Written and Directed by Damian Harris (Bad Company), and based on the novel by David L. Lindsey. Cinematography was by Manuel Teran, and the Music by BC Smith.
The film stars Ellen Barkin (Down By Law, The Big Easy, Siesta, Johnny Handsome, Sea of Love, Switch) as Detective Cathy Palmer. Wendy Crewson (Niagara Motel) as Bernadine Mello, Peta Wilson as Vickie Kittrie, Karen Young (9½ Weeks) as Mary, Danielle Marie Straus as Young Mary, Julian Sands (Siesta) as Dr. Dominick Broussard, Stephen Baldwin (Last Exit To Brooklyn) as The Mechanic.
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Ellen Barkin as Detective Cathy Palmer |
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Peta Wilson as Vickie Kittrie |
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Julian Sands as Dr. Dominick Broussard |
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Karen Young as Mary |
With Beau Starr as Lieutenant Fritch, Marshall Bell as Gil Reynolds, Bill MacDonald as Detective John Beck, Stewart Bick as Detective Cushing, Ellen-Ray Hennessy as Murial Farr, Lara Daans as Dorothy Samenov, Claire Burton as Sandra Moser, Fulvio Cecere as Detective Leeland, Michael Fletcher as Wendell, Zehra Leverman as Terry Ross, Linda V. Carter as Helena, Melanie Nicholls-King as Jane, Kevin Rushton as Clyde Barbish, Dorothy Bennie as Miss Dawes, Doug Lennox as Mr. Kittrie, Jacqueline McLeod as Mrs. Kittrie, Lacey Von Erich as Vicki's Sister.
The credit sequence pays homage to split screen Noirs Marlowe and The Boston Strangler. We catch glimpses of some high society gatherings, private clubs, woman's lounges, that segue to a woman in a hallway, coming back to her apartment.
She then draws her drapes closed and undresses getting ready for bed all lit in chiaroscuro. a fade out when she flips off the lights.
The final splits we see are depicting what looks like a credit card being slipped under a door, and a shot of the empty hall.
Story
Suburbia. Fall. A police cruiser, lights flashing, is partially tunneling under hardwood shade trees, Swirling the yellow and gold fallen leaves as it passes over asphalt blue. Crime scene. Murder.
Deceased Dorothy Ann Samenov. 38 years old. Executive at Transitel a computer software firm.
Cushing: So what do you think, is this the same boy?
Cathy Palmer: What's been touched here?
Cushing: Just the carpet under our shoes and not very much of that.
Cathy Palmer: So what do you think John?
John Beck: I think she's going to her grave wide awake.
John Beck: Yea but she's been knocked around a bit more.
Cushing: With the eyes open like that? The other tied down?
John Beck: Same marks same as the wrists
Cathy Palmer [her hand in a latex glove is pushing down on the dead woman's abdomen}: No evidence of a struggle
Cushing: Maybe she was into it?
Cathy Palmer: Not this much.
We get a slow reveal of the nude body of Dorothy. She arranged with her feet together laid out with her hand over her breasts. Rope swollen wrists. our low angle of Detective Palmer's preliminary examination shifts to the reverse angle view displaying the victim's body covered in what looks like circular human bite wounds.
Cathy Palmer: Her eyes aren't open, her eyelids have been cut off.
Palmer doesn't answer and just heads out the door and down to a large dinning room. There we first meet Vickie Kittrie.
Palmer finds out that Friday night they went out for drinks at Sinurelli's. Palmer asks if she used it as a pickup spot. Kittrie, tells her no, just to unwind after work.
Cathy Palmer: Vickie, you found Dorothy?
Vickie: Yes.
Cathy Palmer: Saw what she looks like.
Vickie [starting to cry]: Yes.
Cathy Palmer: Vickey is there anything you can tell us about Dorothy's private life that might make any sense of what you saw?
Vickie: Does it look like it makes any sense?
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Does it look like it makes any sense? |
We cut to crime scene video playing on a TV in a briefing room. Cathy Palmer narrates as we pan to a second TV...
Cathy Palmer: On Thursday October 11th Sondra Moser kisses her husband and two sons goodnight, tells the maid that she'll be back in a couple of hours, because Thursday is her yoga night. She was found murdered at the Maywood Hotel the next morning in a suite she rented with a fake I.D. On Friday October 4th,
In the room are detectives John Beck and also Cushing and Leyland.
Dorothy Ann Samenov has some drinks with friends and is then murdered later the same night in her home. Ya got a rich housewife and a high powered company executive. Different life styles different friends, nothing that connects them.
Chief: Nothing matches?
John Beck: We got geography, they both lived about a mile apart. Same social background.
Chief: This is all low risk stuff, we got any trace evidence?
Cushing: The bodies were washed. No semen, no saliva, no prints.
Chief: Ok you all are on a task force now.
