movies, TV, videos

Repost: Desperate Lives– a delightfully campy anti-drug flick starring Helen Hunt…

I am reposting this old Epinions review, written June 26, 2012, because I mentioned Diana Scarwid today and she was in this movie about drugs in the 80s. I did recently write about Desperate Lives, but that post didn’t include my review… and I worked so hard on that review! So here it is– as/is– for the interested. I had some fun with this writeup, didn’t I?

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s, which means that my childhood was inundated with anti-drug propaganda.  One of the most memorable made for television films from my youth is 1982’s Desperate Lives, starring Doug McKeon, Diana Scarwid, Diane Ladd, and a very young Helen Hunt.  This film has some unintentionally hilarious moments in it, which is why I would ever think of it 30 years later.  Though it has been available on VHS in the past, it eventually went out of print.  I see it’s now being offered for $9.99 on Amazon.com, or you might be able to see it for free on YouTube, which is what I opted to do.  Or, you can just read this review, which will be very snarky and includes all of the major details of the plot.

The plot

Guidance counselor Eileen Phillips (Diana Scarwid) is new blood at a high school where the kids are all stoned.  She wants to do something about all the blatant drug abuse, but the teachers and administrators don’t care.  Can a couple of special students help Eileen convince the kids to stop doing drugs?

A blow by blow… (cuz are you really going to watch this?)

*Spoilers– skip this section if you don’t want them.* Diana Scarwid, who famously played the adult version of Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest, plays Eileen Phillips, a young guidance counselor.  Just eight years out of high school herself, Eileen Phillips has an annoying, odd, southern accent that sounds like it inspired Eric Cartman fifteen years later.  On her first day on the job, Eileen runs into Scott Cameron (Doug McKeon) in the parking lot.  Scott appears disoriented because he and his sister, Sandy (Helen Hunt), have just taken a ride in a van where other young folks are doing drugs.  Scott apparently has a bit of a contact high.

Eileen immediately takes a shine to 15 year old Scott and asks another guidance counselor if she can trade one of her students for Scott.  Later, we see Scott in Eileen’s office and she tries to talk to him about his future.  But he’s coming down from his high and is angry and irritable.   They have a bonding moment when Eileen implores her new young charge to trust her.

At a pep rally, Eileen is enjoying the band and the cheerleaders until she looks around and spots some unruly boys up in the bleachers shoving stuff up their noses and smoking pot.  The football coach stirs up cheer by telling students they “have to get high”.  As everyone roars approval, he quips “That’s not what I mean…”

Eileen corners the principal, Dr. Jarvis (William Windom), and immediately takes him to task for all the druggies in his school.  Having only been on the job two weeks, Eileen sure doesn’t mind upsetting the apple cart.  Dr. Jarvis doesn’t seem to care.  He continues greeting students as Eileen tries to talk to him about trying to stop all the drug use.  The good principal just can’t be bothered.  Later, we discover that Dr. Jarvis will soon be retiring, which explains his apathy.  He warns Eileen not to rock the boat too much.

Eileen is in the pool with the students when she spots one of them floating.  She shouts for someone to call the paramedics because the young lass isn’t breathing.  Miraculously, after a few seconds of CPR, the young girl starts breathing again.  When Eileen asks what happened, the only response she gets from the other kids is that the girl is just a “dumb doper”. 

The music turns sad and ominous as we end up at Scott and Sandy’s house, where their mom, Carol (Diane Ladd), is setting up for dinner.  Scott starts complaining to his mother, who tells him he hangs out with “a bad class of people”.  Scott gets p!ssed and storms out of the house as Carol calls to him to come back.  But Sandy tells her to let Scott go out and blow off some steam… or maybe just to score some blow.  Later, when Sandy tries to talk to Scott, he calls her a b!tch and accuses her of being a doper, too.  But Sandy says she only “experiments”; she’s not a drug fiend.

The familiar strains of an 80s era arcade play and I hear the sounds of Donkey Kong.  Scott’s there to pick up a stash from his dealer, Ken (Sam Bottoms).  Ken apparently sees himself in Scott and recruits him to help him sell drugs.  He shows Scott his car and apartment, offers Scott a beer, and tells him to open a briefcase he got handmade in Italy, which Scott pronounces as “gnarly”.  The dealer doesn’t drink or drug, but he likes his money.  He sees the same qualities in Scott as he introduces him to a lucrative life in designer Jordache jeans!   

