When a 1989 crime of passion in Westchester County, NY, got dubbed "the FATAL ATTRACTION murder case," media exploitation cranked into high gear. One of the results was this throwaway TV docudrama, released to home video in 1995.
Michael Carlin (Joe Penny), a schoolteacher in a passionless marriage to zombified Mary Ann (Denorah Benson), becomes the prime suspect when she's found shot to death. After all, Michael was cheating on his wife with sexy young computer instructor Carolyn Warmus (Jenny Robertson). Though cops try
to nail Michael, his alibi holds. Carolyn is a different story. A flaky femme with a rap sheet for harassing a succession of ex-lovers, she proceeds to hound merry widower Michael even as he tries to put his life back together (i.e., date other women). It turns out he broke off his fling with
Carolyn just before the killing, and she obtained a gun with a silencer. Her wealthy family gives Carolyn the best legal defense money can buy, but after her first trial ends in a hung jury, the second sentences her to 25 years to life for murdering Mary Ann in a lethal fit of jealousy.
The performances here are so listless and glum one would surmise that cast and crew had been sentenced to life as well. Only the flashback slaughter of Mary Ann, her life snipped away pop by pop by Carolyn's silenced pistol, lingers in mind--as does the pic's unsympathetic depiction of the
real-life victim, Betty Jeanne Solomon, as a much-disliked and faithless spouse herself.
Even before the verdict, three books and two TV movies germinated. DANGER OF LOVE, based on the real husband's version of events, was to have been an HBO feature via their production subsidiary Citadel. But the cable network balked over the hack script (sample Warmus dialogue: "I want to be your
baby. I want to have your baby!") and, rather than spend any time on rewrites, sent the movie to CBS. Score one point for the cable industry. And thus DANGER OF LOVE premiered in October, 1993, but still lost the broadcast race to ABC's own quickie A MURDEROUS AFFAIR: THE CAROLYN WARMUS STORY,
starring Virginia Madsen in the title role, which had aired about a month earlier.
By 1995, the ashes of the case had cooled, and DANGER OF LOVE's video release was packaged like a typical direct-to-video erotic thriller. One wonders if the commercial failure of Gus Van Sant's acclaimed tabloid satire TO DIE FOR that same year could be blamed on audiences benumbed by countless
tacky true-crime TV schlockers like this. (Sexual situations, violence.) leave a comment