With She’s Dressed to Kill (1979), we’ve technically reached the end of this series about “1970s TV Movies.” However, as we’ve discussed, there isn’t an impenetrable line between decades that cleanly separates their content, even though, this is the last film in the book that has been my bible since the series began almost three years ago with Ritual of Evil (1970), “Television Fright Films of the 1970s” by David Deal.
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About She’s Dressed to Kill, Deal appropriately writes:
Toward the end of the telefright’s golden age, production values improved, while script and star quality declined considerably.
I agree with him on the lazy script by George Lafferts (The Night They Took Miss Beautiful, 1977); however, it’s not lacking in star power, at least not for the cast’s future endeavors.
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It’s a futile exercise trying to categorize movies, but one in which I’ve always been engaged. She’s Dressed to Kill clarifies for me the difference between a “mystery” and a “thriller.” Both have murders, but in a mystery you have only the dead bodies. In a thriller, you witness the pursuit of the victims. With its ridiculous finale, this is a standard mystery. The characters stumble over bodies left and right, but there’s no suspense about them being killed.
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My favorite scene is the traditional gathering of suspects in the drawing room. Sheriff Halsey (Jim McMullan) asks where everybody was during the time of the last murder. The camera focuses on each character as they briefly state their whereabouts. It’s probably not unique, but if director Gus Trikonis (The Darker Side of Evil, 1979) had embraced the cliches instead of clumsily skirting them, She’s Dressed to Kill might have had some character.
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At times, it’s tasteless. Fashion critic Victor De Salle (Clive Revill) says:
Ugly women should be destroyed at puberty.
At times, it’s offensive. Veteran model Camille Bentancourt (Joanna Cassidy) tells newcomer Alix Goldman (Connie Sellecca) to watch out for fellow model Kate Bedford (Cathie Shirriff):
She’s a skirt chaser.
(Later, though, Bedford assures Goldman that she never mixes big game hunting with modeling.)
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It’s an equal opportunity gender offender, though. When Tony Smith (Peter Horton) asks De Salle what he gets out of a scheme, De Salle puts his arm around Smith and lasciviously says:
Enough to keep me in antique Bentleys… and young designers.
For as many murders as there are, She’s Dressed to Kill feels padded. Do we really need to see all of Goldman’s tryout photo shoot? Do we really need to see the entire ride in a cable car to queen bee Regine Danton’s (Eleanor Parker) estate? Do we really need to see a complete fashion show? Oddly, the movie doesn’t seem slow. However, it is as lifeless as poor Marisa Newport (Gail Joy) when the killer puts cyanide in her lip gloss.
Visit the TV Terror Guide: 70's TV Movies playlist at ClassicHorrors.Club TV on YouTube to watch She's Dressed to Kill and other great movies from this series.
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