There’s more ominous music as the scene shifts.  Poor Carol is in bed with her husband, John (Tom Atkins), lamenting about how crappy Scott is.  The parents are losing control of their kids and hating it.  Dad can’t reach Scott, but he can keep a 16 hour a day job at the post office so he can pay the bills.

Scott is soon approached by a pretty 15 year old girl named Susan (Tricia Cast) who’s heard he sells drugs.  He doesn’t want to sell her any drugs, but she tells him “everybody else is doing it”.  Ahh… famous last words.

Eileen busts a group of b!tchy teen girls in the girl’s bathroom, who are sitting in there getting high.  They tell her the same thing… that everybody does it.  But Eileen isn’t having it.  Her voice is low with disapproval as she reminds the teens that she’s been around and knows what’s going on. 

Next, we see Sandy in the chemistry lab with her boyfriend, Steve (Grant Cramer) a cutie pie football player.  He’s got some PCP and wants to celebrate their six week anniversary.  Sandy tries to resist, but Steve lays on the peer pressure.  She snorts; he kisses her.  Then we flip back to Scott as he asks out Susan, the cute girl who wanted to buy drugs from him. 

Suddenly, we hear ungodly screams and shattering glass as we see Sandy jump out a second story window!  Under the influence of that PCP, Sandy has landed on the ground, screaming and writhing, miraculously with no apparent broken bones, cuts, or even bruises.  Scott wrestles Sandy to the ground and she goes limp as she passes out.  When a student says that only the crazies act like this, Eileen screams that she’s glad everyone’s so sane.  Yes, this is one of the unintentionally hilarious parts of this film.

Eileen Phillips is now lamenting that the problem is overwhelming.  Her boyfriend, Stan (Art Hindle), is annoyed because Eileen is too much into her job.  He’s especially irritated when Eileen asks Stan if he minds if Scott joins them on their bike date that weekend.  Eileen wants to show Scott a “new way to get high”.  And Stan reluctantly agrees to being cock-blocked by a drug addicted adolescent.

Eileen takes Scott fishing and finds out that Scott has a sense of humor.  Then they’re with Stan as appropriately cheesy 80s music plays while they ride their bikes without helmets and take crazy risks doing stunts.  They have a good day, but Scott still has a dark side. 

In the very next scene, he’s snorting a couple of lines of cocaine just as he’s about to practice swimming.  He does a lap, then his cute little girlfriend, Susan shows up.  They talk about drugs and Scott is annoyed that she’s on something.  It seems the young lady has a complex about being like “Little Bo Peep” and thinks drugs will help her grow up.   

Next Ken, the nasty drug dealer, is shown roughing up Julie (Michele Greene) one of his female teenaged clients, who begs him to supply her with something.  But he heartlessly shoves her aside, refusing to hook her up.  Then, just as Ken is about to leave, Scott shows up and confronts the drug dealer, telling him to stay away from his girlfriend.  I’m wondering if Scott is just hoping there will be more for him.     

Eileen Phillips, still taking her job very seriously, tracks down the drug dealer and confronts him.  I can’t help but think Eileen is a dummy, messing with a drug dealer without any backup.  These were the days before cell phones after all.  But the dealer is surprisingly mellow… until the two of them find Julie, the shrieking young girl the dealer had kicked out, dead on the floor of his apartment.  She has committed suicide.

At swim practice, Eileen pulls Scott aside and reads him the riot act.  They have an argument as Eileen tells Scott that he’s a doper.  Scott finally breaks down and tells her he has to do something to get away from “all the crap”.  And Eileen, in all her wisdom, tells Scott to try a movie or a book.  Somehow, I can’t imagine that advice is going to go very far with the average drug addict.

Then at a faculty meeting, Eileen delivers a sermon about all the druggie kids at the school, and poor dead Julie is a good way to raise the issue with the kids.  Here, we see Dr. Joyce Brothers in a cameo, playing Mrs. Watson, a woman who couldn’t care less about the drug problems and wants to discuss band uniforms.

Over Thanksgiving dinner, Scott’s family is trying to engage him.  But he passes out, his face landing in his plate full of turkey and mashed potatoes.  Then as Eileen and Stan have a picnic, they argue because Eileen is too hung up on the druggie teens and doesn’t care enough about their relationship. 

