Susan Lucci and Tim Matheson are on the outside of their marriage looking in.

First thing’s first: The Woman Who Sinned, a 1991 TV movie that bravely asks the question, Is it okay to cheat if you’re married to Tim Matheson?, is no Miracle at Christmas: Ebbie’s Story (1995). Few films are. If you’re here for Taran Noah Smith’s Tiny Tim singing a Christmas carol while Susan Lucci’s a raging asshole to everyone, you’re out of luck. If you’re here for endless scenes of Lucci crying and a few seconds of Matheson fresh from a swim, you’re in the right place.

What we have here, mostly, is adultery. Adultery as far as the eye can see. And, to keep things lively, the occasional murder. Lucci is Victoria Robeson, a gallery owner whose best friend, author Jane (Lenore Kasdorf), is an outspoken proponent of extramarital affairs. When Victoria is uncharacteristically tempted to have one of her own, Jane is full of encouragement. And when that tryst with Evan Ganns (Michael Dudikoff, In Her Defense) ends poorly, Jane winds up dead—and Victoria’s wrongfully accused of the crime.

“Officer, we’d like to report a crime. Our marriage has robbed us of joy.”

Conveniently, Michael (Tim Matheson), her clueless husband of 13 years, is a former ADA. “I love my husband. I know he loves me,” she tells Randy Emerson (Christine Belford), the private investigator tasked with clearing her name. But she admits they’ve hit a rough patch, arguing over when to start a family: “It felt like Michael and I were always out of sync.”

Was the reproductive backstory, which provides some of Woman’s heartiest laughs, baffling to anyone else? Lucci’s earnest, impassioned delivery of the line “Babies need their mothers so much!” was delightful, as was the suspension of disbelief required to pretend Victoria (who looks about 45) was in the prime of her fertility. (Then again, we must never forget what happened to Rue McClanahan in Baby of the Bride.)

Ah, the old Dateline progression from extramarital affair to courtroom.

Most amusing of all is the affair itself. Victoria, seated beside Michael, first spots Evan across a crowded bar and is immediately panting like Diane Lane in Unfaithful. His bolo ties and nonexistent personality do little to explain the attraction. They conspire to meet again, ostensibly about Evan’s photography career, but Victoria knows she is playing a dangerous game. “My interest in you is purely professional,” she tells him, which raises questions about her profession.

There is nothing more to Evan, or to Dudikoff’s performance, than tousled hair and a skeevy air of desperation that goes unnoticed by Victoria in her errant pursuit of feeling desired. After a week of not-so-secret meetings (they frolic on a public beach despite her social prominence), she must decide whether or not to sleep with him. Conveniently, she’s still wrestling with this question when she sits beside Michael in church and listens to this lazily written (“Many, various”!) sermon:

“And so, my friends, no one is compelled to evil. Only our consent gives it free rein. The sin is not in being tempted, it is in yielding to the temptation. It is not true that there are no enjoyments in the ways of sin. There are many, various. But the great defect of them all is that they are transitory and unsubstantial. At war with reason and conscience. And always they leave behind a sting.”

The woman who sinned (1991)
Two of Lucci’s most memorable The Woman Who Sinned looks.

Intrigued by the promise of transitory enjoyment, Victoria succumbs to her unconvincing passions. However, she comes to her senses and aborts the encounter mid-act. (The liaison was partially filmed through the blades of a ceiling fan, a directorial choice that plays like a strangely sexual ad for Home Depot.) Evan doesn’t take kindly to rejection and his true nature is soon revealed. In an unsurprising twist, so is that of Michael, who’s hiding a secret of his own.

Lucci and Matheson cut an agreeable pair—he’s adequately tall and male, and she alternately cries and tosses her hair like she’s in a Pantene commercial, a Lucci specialty. Denne Bart Petitclerc’s screenplay resolves their marital issues, and Victoria’s legal jeopardy, as patly as possible after corpses pile up in their wake, and director Michael Switzer (of Dolly Parton’s Unlikely Angel and Melissa Gilbert’s With a Vengeance) keeps things zippy. The Woman Who Sinned is far from Bergmanesque in its exploration of the challenges of marriage, but I slept a little better the night I watched it, content in the knowledge my wife would never risk it all for a bozo in a bolo tie.

Streaming and DVD availability

The Woman Who Sinned streams free (with ads) at Amazon, Tubi and on YouTube. Several of Lucci’s other films are available for streaming at no cost through Amazon.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.

… But wait, there’s more!

Some of the best transitory enjoyment in The Woman Who Sinned is delivered by Christine Belford. Given the same ludicrous hardboiled dialogue as the rest of the detectives in the film, Belford makes the most of it, turning a small and occasionally insulting role—Randy repeatedly makes derogatory references to her weight—into the TV movie version of Robert Loggia’s dogged PI in Jagged Edge. Behold her introduction, delivered while smoking (of course):

“Lucky for you, Larry’s your attorney. I was packing for a week of sun and sex in the Bahamas when he called, so let’s get this over as quick as possible, okay? Let me start by saying I’m a retired police officer on account of a drinking problem. I was a good cop and I’m a good PI. I quit the booze 191 days ago and as they say, I’m a recovering alcoholic. Now it’s your turn. Did you kill your friend?”

the woman who sinned (1991)

Incidentally, Belford (who memorably played Rose’s money-hungry daughter in “The Truth Will Out,” S1E16 of The Golden Girls) is married to Nicholas Pryor, who was recently singled out here for his work in Night Terror.