TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON
D: Otto Preminger (1970) ¢ ¢ 1/2
Liza Minelli, Ken Howard, Robert Moore,
James Coco, Kay Thompson, Fred Williamson,
Clarice Taylor, Leonard Frey, Angelique Pettyjohn
Three patients with various disabilities meet in a hospital and decide to rent a house together when they're released. There's a good story in this - Marjorie Kellogg wrote the script from her own novel - but everything about it seems a little too obvious. When the title character winds up alone late at night with a guy who's clearly a pervert, she asks herself why she doesn't just run away. She hasn't got an answer for that, and neither does the film. So she strips for him, and then teases him about it, and then something horrible happens (go figure) which lands her in the hospital. It's more than a little apparent that one of the housemates is gay, but the way the film resolves that issue feels like a betrayal. The movie opens and closes with Pete Seeger walking through the redwoods strumming a guitar and singing "Old Devil Time". Those segments don't have much to do with anything in the story, but the lyrics kind of connect, and it's always good to see Pete out there singing.