Sandy, now sporting black eyes and casts on her arm and leg, takes Scott out for a walk.  He tells her he’s taken Quaaludes and that’s why he passed out over dinner.  Sandy tries to talk Scott out of using drugs, but Scott takes off on his skateboard, leaving poor gimpy Sandy standing there.

As Scott is angrily skateboarding down the street, the music turns hopeful.  Susan pulls up in her car.  She’s fifteen, so she’s clearly driving illegally.  The window rolls down and Scott calls her “Sandy” instead of Susan.  Oops!  She invites him to get in the car with her.  They decide to go up to the mountains.  While they drive, Susan tells Scott to open the glove compartment, where she’s stashed some primo angel dust.  Susan reassures Scott that this angel dust is “clean” and they can enjoy it without worrying about freaking out like Sandy did.  The two have an annoying conversation, peppered with some very contrived sounding teen lingo.  They light up while Susan is driving and the two of them are completely out of it as the road grows curvier.  Finally, Susan is stoned out of her mind and still driving… neither is wearing a seatbelt, mind you, as Susan’s car goes through the guard rail and down an embankment.  Another unintentionally hilarious moment happens as we see a very cheesy special effect.  The windshield cracks, but it looks like it was done in cartoon rather than for real!

Eileen comes to the hospital.  Thunder rolls and it’s pouring outside.  Eileen introduces herself to Scott’s parents, who have gathered around their son’s hospital bed.  We see Scott looking out of it, his hands restrained in leather straps.  Scott has a nasty concussion and doesn’t even ask about Susan, his darling girlfriend who has perished in the crash. 

It’s Christmas time, two weeks after his Thanksgiving accident.  Scott still doesn’t know what’s happened.  Eileen visits him at his home.  Scott asks what happened.  Eileen tries to change the subject, but he presses her for details.  Eileen tells Scott that “God has a way of blocking painful memories from our minds so that we don’t replay them over and over again…”  Not sure God has a lot to do with it, but it sounds good.  Eileen talks to Scott’s mom and I have to say, Diane Ladd does a good job playing the anguished mom, wondering how she ended up with two druggie kids.  Later that night, Scott wakes up screaming like a banshee as he realizes his cute girlfriend, Susan, is dead.  He’s hysterical as he throws a chair through the window.  Is it the drugs or grief?  The paramedics come to take Scott away, presumably for a shot of Thorazine.

Eileen reflects on what’s happened to her favorite student.  She has finally had enough.  During a Christmas assembly, Eileen goes through a bunch of lockers and collects a bunch of drug stashes.  She puts it all on a cart and pushes the cart into the gynmasium, where she proceeds to burn the drugs in front of everyone.  I can’t help but wonder how the burning drugs don’t make everyone high,  but I guess the writers were going for a dramatic effect.  On another note, the fact that there’s a Christmas assembly and the choir is singing a religious song really shows how dated this film is.  In any case, after Eileen collects all the drugs, I’m left thinking this was one stoned school! 

Eileen delivers another unintentially hilarious speech in front of the student body as she lists all of the students who have been maimed or killed thanks to drugs.  She’s presumably sober when she does this.  Just say no, kids!  And shockingly, Eileen’s speech seems to get through to everybody!  One by one, the students come up to the burning cart with drugs on it and drops more into the flames, apparently just because of Eileen Phillips’ speech.  A round of applause erupts as the kids decide to go straight.  I wonder if they’ll still be straight tomorrow or the next day, but the ending does at least allow this film to end on a triumphant note.

My thoughts

Desperate Lives was obviously meant to be a very serious film.  I know it was shown at schools in the 1980s as a way to dissuade students from taking illegal drugs.  But I have to say, Diana Scarwid’s performance is pretty trippy.  I was impressed by some of the other actors, namely Doug McKeon and Helen Hunt, who are clearly much too talented for this tripe. 

I don’t think this film is particularly effective, despite its strong anti-drug propaganda bent.  The dramatic moments go way too far, which makes this movie too over the top to be taken seriously.  Yes, it’s true that some people ruin their lives over drugs.  But Desperate Lives only shows the most drastic and dramatic pitfalls to drug abuse peppered with the Valley Girl speak that was so popular in the early 1980s.  From the moment we see Helen Hunt jumping out of a window, screaming her head off, it’s very clear some of these scenes are intended to shock and scare straight.  And what they ultimately end up doing is making viewers laugh.  Or at least they make ME laugh.  At least we’re spared seeing these kids in rehab.

