Truly Dreadful Film

That was an excellent one.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Forcible rape is such a traumatic violation of personal space that it's hard to imagine what feelings it brings in its wake. Men who find it even more difficult to imagine need to watch the movie "Deliverance." In her husband's absence, Montgomery is raped by an innocent-looking young man she meets at night school. Afterward, she scrubs herself and disposes of the clothing, and she's too embarrassed to tell anyone about it, not even her friend and neighbor (Patricia Smith) or her own husband (Ronny Cox). She tries to call the police but the officer at the other end of the line is busy and distracted, calling out to someone, "Make it with cream cheese!" Cox returns from his trip happy with the results and is too animated for her to talk to.Then the innocent-looking young man assaults her again in an underground parking lot. This time he punches her and leaves her bruised, more or less forced now to report these incidents to the police.It has to be said that the movie dates poorly and that the moral lesson is cheapened by the way it's structured. When I say "dated", I mean that the message was pertinent in 1974 when the movie was shown. We're more sophisticated about these things now. People take rape seriously and don't get it mixed up with rough but consensual intercourse. The person at the other end of 911 is going to tak you seriously. When we were in Newark, New Jersey, my son tried to call his mother in North Carolina. The area code is 901, but he dialed 911 by mistake and hung up at once when he realized the error. Five minutes later, two police officers knocked on the door with the snaps on their holsters unfastened. The responders are more considerate, the victims are more knowledgeable, and the community more understanding. It isn't 1974 anymore, and thank God for that.When I say the story is structured in a way that cheapens the theme, I mean, for instance, that except for Elizabeth Montgomery and her children, everyone else is semi-moronic. After she reports the second rape, she's forced to undergo the complete rape kit, have photos of her bruises taken, and those who are doing the exam are brusque beyond belief. Montgomery sits huddled in the waiting room on a bench filled with pimps, cross-dressers, junkies, and other devalued people. Then some orderly with a clipboard enters the room and begins shouting, "We got a RAPE here? Who's the RAPE case. You have to sit in the wheelchair because RAPES aren't allowed to walk." And of course everyone is staring at the RAPE case. Certain medical venues aside, I have trouble swallowing a scene like that, even for 1974.When she's in the stirrups, Montgomery asks about a uniformed police officer, "Does he have to be here?" "I'm afraid so," replies the doc, while permitting the officer to stand in a location that allows him to see her in her obstetric aspect. Pointless humiliation piled upon pointless humiliation. That's ridiculous.It doesn't improve when she's interviewed by two detectives. They seem barely interested and treat her with disdain and sometimes sarcasm. They challenge her on simple points. Is she sure it was the same man both times? "Getting hit with a rape charge is a terrible thing to do to a man." The prosecutor explains that her sex life will be on trial in open court, while the perp's previous arrests for rape can't be mentioned. Does she really want to put herself through it? As the weak husband, Cox is no help at all. He can't give her any advice. Moreover he can't get the rape behind him and is impotent. It gets worse. He begins to doubt her story. The trial is unable to avoid some of the usual clichés. Montgomery leaps to her feet on the witness stand and screams, "Lies! All LIES!" The script is unsparing.None of these criticisms of the film mitigates the horror associated with rape.

For it's time, this was a break-through movie. Montgomery always seemed like she wanted to tackle more taboo subject matter like this, Lizzie Borden, Belle Starr (she's not wearing a bra in the final scene) the movie with OJ (wow), there was all but even a hint that Serena would be overly risqué to an extent.And there were problems in how women were handled in instances such as these. All In The family had to show that it wasn't just beautiful young women who were victimized, and an episode of Alice (of all shows!) had Alice questioned as tho she encouraged a flasher by the clothes she wore.Yet here, we have Montgomery rather badgered all around her, but having just watched it, I cant' help but feel she did things incorrectly one time and stood up later when she should have done this sooner.She hangs up the phone when she tried to report the initial attack, but later has no problem confronting the neighbor lady about 'enjoying' the sexual force ("Why don't you come down to the courtroom and listen to all the details, if that turns you on?") and she challenges her husband and the other guy who are blaming the woman for cheating, or whatever it was.WHY wasn't she this strong after the first attack, when she was on the phone? Granted, one would say she was just brutally raped. This then gives the impression she was less of a rape victim later on then.She confronted her husband outside the courtroom just before the verdict with 'we can't just act like it's business as usual' but that was EXACTLY what she did when he came home; she played it as business as usual.She would find her voice outside the courtroom and when confronting the neighbor, but would be put off saying anything to him when he got back, or when they were at the pool party? Strangest of all, she wants to wash after the second rape and the officer tells her no, that would wash off the evidence. She acts as tho it is a personal attack upon her person; this officer is being mean to me after what I've been thru.Hardly the case of course.When he says it would wash away sperm, she reacts like Donna Reed and he just said an ugly word to her as well, yet once again, finds moments later on to offer a voice.Again, one could say she was gaining her voice from the anger of how she was treated. Right off the bat, she was raped. She should have found that voice then over that phone, if anger could offer such motivation.A dated film, worth comparing with other entries such as The Accused and a TV movie in '81 called Victims, with Howard Hesseman.I wish there was a program or movie before this one showing what a woman had to contend with in the '50s and '60s, but unfortunately there isn't going to be.An intriguing comparison would be Rosemary Murphy, the defense here, as the alleged rape victim in To Kill A Mockingbird.

