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Hi Scoopy
 
Summer Lovers (1982) ... "The big question related to this film is this - whatever happened to Valerie Quennessen?"

Unfortunately, the news of her death has been confirmed by her daughter Elsa who said her mother died on March, 1989 and was buried in the Cimetière Montparnasse, Paris. I went there myself. At the Conservancy, I was given the date of her burial : 24/03/1989. I eventually found the grave on which are inscribed the words : Valérie Quennessen, 3 décembre 1957-19 mars 1989. The tomb is situated in the Jewish section of the cemetery (division 30). So sad…

from X. in Paris

 

 

The Two Mr Kissels

2008

This is a Lifetime basic cable movie, and it was produced by Uncle Jessie from Full House, who also stars in it.

"Doesn't sound that promising, Scoop, either for quality or nudity. Why are you fuckin' around with it?" 

Good question.

I got interested in this film when Spaz did some caps last week. I saw his collage and I remembered the story of the two high-flyin' Kissel brothers, both murdered, within about three years of each other. I was curious about how Lifetime would portray it, since one brother's murderer has never been clearly determined, and the other murderer, while admittedly having committed the act, is still alive and appealing her sentence, hoping to change her conviction from murder to manslaughter. The movie is a reasonably accurate account, albeit a safe one which gets around legal liability by using some fictional characters, some characters who are composites of several real people, and at least two characters whose names have been changed.

The film takes a clear-cut position on the murder of Rob Kissel. His wife admitted to the murder, but argued that she was a battered wife who was defending herself against yet another violent assault. The movie completely ignores the arguments made in her defense and presents the prosecution's case as its narrative. Nothing wrong with that, actually. First of all, the overwhelming weight of the evidence pointed to premeditation, and her behavior after the murder supported that conclusion. Second, her testimony was filled with inconsistencies and she got caught in several outright lies which were confuted by physical evidence. It is reasonable for the screenwriter to have assumed that her entire self-defense story line was concocted from half-truths and misleading inferences, and that her version of the story was created simply because she had no other possible defense against the charges. After all, what else was she going to say after it had been established that she smashed in her husband's head by clobbering him several times with an enormous paperweight?

The film didn't do as well with Andy Kissel's murder. The film's hypothetical explanation (suicide for hire) is far-fetched, to say the least, especially considering that one man in this case, the brother of Andrew's assistant, Carlos Trujillo, has already pled guilty to manslaughter and conspiracy to commit murder, and that man is never even mentioned in the film. He, however, says he did not actually plunge in the knife. Still unresolved to this day is the matter of who actually committed the stabbing, as well as the actual involvement of Carlos the assistant, who is in prison, and whose trials are still going on. Carlos's brother says they plotted the murder together. Carlos's defense is that his brother is lying about the conspiracy. Carlos has two things going for him: (1) to this day, nobody has been able to supply a credible motive for Carlos's involvement; (2) the police have never determined who exactly did the stabbing.

At any rate, it's a typical Lifetime movie, so it's pedestrian and seems more like a TV show than a movie, but I found it quite watchable. There's too much narration, either in voice-over or via the dreaded "characters' heads addressing the camera" cliché, but the actual story is interesting enough to maintain viewer involvement. Both as producer and star, Uncle Jesse did quite a satisfactory job.

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NUDITY:

Robin Tunney (as Rob's murderous wife) comes as close to nudity as she can without actually delivering any.

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Additional info:

• CBS covered the two murders on 48 Hours
• Court TV's coverage of Nancy Kissel's murder of her husband, Robert
• The latest info on her re-trial
• Court TV's coverage of the Andrew Kissel murder
• The latest info on the trial of Carlos Trujillo, Andrew's assistant.  He was recently found not guilty of murder, but there was a hung jury on "attempted murder."

 

 

Cable Round-Up

Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, episode 5. What more is there to say? (Sample captures below each)

• Lucy Lawless

• Marisa Ramirez