Overall   

This is your typical 80s era movie of the week.  I watch this and wonder if people were really that simple in the 80s.  I can’t imagine today’s teens taking this movie seriously at all.  If you watch it, you will probably laugh.  I certainly wouldn’t spend money on this film, but it’s fun for a laugh on YouTube.

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bad TV, good tv, movies, nostalgia, TV, videos, YouTube

Angel Dusted, Desperate Lives, ended with a Final Escape…

Happy Saturday to everyone. It’s cold and grey here near Wiesbaden, Germany. Good news, though. My new Thunderbolt cable just arrived, so now I don’t have to hang around the house waiting for the delivery guy. Or maybe I do. There is one more package I’m waiting for before I declare my Christmas shopping done for 2021. It could show up today. It probably won’t, though.

It’s been quite a dramatic month so far, and it’s really flying by. Pretty soon, it’ll be 2022, and people are already noticing…

Yikes!

Actually, I’m not that afraid of 2022. Being fearful of the future isn’t productive. It will happen no matter what. Besides, we’ve already survived 2020 and 2021. How much worse could it be? Don’t answer that!

I’ve decided that today, I’m going to write one of my “fun” (for me, anyway) TV nostalgia pieces. I don’t feel like ranting about irksome behavior from strangers, opining about people who are in court, or writing very personal stuff about my life. Nope, today I’m going to write about some stuff that was on TV when I was a child. I love to watch old crap from the past on YouTube, and I’m grateful to content creators who are there for me with an impressive collection of that stuff. It’s always a bit unsettling to realize how long ago the early 80s were. It seems like yesterday.

Over the past 48 hours or so, I’ve watched some 80s era TV that was universally entertaining, but for different reasons. It’s easy to forget that the 80s were very different for a lot of reasons. For one thing, for a good portion of the decade, there were only three major networks, plus public television. If you had access to cable, you might have had 20 or 30 channels. I think when my parents got basic cable in 1980, we had about 12 or 14 channels, which seemed like a lot at the time. Consequently, there were a lot of movies of the week and TV shows that everyone watched. Some of the TV fare available in those days is truly laughable today.

In 1981, I was 8 or 9 years old. I was 8 until June of that year, anyway. And one movie that aired and I missed was called Angel Dusted, which premiered on NBC in February of that year. In fact, I had never heard of that movie until I stumbled across it, totally by chance, yesterday morning. It starred the late Jean Stapleton (aka Edith Bunker) and her son, John Putch, as well as the late Arthur Hill. Helen Hunt also has a role. Gosh, she was so pretty when she was a teenager!

There are a couple of videos with this movie on YouTube, but I’m uploading this one, because it also includes ads from 1981. They are a hoot to watch, especially since I remember them well and realize how strange they are 40 years later!

Back in the 80s, there was a lot of press about drug abuse. That was the “Just say no!” era, championed by Nancy Reagan. Drug abuse is a serious problem, but some of the films put out about them in the early 80s were truly ridiculous. I’m happy to report that Angel Dusted is actually a very well done film, save for the hokey title. I never saw Jean Stapleton in much besides All in the Family, so it was a pleasant shock to see her in this film with her talented son, John Putch.

Putch plays Owen Eaton, a high achieving college student who attends an excellent university and is under pressure to make top grades in a demanding major. One night, Owen smokes a marijuana joint laced with PCP– angel dust– and it makes him have a psychotic breakdown. The doctor at the infirmary where he attends school calls Owen’s parents, Betty and Michael Eaton (Stapleton and Hill), and they rush to the other side of the state to pick up their boy. They arrive at the infirmary to find him strapped to the bed, screaming and wrestling. The doctor at the infirmary, played by familiar and prolific character actor, Jerry Hardin, tells them that Owen needs to be hospitalized.

Betty and Michael soon find themselves plunged into a crisis, as their son is put in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks, completely unable to function and surrounded by people who have organic mental illnesses. Betty is the dutiful doting mother. Michael is ashamed and withdraws. Their other three children, Mark (Ken Michelman), Lizzie (Helen Hunt), and Andrew (Brian Andrews) are forced to deal with the shifting focus in their family as Owen recovers from the psychotic reaction.