I must concur with the previous posters regarding this landmark NBC TV movie that changed the genre forever and initiated a new career and more sophisticated image for the late Elizabeth Montgomery. This television classic starred Montgomery (in a performance that should have won her an Emmy)as a housewife who gets raped twice by the same man. She does not report the 1st rape but she does report the second and the film shows the indignities this woman suffers from the courts and the insensitivity and mistrust she experiences from her husband (Ronny Cox) and her best friend (Patricia Smith). There is actually a horrific scene where Montgomery meets with best friend Smith, who actually wants details about what happened and implies that her friend might have enjoyed it. This movie pulls no punches, makes no compromises or apologies, and promises no happy endings. It was reported that when the script was first submitted to network executives, they wanted to cut the second rape. A long time friend of Ms. Montgomery stated that she responded by submitting a list of names of other actresses who might be interested in appearing in the film because she would quit if they changed the script. This is a mature, disturbing, adult movie that is so well-crafted, it could have merited theatrical release and I find it amazing that this movie is not available on video. An intelligent script, uncompromising direction by Boris Sagal, and solid supporting performances by Cox, Rosemary Murphy and Williams Daniels as the attorneys involved, and Cliff Potts as the unapologetic rapist, made this film an instant classic and it's truly criminal if this film is not available on video. All serious students and connoisseurs of great drama and superb acting should see this important and disturbing movie.

That's the subtle message of this remarkably restrained made-for-TV docudrama, which features the "Bewitched" star as a sort of real-world Samantha Stephens - Ellen Harrod, a stylish California housewife with an adorable blonde daughter and an affable mope for a husband (in this film played by Ronny Cox as opposed to Dicks Sargent or York), but no magic powers. Ellen is, however, just as smart and self-possessed as Samantha, and her lack of histrionics makes all the abuse she endures in this movie -- two sexual assaults, a callous medical establishment and an actively hostile legal system -- even more disturbing. Liz Montgomery almost always played superior to type. In "Bewitched," both she and the audience were in on the central joke of the premise, which was that she was light-years above Darren's league and could have turned him into a ferret if she wanted (not that it would have made much difference) . In "A Case of Rape," she plays a victim who steadfastly refuses to act like a victim, but is so disgusted by everyone's willful blindness to her ordeal that she finally gets up and screams about it.In her early scenes of playfully sparring with Cox and dabbling with painting, Liz establishes Ellen as sexy, sharp-witted, and creative, the kind of woman whom it was all too easy to stereotype as a bored housewife secretly bored by her life and seek excitement in infidelity. Which is exactly how doctors and cops treat Ellen after her assailant tricks his way into her home one night, sexually assaults her while her daughter is sleeping, and attacks her again in the parking lot of her apartment complex a couple of days later. The rest of the movie is calculated outrage, but since public attitudes toward rape weren't all that progressive in 1974, such plot devices as the cynical prosecutor who treats Ellen's case like a mundane chore and Cox's pitifully inadequate attempts to be supportive ("he did this to both of us!") were probably necessary, and the filmmakers are to be commended for not sensationalizing the subject matter with cat-and-mouse chase scenes or hysterical breakdowns. Still, it's a rough couple of hours. Liz is so isolated in this movie that she doesn't even get sympathy from her best friend, a frumpy neighbor who, in one sickening scene, hints that she wants Liz to share every titillating detail of the assault. Less secure human beings would explode or sob at such ill treatment. Liz, being Liz, drops a cool bon mot, thanks her for the coffee, and leaves. She's a great advocate for the dignity of sexual assault survivors, and that alone makes "A Case of Rape" worth watching.