Kristin Davis and Michael Murphy weren’t expecting to run into each other like this in The Ultimate Lie.
Few premises are as perfect a fit for a TV movie as this one: a young woman working as an escort knocks on a john’s hotel room door — and it’s answered by her dad. That’s the setup for The Ultimate Lie, in which Kristin Davis plays Claire McGrath, a rebellious college dropout turned prostitute.
When Claire is sent for a date with “Harold,” her secret life intersects with that of her father, esteemed law school dean and whoremonger Malcolm (Michael Murphy). They stare at each other in horror for several seconds before a shaken Claire wordlessly leaves.
Susan Lucci and David Charvet in Seduced and Betrayed
Susan Lucci’s no stranger to adulterous affairs in TV movies, but there’s a twist in Seduced and Betrayed (1995)—Lucci goes full psycho. In The Woman Who Sinned and Between Love and Hate, it’s the scorned other man who seeks his revenge. In Blood on Her Hands, she’s a schemer content to let others do her dirty work. But in Seduced and Betrayed, there’s no outsourcing. She’s as determined to claim David Charvet for herself as she was to ruin Christmas in Ebbie.
Every morning, while the rest of the house sleeps, I lumber around awkwardly in a running-adjacent kind of way until my watch says I can stop. For accompaniment I prefer TV to music. Having exhausted just about every Dateline episode on Peacock, I needed something new.
Sisters was my mom’s favorite show when I was around eight years old. My dad would flee to another room to watch sports whenever it was on and I’d stick around and only half-understand it. (Even then, though, before ever hearing the phrase “wig fur,” I knew Swoosie Kurtz was magnificent.) Now I’m older than my mother was then and figured I’d give it another chance.
Dean Stockwell and Shelley Long in a scene from Fatal Memories (1992).
The best I can say about Fatal Memories (1992), a telefilm about recovered memories, is at least Shelley Long doesn’t have multiple personalities in it — watching her cry for 90 minutes as just one person is exhausting enough. (Masochists who want to see her grapple with that contentious diagnosis should consult the 1990 miniseries Voices Within: The Lives of Truddi Chase.)
Based on a controversial true story, Fatal Memories follows suburban homemaker Eileen Franklin Lipsker (Long, porcelain-skinned, chin quivering bravely throughout) as she recovers long-buried memories of an abusive childhood. The triggers can be as mundane as bathing or opening the refrigerator. Whatever your take on repressed memories, a once-popular concept that has since been scientifically discredited, I think we can agree this movie is best forgotten.
“Just call me and say ‘The carpet’s been cleaned,'” Celeste Cooper (Joanna Kerns) tells a hit man at the beginning of Mother Knows Best, after ordering the execution of her son-in-law. “I want whoever does this to be extremely careful,” she warns. “As careful as I am.”
Celeste, a socialite who is perfectly coiffed and manicured even while shopping for cheese, is indeed quite careful. So meticulous is this tireless fundraiser for charitable causes (recently honored as Handicapped Children’s Woman of the Year) that she times false accusations of assault against that same beleaguered son-in-law to coincide with her latest eye-lift.
Alas, Jessica Walter doesn’t attend Motherboy in this one.
“Comin’ atcha at the top of the hour, we’ve got your traffic update… and a little murder.”
As a non-Catholic, I’m not sure how many Our Fathers and Hail Marys it would take to atone for such an absolute dog as Original Sins (1995), but I reckon it’s a lot. On the Tori Spelling scale of TV movie terribleness, it’s better than Mind Over Murder (so is gallbladder surgery) but not quite as convincing as Death of a Cheerleader, if that’s any help at all. Despite a sexyFather Ralph de Bricassart twist that might’ve titillated my grandmother in the ’90s, this one’s a massive yawner.
Take a deep breath and prepare to clutch your pearls, because you will not believe what Jean Smart’s handsome doctor husband is up to in the 1998 Lifetime movie Change of Heart. I’ll give you a hint: it involves long-buried feelings and a penis not his own. This will be a long one (no pun intended) since gay made-for-TV movies were still quite a novelty in the ’90s.
My brother and I always found it hilarious that our most prudish grandmother, who practically fainted at the slightest hint of sex on TV, loved the music of Rod Stewart and Tom Jones and considered them perfect specimens of masculinity. This weekend’s video is (quite inappropriately) dedicated to her.
The original plan was to highlight Ronnie Spector, but today we learned that Grandma has COVID-19 after yet another outbreak in her nursing home. She’s fully vaccinated and boosted and had even emerged unscathed when a past roommate contracted the virus, but with the higher transmissibility of omicron and the raging community spread in her region this felt like an inevitability. We’ve already lost one relative to COVID pre-vaccine. Hopefully Grandma and Moderna are able to pull this off.
UPDATE: Hooray for boosters! My octogenarian grandmother made it through what is presumed to be the omicron variant of COVID-19. She experienced severe fatigue and loss of appetite for about four days. As those symptoms resolved she developed a mild cough but claimed to be otherwise comfortable.
In the 1990s, a young Cranky excitedly reserved the family TV and VCR to record Dame Judith Anderson’s Lady Scarface (1941) off AMC. Despite this, my parents still didn’t realize I was gay. I’ll rewatch this forgettable, somewhat lighthearted RKO gangster film this weekend ahead of viewing Susan Lucci’s Lady Mobster. Oh, the humanity!
Jennie Garth will not be ignored in An Unfinished Affair.
Here we go again with Tim Matheson and adultery. Having learned nothing from all the rampant infidelity that claimed no fewer than three lives in The Woman Who Sinned, his Alex Connor in An Unfinished Affair (1996) didn’t just mess around on any wife, he cheated on a woman dying of cancer. His biggest mistake is also his greatest joy: she miraculously, as he calls it, recovered.
“I know I need to put on some more weight, but at least I didn’t lose my hair,” Cynthia (Leigh Taylor-Young) sheepishly tells him during one of their scenes of domestic idyll. He couldn’t be happier to have his wife back and has even decided to give up a teaching side gig to rededicate himself to marriage. Pleased, Cynthia admits, “I know it’s selfish but I want you all to myself.”
Tim Matheson is keeping some painful secrets from Leigh Taylor-Young in An Unfinished Affair.
Does it make a ton of sense why he chose to scratch the teaching itch during the time he was most convinced his wife’s death was imminent? Of course not. But this is an exceptionally lazy screenplay (credited to Rama Laurie Stanger, later of Lifetime’s House of Versace, and Dan Witt) in need of a way to introduce the other woman, Sheila Hart (Jennie Garth), a graphic designer who took his class.