Parts of this film are very 80s and make me feel older than dirt. It was weird to see nurses in white dresses and caps, remembering that in those days, that’s how they looked. I also noticed things like the house, with all its wallpaper and big boxy televisions. This was all normal when I was a child, but now it’s different. We have flat screens, textured walls, and people don’t necessarily have dinner in the dining room. A lot of newer houses don’t have dining rooms! Some of the dialogue is also pretty dated, too.

But– I really thought this film was well acted and had a compelling story. I also liked that touch of early 80s cheese and over the top drama that made it interesting and entertaining in 2021. There’s a lot more to Jean Stapleton than Edith Bunker, that’s for damned sure! I don’t know how common it is for people to smoke PCP laced marijuana joints these days, and we certainly have a very different attitude about marijuana nowadays. But I do think Angel Dusted is well done and worth watching if you have a couple of spare hours and enjoy movies of the week circa 1981. The cast is excellent, too.

MOVING ON…

The next film I would like to mention is another one from the same time period. It also featured Helen Hunt. This time, she wasn’t playing a put upon sister who was inconvenienced by her brother’s ingestion of PCP. This time, Hunt is the one who goes a little crazy!

The film is called Desperate Lives. In the past, the whole thing was posted on YouTube. Nowadays, it looks like only a few of the funnier clips are available there, although I did find the whole film here. I’ve seen that movie enough times to comment on it, though. It aired in March 1982, and it was very entertaining, but for very different reasons than Angel Dusted was. Desperate Lives was also about the evils of drugs and the terrible things they do to young people. But instead of realistically focusing on what can happen when someone gets on a bad trip, this film employs really stupid special effects and bad acting to get the point across. Below are a few clips I’ve found on YouTube.

A song by Rick Springfield, who was big at the time.
Diana Scarwid, who played the adult version of Christina Crawford in Mommie Dearest, is a high school guidance counselor who tries to shave everyone’s buzz.

It’s the beginning of a new school year in California. Young guidance counselor, Eileen Phillips, has arrived all bright eyed and bushy tailed for her new job. She is newly graduated and enthusiastic for what she expects will be a rewarding career, shaping young people’s lives as they embark on adulthood. But the school where Eileen works has a terrible drug problem and all of the adults who run the school are turning a blind eye. Eileen is determined to straighten everybody out and, in the meantime, entertains viewers with some truly ridiculous scenarios.

Oh lord… this scene is particularly infamous. Helen Hunt jumps out a window, lands on her back, and gets up physically fine as she screams.
“I’m glad we’re all SANE!”
An ad for Desperate Lives. Actually, you could watch this ad and get most of the funniest scenes in the movie.

Doug McKeon, who was in On Golden Pond, tries to add some credibility to this film. He’s a special student and a swimmer on the swim team, which puts him closer to Eileen, as she’s also the swimming coach. Helen Hunt, God bless her and her prodigious talent, really gave it her all playing a “crazed” girl on PCP. But this movie, compared to Angel Dusted, just sucks. However, it IS entertaining, just because it’s unintentionally hilarious. I definitely got the point that drugs are bad, mmm’kay? This might have been a better movie with a different leading lady. Diana Scarwid was very attractive in the early 80s, but she’s not a very good actress, in my opinion. Diane Ladd and Dr. Joyce Brothers also make appearances!

And finally, I would like to comment on a 1985 episode of the New Alfred Hitchcock Presents. I remember when this episode, titled “Final Escape” originally aired. I was really affected by it at the time. At 13, I was the kind of viewer television executives loved. I could easily suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoying a TV show.

Season Hubley plays a nasty bitch in prison who has a scary end…

Season Hubley plays Lena Trent, a woman who has been in and out of prison, and has a history of escaping. She’s shown having been convicted of murder, and sent off to a life sentence in the big house, Mojave Prison, where just four hours after her arrival, she gets into it with the prison queen bee. But Lena is very manipulative, particularly toward men. She charms the warden, again played by Jerry Hardin, who was also in Angel Dusted (and also had a couple of memorable turns on The Golden Girls). The warden yells at Lena for getting in a fight, but then inexplicably gives her a job that gets her away from the other inmates and puts her at a level of lower security.

