears twice, is never 

revealed. Although the big scene is the murder of the young woman, we never learn the slightest thing about her, not even her name! Aside from Dean Jagger and Seymour Treitman, who plays a sort of handyman, the acting throughout is too often very stilted and unreal. Furthermore, there are far too many annoying flashbacks showing an axe chopping at chains wrapped around a coffin, with no explanation for this forthcoming. To be fair, there are a couple of suspenseful sequences. Harry Thomason, who directed and produced this and other terrible films, fled to television where he produced Designing Women, The Fall Guy, and others. 

Verdict: Lowercase suspense film. **.