DEATH AT LOVE HOUSE

Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson

DEATH AT LOVE HOUSE (1976 telefilm). Director: E. W. Swackhamer.  

Joel Gregory Jr. (Robert Wagner) is the son of a man who was once the lover of the late movie star Lorna Love (Marianna Hill). Joel and his pregnant wife, Donna (Kate Jackson), move into the Love estate to work on a book about the great romance between Lorna and his father. Mysterious people run about the estate at night, and there is an attempt on Donna's life. Conan Carroll (John Carradine), who worked with Lorna and loathed her, is attacked and killed on the grounds, not far from a vault where Lorna's perfectly preserved corpse (!) is on display. Then Joel starts acting all weird ... 

Dorothy Lamour

Death at Love House sets up an intriguing situation but it's one of those movies where characterization and common sense are sacrificed so there can be inexplicable and unlikely plot twists. If anything, the denouement raises more questions than it answers. However, Wagner and Jackson give good performances, and along with Carradine we have appearances by Sylvia Sidney as a housekeeper, Joan Blondell as an obsessive aging fan, and Dorothy Lamour as Lorna's old rival in pictures. Marianna Hill proves no great actress in her brief scenes as Lorna Love. Wagner plays his father in sepia flashbacks. Laurence Rosenthal's score helps a bit. 

Verdict: You won't love this love house. **1/4.                           

FALSE ARREST

Robert Wagner and Donna Mills

FALSE ARREST (2 part telefilm/1991). Director: Bill Norton. 

In Scottsdale, Joyce Lukezic (Donna Mills) is married to her husband Ron (Robert Wagner), who is stepfather to her two children. One night Ron's business partner is murdered, along with his mother-in-law; his wife is severely injured. At first it seems like a simple home invasion, but the authorities, led by Detective Dan Ryan (Steven Bauer), begin to focus in on Joyce, feeling she had the most to gain from the murders and may have hired the killers. Arrested, she faces nasty fellow inmates, and is even raped. Meanwhile Ron hands her pills in her hospital bed, suggesting that suicide might be the best way out for her! If possible, things get even worse for Joyce after she's convicted and sent to prison, with not a soul helping her but moral support from Nadine (Mimi Kuzyk), a sympathetic lesbian who falls for her. 

Mimi Kuzyk and Mills

False Arrest is a riveting true-crime telefilm with a good, if non-revelatory, lead performance from Mills. Robert Wagner gives one of the best performances of his career as the very slimy Ron, who basically runs off and leaves his step kids on their own. There is also very good work from Kuzyk, Bauer, George Hearn as a lawyer,  Dennis Christopher as a coke-addicted co-worker, and Lewis Van Bergen as Joyce's brother, Arnie, among others. Although Joyce was eventually acquitted in a second trial, she was never fully exonerated. This is based on her book about her trials and tribulations. 

Verdict: Absorbing true crime story with some on-target performances. ***.