Lena then works in the prison infirmary, where she meets a kindly Black man named Doc (Davis Roberts) who has super thick cataracts and can barely see. Doc helps out on the ward and buries the prisoners who die. The dead prisoners are buried outside of the prison walls. Lena is nice to Doc at first, listening to him moan about how the state doesn’t want to give him the money to get cataract surgery so he can see better. She soon realizes that he has free access to the outside of the prison, when it’s time to bury the dead; this causes her to hatch a new escape plan.

One day, a letter from the state arrives for Doc. In it, Doc is notified that he has been granted the money for the surgery. But Lena has another plan. She breaks Doc’s glasses on purpose, effectively making it impossible for him to see. Then she reads the letter, telling him that his request has been denied. Naturally, Doc is disappointed and pissed! Lena tells him she has a lot of money and will give him the money to get his surgery if he’ll help her escape.

Doc agrees… with tragic and scary results.

If you haven’t yet watched the episode and don’t want spoilers, stop reading here. I do recommend watching the video if this description has piqued your interest.

Lena asks Doc to bury her with the corpse, and then dig her up a few hours later, when the coast is clear. Doc initially refuses, telling Lena that she’ll suffocate. But Lena assures Doc that she can hang for a few hours, and once he’s done her this favor, Lena will pay for his eye surgery (which of course, she wouldn’t, because she’s a nasty bitch). Doc tells her to come to the infirmary and climb into the coffin with the corpse, which Lena does.

Sure enough, she gets buried. It’s never explained how two bodies managed to fit in one coffin. It’s also never explained why no one noticed how much heavier the coffin was, with two bodies in it, one of which wasn’t embalmed.

We see Lena in the coffin, somehow with enough air to talk to herself. She’s sweating and seems uncomfortable, but she has her eyes on the prize– a final escape from Mojave Prison, with Doc’s help. Finally, after a few hours, Lena starts to worry. She somehow lights a match, which would have used up some of that precious oxygen. That’s when she realizes that the corpse she’s sharing the coffin with is Doc! And no one else knows she’s been buried!

Of course, this could never happen. Even in the 1980s, there’s no way someone with Lena’s history would score a job with lower security standards. And there’s no way she would fit in a coffin with another corpse. And there’s no way she would light a match in a coffin like that… But it did make for compelling and scary television, back in the days when people didn’t mind suspending belief.

Well… it’s been fun writing about these old gems from the 80s today, instead of kvetching about people who piss me off, exploring psychology and narcissism, and dishing about the Duggar family. I suspect this post won’t get a lot of hits… or maybe it will. Sometimes, people surprise me. I know that Desperate Lives is a guilty pleasure film for a lot of people. And I can see on YouTube, that I wasn’t the only one who was permanently traumatized by that episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Angel Dusted is less notoriously cheesy, but is probably the highest quality production of the lot, at least in this post. Perhaps if this post is well-received, I’ll write another. I love watching this stuff.

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movies, nostalgia

Unrelated actresses who could be sisters…

Time for another lighthearted non-sensical posting. A few weeks ago, I decided to watch the first season of St. Elsewhere. It was a hit show when I was growing up, but it was always on after my bedtime, so I never got into it when it was still on prime time.

I always liked the theme song for St. Elsewhere. It’s so quintessentially 80s… and I really miss the 80s. The theme was composed by Dave Grusin. I recognize him because he worked with James Taylor when they did his 2004 Christmas album for Hallmark. James later released a Christmas album that had most of the songs from the Hallmark album, along with a couple more. I can’t believe how fast the years have flown by since the 80s. I wouldn’t want to repeat my youth, but there are times when I miss those simpler, more carefree times. They didn’t seem simple when they were happening, but compared to now, they really were.

Anyway, as I was watching that St. Elsewhere, I noticed that one of the actresses looked familiar. Barbara Whinnery, who played the quirky, sex-obsessed pathologist Dr. Cathy Martin, reminded me so much of Lisa Pelikan, another actress I’d seen in the 80s era made for TV film, The Best Little Girl in the World. I would have sworn they were sisters.

Wow…. looking at those two screenshots from IMDB, I can really see how much alike they look. I looked up Barbara first. She was born July 1, 1953 in Berkeley, California.