We cut to woman, apparently in post coital bliss, we visually discover, since she is arching her back while pulling her panties on, and playing with the top rim. Lifting it up and letting it snap down, while laying on a black leather couch. For background noise we hear a fly zipper "zip".
We start to pull back revealing a man getting dressed. We see we are in an office. A psychiatrists office.
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Bernadine [turning on her side]: Free association time. One time when I was a child I was staying at my aunt and uncles house for the summer. It was in the middle of the afternoon and... I went into mu Aunt Seal's room, to get a sewing basket. I thought there was no one there. And when I walked in there was a man standing there. And I mean I didn't know who it was. And my Aunt Seal was lying naked on the bed. She didn't see me and then very slowly he raised a finder to his lips telling me to be quiet, and I backed out of the room and left....
Bernadine swivels and lays back on her back, and covers her forehead with one arm.
Bernadine: My husband is fucking a woman, who has practically no breasts at all.
Dr. Dominick wipes his face as if he's board.
Bernadine: I've hired an investigator, he's taken pictures.
Dr. Dominick [fixing himself a drink]: And why did you do that?
Bernadine: I'm keeping a file, or rather my lawyer is. [notices that he's drinking] Dom, Why didn't you offer me a drink?
Dr. Dominick: Because I really didn't think you should have one.
We cut to Palmer laying on Dorothy's bed then going through all her closets spreading out her clothes and jewelry.
In the false bottom of a closet she finds a locked attaché case. Palmer pries it open and finds it full of S&M bondage toys, and an envelope containing images of bondage depictions. Ahhh!
Cut to Cathy Palmer in an bar. She's not unwinding she is aroused. She catches the eye of a mechanic. The mechanic, no dummy, comes sliding on over.
Mechanic: So you're a cop?
Cathy Palmer: Yeah. You like that?
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"Yea you like that?" |
Mechanic: Yeah. What do you work? Vice?
Cathy Palmer: Homicide.
Mechanic: That's a little weird, isn't it? I mean you being a woman and all.
Cathy Palmer: What do you do?
Mechanic: Mechanic. I fix things.
Cathy Palmer: Say you get an old lady. She comes into the shop and she's driving a 72 Chevy. She's hearing a little ticking noise. Turns out she's got a busted transmission. It's going to cost her two thousand bucks only she doesn't have the money. What are you gonna do.
Mechanic: Listen I don't fucking care.
Cathy Palmer: You're looking at someone's mother pal. And all you see is an old lady with a busted up car and not enough cash. All I ever see, peoples dead mothers, there's a name on a file, guy in a dumpster, Girl in a landfill, little dead boy in a park. Can you fix that? Huh?
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"Can you fix that? Huh?" |
We cut to Dr. Dominick's office where the doctor is listening to Mary a patient on the leather couch telling him about a dream she had.
Cut to Cathy Palmer continuing her investigations. From another session with Vickie Kittrie, Palmer discovers that Vickie got her job through Dorothy, and that when she first started working they lived together for a while. She also gets the name of the only significant guy in Dorothy's life, who was married at the time.
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Tailing Vickie |
At the bar we get a flash - daydream triggered by Cathy seeing the woman who came between her and her husband. In the dream Cathy hauls off and punches her rival.
All Vickie reads is a change in expression and body language. Cathy suggests that they go somewhere else. Vickie counters that it's Friday night and everyplace will be packed and they will be screaming at each other all night. Vickie suggests that they go to her place.
Back at the Shrinks we now see Bernadine telling Doc Dom that she lied that last time she was there. She explains that it wasn't a strange man she caught her aunt with but a woman.
She also confesses that she met a younger woman at a department store, and had sex with her just an hour before their last sex session and that she never felt that way with any man. The Doc looks a little miffed.
Back at Cathy's, Vickie asks Cathy about the woman in the bar. Cathy explains that her husband had an affair with her. Vickie mentions that she said she wasn't married or divorced. Cathy explains that a drunk and a Buick beat me to it, before I could get a divorce.
It starts going Noirsville when Vickie starts putting the moves on Cathy. Cathy seems to respond up to the point where Vickie has Cathy pinned against the counter and beginning to go down on her.
Vickie's seduction of Cathie
Vickie is squatting now pulling Cathy's panties down with her teeth.
Cathy pushes her away with her knee. "Stop!"
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"Why?" |
Vickie: Why?
Cathy Palmer: This can't happen.
Vickie: Why did you ask me here?
Cathy Palmer: To Talk.
Vickie: About what? What is it that you want to talk about?
Cathy Palmer: I already told you.
Vickie: You wanna know who I think killed Dorothy and Sondra? or you wanna know what it was like to fuck them?
Cathy Palmer: I wanna know what you're hiding?
Vickie: I come from a home environment where the term family love meant something a little different. I left my little sister behind to take my place. Can you picture that? Can You?
The next victim is Bernadine Mello.
Looks good...... Need to watch
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