FRENCH SILK is a made-for-television foray into standard romance novel territory, staged amid the sweltering world of New Orleans fashion. Boasting perennial soap opera queen Susan Lucci as its major asset, it provides at best a regional workout for TV actors, and despite the steamy
subject matter, never breaks a sweat.
Claire (Susan Lucci) runs a mail-order fashion empire, French Silk, which resembles the Victoria's Secret lingerie boutique chain. French Silk's prurient catalog has aroused the ire of anti-smut firebrand Rev. Jackson Bird (Michael Bergeron). When Bird is discovered murdered in his Big Easy
hotel room, suspicion naturally falls on Claire, whose empire has suffered considerably from the Reverend's boycott. Detective Cassady (Lee Horsley), the New Orleans cop assigned to the case, quickly falls for Claire, compromising his professional instincts. When Claire unexpectedly confesses to
the crime, Cassady backtracks and learns that Claire's loony mother (Sarah Marshall) can be placed at the hotel at the time of the murder. But then the fey hotel concierge volunteers to Cassady that ruthless Senator Alister Petrie (Jim Metzler) can also be tied to the premises, and incidentally
clears Claire's mom. When Petrie agrees to a candid interview at police headquarters, he offers an ironclad alibi, confessing to an affair with French Silk supermodel Martine (Shari Belafonte), word of which would certainly wreck his career. Evidence begins to mount against Martine, and she storms
into the Senator's house one night, drunk and desperate; humiliated by his rebuff, she kills herself. But Cassady's vigilance and innate police smarts eventually tie Petrie to the crime, and so frees Claire and clears Martine's name.
Made for broadcast television, with only the slightest incidence of nudity added to bolster video interest, this is the sort of turgid, swamp-bottom workout where TV seductresses can go hog-wild with the N'awlins accents they worked up for summer-stock productions of Streetcar. Despite muted
trumpets on the soundtrack, ball moss choking the cypress trees, and frilly ballgowns draped across the languid frames of lingerie models, the whole torrid business could easily take place in Toronto, both logistically and spiritually. There's not much life left in these old bones, no matter what
you dress them up in. (Violence, nudity, sexual situations.) leave a comment
