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.
Joan Collins and Joanna Pacula wig out in Sweet Deception
Whoever greenlit Sweet Deception (1998) knew it was unmitigated crap. That’s how we ended up with not one but two very special guest stars: Kate Jackson (wearing the type of gaudy press-on nails favored by Linda Richman) and Joan Collins (styling wigs and giving manicures from a wheelchair). We’ll get to those two later. First we need to talk about Jack Scalia’s Southern accent, the least convincing thing in a movie full of ’em.
Joanna Pacula stars as Risa, the second Mrs. Gallagher. Her husband is Fin (Peter LaCroix), a wealthy serial philanderer we meet as he stashes millions of dollars in cash in an offshore safe deposit box. He isn’t long for this world, which is just as well because little about Fin and Risa’s pairing, or casting, makes sense. Equally nonsensically, Scalia plays Brett Newcomb, Fin’s slick Southern law partner in a San Francisco firm. He calls Risa “darlin'” about 87 times in the course of 90 minutes, sometimes while wearing a bow tie, as if lost on his way to a dinner theater production of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Kate Jackson plays her embittered ex role a bit broadly.
The first Mrs. Gallagher, Kit (Kate Jackson), is also in the picture, making a scene at a soiree attended by her ex and casually greeting his new wife with an insult: “Hello, Risa. Beautiful dress. It’s a shame they didn’t have it in your size.” Jackson has very few lines altogether but might as well be in a Honeysuckle Ham catalogue with her exaggerated facial expressions and swigs of champagne that have absolutely nothing in common with the rest of Sweet Deception.
As Felix Unger taught us lo those many years ago, when you assume you make an ass out of you and me. Reader, here I confess that I made an ass out of us all with this one. After watching Susan Lucci in The Woman Who Sinned, I noticed In Her Defense, another title with a similar plot (adultery, murder, legal jeopardy). It starred Marlee Matlin and Michael Dudikoff, who played the schmuck with whom Lucci sinned, and I thought maybe the films would make a decent double feature.
How wrong I was! By the time I realized this was not a campy TV movie of the week but dreary Canadian direct-to-cable-or-video dreck, I’d invested enough time in watching it that I didn’t want to scrap the whole thing. Gird your loins if you plan to continue reading, because this was brutally bad. Its saving grace was a half-baked lesbian twist that, despite feeling somewhat random, was less than surprising to anyone who has seen Basic Instinct.
While I’m stuck on the couch for the next couple weeks, having been told to avoid the Omicron surge while immunosuppressed, the timing seems right to dedicate myself to the study of one of the holiest trilogies in cinematic history: Rue McClanahan’s made-for-TV Bride series.
This is where it all began, folks, in 1990, with Children of the Bride. The credits, including “Special Guest Star Patrick Duffy” and “Music by Yanni,” hint at something memorable. Things begin promisingly, with Kristy McNichol dressed as a nun, and of course I’m here with a screen cap for those of you who are into that sort of thing. And who’s that over there, once again not acting too homosexual? Why, it’s Dynasty’s second Steven Carrington! They are but two of McClanahan’s many kids, one more troubled than the next.
