If I told you that Bette Davis and Jimmy Stewart costarred in an HBO movie about an elderly couple in a suicide pact, you’d probably think I was yanking your chain — and that’s without mentioning that Stewart’s character nibbles on cat food* or that Davis makes tuna casserole, something she certainly never did as Charlotte Vale, Judith Traherne or Margo Channing. It happens in the long-forgotten Right of Way (1983), which was produced in the network’s pre-Michael Patrick King era. In laymen’s terms, that means our octogenarian protagonists keep their clothes on and don’t break up with their daughter via Post-it note.
Instead, Miniature ‘Mini’ Dwyer (Davis, and there’s a long story behind that diminutive) and husband Teddy (Stewart) summon daughter Ruda (Melinda Dillon) to their Los Angeles home, which she finds unkempt and overrun with stray cats. Mini explains their lack of concern: “You see, we’re not worried about the house, the lawn these days, or the cats’ bowls or the weeds. We aren’t worried about any of it. We know we haven’t been attending to these things. We’re not blind and we haven’t forgotten. In fact, it’s just the opposite. We have chosen not to.” Indeed, they’ve been busy with weightier matters, like plotting their deaths.
“We’ve lived together and now we’re going to die together,” Teddy tells Ruda, an only child named for his favorite poet, Pablo Neruda. She doesn’t understand what he means, prompting Mini to clarify “Your father is saying we’re going to kill ourselves. We wanted you to know.” (Fortunately, Ruda catches on before it devolves into a Jackie Harris “Dad’s dead! He’s dead!” nightmare.) They’re not looking for assistance — they insist they can do it on their own — but Teddy’s seeking her consent, which she refuses to grant even after learning of Mini’s terminal illness, a disease of the blood.
By now we have some idea that relations are strained between headstrong Mini, a retired doll-maker, and potter Ruda, so it’s hard not to groan when screenwriter Richard Lees, who adapted his own stage play, has Mini muse “My own blood has turned against me.” Graver crimes are committed against Davis’s talent much later in the film, when Mini exults, as Teddy makes his final preparations for their exits, “This is exciting, isn’t it? It’s exciting, my heart’s beating. That’s a good way to go, with your heart beating.” Can’t you dig a little deeper for the star of The Little Foxes and All This, and Heaven Too?
Tonally, Right of Way avoids the exhausting whimsy of Harold and Maude or the grueling misery of ‘night, Mother. But director George Schaefer, who worked with Davis the year prior in A Piano for Mrs. Cimino, seems no more certain than Lees of whether it’s meant to be a family drama or a social statement on the perverse American obsession with “battling” death at all costs. Regardless, all of Mini and Teddy’s “We’re on our own in this life, all of us!” moralizing wears thin when it’s their refusal to be separated by death that drives the film’s plot.
Though their eccentric characters are overburdened at times by Lees’ excesses (a cat named Bobby De Niro is good for a laugh; once he was joined by Al Pacino, Paul Newman, Tatum O’Neal, Robert Redford and Jimmy Caan, I was ready to cry uncle), Davis and Stewart — and all their wrinkles — are as commanding of our attention as ever. Watching them share the screen in one of Stewart’s final films is a special experience that should be enjoyed by all fans of older movies, even if the Dwyers could take some cues from Davis’s most famous dying character, the one who said “Nothing can hurt us now. What we have can’t be destroyed. That’s our victory — our victory over the dark. It is a victory because we’re not afraid.”
*If only it had been dog food, Jefferson Smith would have something in common with Cristal Connors and Nomi Malone.
Streaming and DVD availability
Right of Way isn’t available on DVD but you can currently find it on YouTube.
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Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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