Thu
4
Mar '10
Description
Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) is sullen, overweight and heartbreakingly alone. Desperate for affection, she joins Aunt Carrie’s Friendship Club and strikes up a correspondence with Ray Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco), a suave, charismatic smooth talker who could be the man of her dreams—or a wicked con artist bound for trouble. Based on a true story and filmed in documentary-style black and white, The Honeymoon Killers is a stark portrayal of the desperate lengths a lonely he… More >>
The Honeymoon Killers – Criterion Collection
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This movie is alot of fun especially if you like bad acting and a good script. The DVD’s picture quality is excellent especially compared to this VHS I bought about 6 years ago the sound is not very good but that is because of the film’s extremely low budget. Rating: 5 / 5
The painful loneliness of a nurse who suffers a little problem of overweight (two hundred pounds) , lives with her senile mother . Martha decides to join a correspondence friendship club . She will receive torrid and voluptuous letters love from a Spanish born immigrant .He will visit her in Alabama and he will be back to NYC. They will rejoin very soon in New York and Ray confess her he is just a gigolo . But as you know sometimes the love is blind and she doesn’t matter at all his venerable profession.
In this particular and light and shadow state of things , Ray will start to compose a real horror symphony . Betrayal , suspicion , infidelity , black humor, greed , and sinister fatality will be their fellow partners journey .
But as you know in love the domain relapses in those who love less . Ray hardly will change his previous costumes and Martha will act in consequence .
Those early seventies were impregnated of a gloomy poetry . The collective needed evasion . Those were the first films where the sci fi renewed with new proposals , the racism films , the first denounces about Vietnam War , The French May . In this sense you may remember that filthy cult movie for a great audience – Pink Flamingos – the most famous work of John Waters , Antonioni `s Zabrizskie Point , Kubrick ` s A clockwork orange , Michael Anerson ’s If , Perry Henzel `s The harder they come , Dennis Hopper ’s Easy Rider , Richard Rush’s Hell’ s Angels , Strawberry statement or Billy Jack to name the most representative items in this category of outlaw movies , made usually with a low budget but filled with a brutal denounce load and no satisfaction , not only by the teenagers but also the thirties generation who were the first generation post Beatles and Elvis Presley who decided to swim against the current making films which walked in the knife edge .
Curiously all those films were not authentically originals but were born from the French New Wave with two notable films : Breathless and Jules and Jim . In fact you can note a
little homage to Jules and Jim when the camera remains stationary in Ctaherinep’s living room .
These characters are based in real events . The real Ray and Martha , the far descendents of Bonnie and Clyde and Gun Crazy were executed in Sing Sing on March 7 1951 .
Rating: 5 / 5
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD of the film.
Honeymoon Killers is a film based on the true story of Martha Beck, a nurse who meets an older man, Ray Fernandez, through a matchmating service and when she discovers that he is a swindler, she is upset but he explains that he really does love her. She then starts to help him swindle women out of their money and poses as his sister. Eventually, they start killing and Martha turns themselves in to the police when she feels remorseful.
The source material for the film included newspaper articles, court documents and other credible material.
The film has some nice acting and good cast choices for the time, but Shirley Stoler, who played the role of nurse Martha Beck, has a very striking resemblence to Louise Fletcher in this film! Some can’t help but laugh because of this. It is a very sad story and the violence in the film was very intense for the time. It was made in 1970 and got an R rating, but today it would certainly get a PG-13 rating or maybe even PG.
The Criterion Collection placed some excellent special features on the DVD.
There in an interview with screenrriter and director Leonard Kastle, a theatrical trailer, and a slide show of information about the true story that inspired the film. It includes courtroom pictutes, newspaper articles, crime scene photos, and material about the Sing Sing prison where they were executed. It even shows the couple’s last meal requests.
This film should not be missed.
Rating: 4 / 5
it helps this film’s seedy atmosphere. It does remind one of John Water’s early films in the acting department, but it is a truly engrossing film.This film takes a trip into the minds of 2 truly ill individuals. At one point, directly after the first murder, Ray Says to Martha “I want to make love to you”But Martha soon turns the tables on Ray when she discovers a lie….Avery good low budget film that works effectively Rating: 5 / 5
Raymond Fernandez & Martha Beck were a notorious husband and wife murder team in the late 1960’s that preyed upon older, lonely women in search of love and companionship, but instead found themselves murdered for their money by this evil partnership.
This tense, intelligent and unrelenting movie (creatively filmed in monochrome) is a real little gem…and the two leads are chilling in their portrayal of the remorseless killers.
Tony LoBianco (The French Connection, The Seven Ups) is excellent as the oily and manipulative con man Fernandez, who sees himself as a charming and seductive lover. The late Shirley Stoler (in her first on screen role ) is equally unnerving as the cold hearted, paranoid and evil Martha Beck. The chemistry between the two is very believable, and you feel that you are almost watching a documentary of their exploits.
And that’s what makes this film so very chilling…it’s voyeur like, stark camerwork as you witness the brutal killings of the terrified victims, begging to have their lives spared, really jangles the nerves ! Although made on a very modest budget, it proves that you don’t need to spend millions when you have a dynamic & gripping story line….
If you relish intense, creative film making…then “The Honeymoon Killers” deserves a place on your shelves. Rating: 4 / 5