Lynda Carter’s shoulder pads are so impressively broad at times in Stillwatch (1987) that she resembles David Byrne in Stop Making Sense. You might optimistically wonder if the cushioning is tactical, meant to provide protection during that most sacred of ’80s primetime rituals: a catfight. But Patricia Traymore, her TV journalist, is too refined for that. Her inevitable showdown with scheming Senator Abigail Winslow (Angie Dickinson) results in a single slap.
A profiler of celebrities and politicians, Patricia’s been lured to Washington, D.C. by veteran newsman Luther Pelham (Stuart Whitman) to interview Winslow, who’s in the running to replace an ailing vice president. “I’ve always felt that the public’s right to know ends where my private life begins,” Abigail uncooperatively maintains, even though she’s a public servant whose career was built on the premature death of her congressman husband. Naturally, there are skeletons in her closet — and a few in Patricia’s, as well.
On the dark and windy night that Patricia arrives in D.C., neighbor Lila Thatcher (Louise Latham, thoughtful even in Thin Ice) feels a chill unrelated to the weather. A parapsychologist, she surveils Pat’s brownstone from her window and has a habit of showing up unannounced at odd hours. The home, which sat empty for years, has a spooky provenance — a congressman murdered his wife and seven-year-old daughter there before turning the gun on himself. “If you believe that something evil is going to happen, you keep a vigil in the night,” Lila eventually explains. “A stillwatch.”
Whether Lila is orchestrating a Watcher-esque stunt or genuinely senses danger, I’ll leave unspoiled — if you can call it that. The brownstone’s secret is obvious from the start, and Roger Ebert’s Law of Economy of Characters immediately identifies its villain, but Stillwatch feels less like a murder mystery (it’s based on a Mary Higgins Clark novel) than a haunted house tale. Part of its fun is that Pat inexplicably ignores increasingly outrageous bumps in the night, starting with doors that close when no one else is home and escalating to an intruder tickling the ivories on a downstairs piano as she sleeps.
Director Rod Holcomb, who used an Alan Smithee credit at least twice in his career, was either genre-agnostic or wholly indifferent to his assignment. Screenwriters Laird Koenig and David Peckinpah (the latter of whom scripted Carter’s Hotline and Shannen Doherty’s Obsessed) have the opposite problem: they’re hopelessly distracted by crafting distractions. Their efforts to make almost every character suspicious, including a silver-haired congressman (Don Murray) coveted by both Pat and Abigail, are subverted by the obviousness of the plot.
All the intrigue overburdens Carter (Daddy), who coasts on our goodwill. Dickinson wears the same poker face she had in other telefilms of the period, like Dial ‘M’ for Murder and Prime Target, but shows some pep in her final scenes. That she and Carter perk up when their characters are in sexual or professional competition keeps this clash between Wonder Woman and “Pepper” Anderson from being a total dud, but it’s Latham who steals the show as an ESP practitioner who doesn’t own a television because “I have my own reception. Clearer signals.” If only Stillwatch had been on her wavelength.
Streaming and DVD availability
Stillwatch is currently available on YouTube.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
Leave a Reply