Then I looked up Lisa. Much to my amazement, Lisa was also born in Berkeley, California… a year later. Her birthday is July 12, 1954. I wonder if they’ve ever met. It’s crazy that they look so much alike and were born a year apart in the same city… and they are even in the same profession!

I’m sitting here watching The Best Little Girl in the World, a 1981 made for TV movie based on Steven Levenkron’s 1978 novel of the same name. It stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Lisa Pelikan, as well as Eva Marie Saint and Charles Durning. Lisa was about 27 or 28 when she did that movie, but she plays, Gail, the older teenaged sister to Jennifer Jason Leigh’s character, Casey Powell. In the movie, Gail gets pregnant after having sex with some guy she doesn’t want to marry, which causes conflict with their dad.

In the novel, the characters’ names are different, and there’s also an older brother named Greg. Casey is Francesca Dietrich and Gail’s character is called Susanna. I think, anyway. It’s been years since I read that book. I was pretty fascinated by it when I was a teenager. I probably would have been fascinated by St. Elsewhere, too.

This film aired in 1981. I didn’t see it until many years later, when it was shown on a now long defunct cable TV station called Odyssey. I think they showed a lot of religious programming.

I just now got to the point in The Best Little Girl in the World at which Casey meets her therapist, Clay Orlovsky (Sandy Sherman in the book). He asks her what he can “do” for her. I remember my own therapist, also a middle aged man at the time, asked me a similar question when I came to him because I was tired of being depressed and anxious and felt like I was about to go off the deep end. I remember my situation seeming really serious at the time… and it probably was, since I regularly fantasized about offing myself. That was in 1998, which really seems like it wasn’t too long ago! Fortunately, I eventually got over that level of depression and no longer feel quite so desperate. My former therapist is now a friend. The guy who played Clay Orlovsky in The Best Little Girl in the World was also in The Exorcist. He’s been dead for years.

The film is set in California, while the book was set in New York City, which is where Steven Levenkron practices. He is the same therapist who famously treated Karen Carpenter, mainly due to the success of his book. I have read most of Levenkron’s books– he’s written a lot of them. He also wrote a sequel to The Best Little Girl in the World. The book was called Kessa, after the nickname Francesca gives herself. I was eager to read the sequel, but it was pretty poorly done, and I only read it once. If I recall correctly, there were continuity issues and he didn’t even spell Susanna the same way (Suzanna). I doubt it was edited properly.

I remember being so curious about the sequel, Kessa, that I bought a copy of it off of Amazon Marketplace for an obscene amount of money. Boy, talk about a sequel truly being worse than the original. I think it was reissued a few years later because Levenkron wrote another book called The Luckiest Girl in the World, which was about self-injury. A made for TV movie was made based on that novel, too. It was called Secret Cutting (alternative title was Painful Secrets), and it was pretty bad. Rhea Perlman played a therapist, and I remember Sean Young played the unappealing mother character to a driven figure skater named Dawn, who cuts herself on purpose.

Loosely based on the novel. I like Rhea Perlman better in comedies.

I know things have to progress, but I kind of miss movies of the week. I kind of miss the days when it was a thrill to have more than three or four TV stations to choose from, and you got your news once or twice a day instead of all day. I miss having face to face relationships with people and knowing them personally, rather than just virtually. It’s crazy how much life has evolved since the 80s. Even the hospital scenes in The Best Little Girl in the World are kind of quaint. A lot has changed since those days.

I miss not having to worry about having an orange idiot in the White House. I miss not knowing about COVID-19. I miss never having had exposure to an abusive narcissistic asshole like Bill’s ex wife. But, at least I can take heart in knowing that I have survived every challenge I’ve faced so far, right? On the other hand, what’s so scary about COVID-19 is that it’s wiping people out so quickly. I’ve read so many stories of people who are here today, gone tomorrow… or here today and healthy and very sick a week later. It makes a problem like anorexia nervosa as it’s presented in an 80s era movie of the week seem trivial, even though I know it’s not.

It’s kind of fun to watch this old movie from 1981. It’s so dramatic. And it seems so simple compared to now. This is not to downplay the seriousness of eating disorders like anorexia nervosa. That is a very serious problem. But the way the subject is presented in the film makes it seem so much more “weighty” than it is compared to other issues that are affecting everyone.

Don’t Lisa and Barbara look like sisters? Amazing. I would almost think they were the same person.

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