Look4Me600

The Seduction of Miss Leona (1980)

Performances really make this movie

I haunt thrift stores, looking for VHS cassettes of offbeat, long-forgotten, and/or never-recognized things that will never merit a DVD release. I hit a triple on this one. (The version I bought is under the title TO LOVE AGAIN). This is a movie of the week (remember those?) made for CBS in the late 70s, and it has all the hallmarks--serviceable camera-work, ugly sets and wardrobe,nondescript minor players--of those stalwart, churned-out little mini-movies. But on occasion, a MOW script would give enough attention and detail to characterization, and a good director would be in sync enough with well-cast actors, that something quite good would result. That is the case here. Lynn Redgrave is as fine as she was in Georgy Girl. She had such a weird career for such a talented actress; maybe her not-beautiful looks, and a certain eccentricity in acting style, kept her on the sidelines (or in bad projects) so much of the time. As a solitary but passionate woman teaching English literature at a small college in the hinterlands, she never makes a wrong move--even her undisguised accent marks her as an outsider, which Leona is. Brian Dennehy is perfect as the blue-collar man who becomes entranced with her--these two have real chemistry. And kudos to the writer and director for giving Conchata Ferrell something to work with as the wronged wife determined to keep her man. It would have been easy to portray her as just a plump bitch, but Ferrell is given a remarkable scene where she quietly wonders what her laborer husband found in common with a woman "with all those books in her head." In some ways, the movies of the week were the forbears of some of today's better indies. I'll watch this one from time to time in the future.