The Honeymoon Killers
| The Honeymoon Killers | |
|---|---|
 theatrical poster | |
| Directed by | Leonard Kastle |
| Written by | Leonard Kastle |
| Produced by | Warren Steibel |
| Starring | Shirley Stoler Tony Lo Bianco Marilyn Chris Doris Roberts |
| Cinematography | Oliver Wood |
| Edited by | Richard Brophy Stanley Warnow |
| Music by | Gustav Mahler |
| Distributed by | Cinerama Releasing Corporation |
Release date | 1970 |
Running time | 115 minutes |
| Country | Template:Film US |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $150,000[1] |
The Honeymoon Killers is a 1970 American film written and directed by Leonard Kastle, and starring Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco. It tells the story of Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, the notorious "lonely hearts killers" who are believed to have murdered many women (perhaps as many as twenty) in the 1940s;[2] four murders are depicted in the movie. The soundtrack is from the first movement of the 6th Symphony of Gustav Mahler.
Plot
Martha Beck is a sullen, overweight nurse who lives in a southern city (apparently Mobile, Alabama) with her elderly mother (played by Duckworth). Martha's friend Bunny (played by Doris Roberts) surreptitiously submits Martha's name to a "lonely hearts" club, which results in a letter from Ray Fernandez of New York City. The audience sees Ray surrounded by the photographs of his previous conquests as he composes his first letter to Martha. Overcoming her initial reluctance, Martha corresponds with Ray and becomes attached to him. He visits Martha and seduces her. Thereafter, having secured a loan from her, Ray sends Martha a Dear Jane letter, and Martha enlists Bunny's aid to call him with the (false) news that she has attempted suicide.
Ray allows Martha to visit him in New York, where he reveals to her what the audience knows already: that he is a con man who makes his living by seducing and then swindling lonely women. Martha is unswayed by this revelation, however, and, at Ray's command, installs her mother in a nursing home so that she can live with Ray. But because she is fiercely jealous of Ray, she insists on accompanying him in his work. Woman after woman accepts the attentions of this suitor who goes courting while accompanied at all times by his "sister." Martha can barely contain her jealousy as she watches Ray romance other women, though Ray promises her that he will never sleep with any of them. Complicating his promise, Ray marries a pregnant woman, Myrtle Young (played by Marilyn Chris), and after Young aggressively attempts to bed the bridegroom, Martha gives her a dose of pills, and the two put the drugged woman on a bus. Her death thereafter escapes immediate suspicion.
Martha and Ray move on to their next target, and after catching Ray in a compromising position with the woman, Martha attempts to drown herself. To placate her, Ray rents a house in the suburbs of New York, while they continue swindling lonely women. Ray, using the alias "Charles Martin," becomes engaged to the elderly Janet Fay of Albany (played by Mary Jane Higby) and takes her to the house he shares with Martha. Janet gives Ray a check for $10,000, but then becomes suspicious of the two. When Janet tries to contact her family, Ray and Martha hit her in the head with a hammer and strangle her to death. They bury her body in the cellar.
Martha and Ray then spend several weeks living in Michigan with the widowed Delphine Downing and her young daughter. Delphine, younger and prettier than most of Ray's conquests, confides in Martha, hoping that she will help her persuade Ray to marry her as soon as possible because she is pregnant with Ray's child. Furious, Martha is attempting to kill Delphine when her daughter enters the room with Ray. He shoots Delphine in the head and Martha drowns her daughter in the cellar. Ray tells Martha that he must proceed with his plan to move on to one more woman, this time in New Orleans, and then he will marry Martha; he reaffirms his promise never to betray Martha with one of his marks. Realizing that Ray will never stop lying to her, Martha calls the police and calmly waits for them to arrive.
The epilogue takes place four months later, with Martha and Ray in jail. As she leaves the cellblock for the first day of their trial, Martha receives a letter from Ray in which he tells her that, despite everything, she is the only woman he ever loved. Titles on the screen then conclude the story, saying that Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez were executed at Sing Sing on March 8, 1951.[3]
Production
The film was the first for producer Warren Steibel (known as the producer of television's Firing Line), writer/director Leonard Kastle (known as a composer), cinematographer Oliver Wood, and Shirley Stoler and Tony Lo Bianco (both stage actors).[1] A wealthy friend of Steibel, Leon Levy, suggested to Steibel that he make a film, and gave Steibel $150,000, the amount that Steibel suggested it would cost.[1] After deciding the film would be about "The Lonely Hearts Killers", Steibel asked Kastle, his roommate, to do some research on the subject; financial limitations led Steibel to ask his friend to write the screenplay.[1]
Steibel hired Martin Scorsese to direct, but Scorsese was fired for working too slowly; a few scenes he did were included in the final film. Industrial film-maker Donald Volkman took over, but lasted only two weeks. Kastle then stepped in as director for the last four weeks of principal photography.[1]
Budgetary constraints meant that actors did their own hair and makeup, and special effects were not fancy. In a scene in which Martha bludgeons an old woman with a hammer, "condoms containing glycerine and red dye were affixed to the head of the victim with plaster of Paris. The hammer, a balsa-wood prop, had a pin at the end. When the pin pricked the condoms, the blood began to flow."[1]
Reception
The film was initially marketed as an exploitation film; it "performed weakly" at the U.S. box office in spite of critical praise.[1] For example, Variety magazine said it was "made with care, authenticity and attention to detail."[4] Its "modest financial success" in Britain and France probably meant that its financial backer recouped his investment.[1]
François Truffaut called it his "favorite American film."[1]
When Criterion Collection released a restored DVD edition of the film, The A.V. Club review ends by noting the film's "nauseous mixture of laughs and shocks, and the fact that real passion drives Kastle's characters even when they plot against each other, is what makes The Honeymoon Killers such an enduring one-off. It works, as Gary Giddins argues in the liner notes[5] to this beautifully restored DVD edition, as the perfect product of the same anxious, permissive age that produced Waters, Night of the Living Dead, and blaxploitation. But it holds up just as well as a weirdly timeless love story with a body count."[6]
The film was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.[7]
Historical accuracy
 |
Although the film is inspired by true events and uses the real names of the "The Lonely Hearts Killers" and of some of their victims, as well as the true locations of the crimes, the film takes substantial liberties with the facts, contrary to the opening titles. Although the actual events unfolded in the late 1940s, the film is set at the time of its making, the late 1960s. The film does not disclose that Beck was divorced with two children[8] whom she abandoned on Fernandez's orders (her abandonment of her mother is substituted). Nor does it mention that Fernandez had a legal wife in Spain and four children.[9] The depiction of Beck's calling the police contradicts the historical record; neighbors notified the authorities of the disappearance of the Downings.[10] The film depicts the killings as commencing with Beck's entrance on the scene and as a consequence of her jealousy. In contrast, it is believed that Fernandez had murdered at least one of the victims of his swindling, Jane Wilson Thompson, before meeting Beck.[11]
See also
- Lonely Hearts, a 2006 film about the same events.
- Deep Crimson, a 1996 film about the same events.
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i William Grimes (Tuesday, October 20, 1992). "Behind the Filming of 'The Honeymoon Killers'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-05-21.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ “Seek More Victims of ‘Lonely Hearts’ Killers,” The Lowell [Mass.] Sun, March 2, 1949; “Justice for Mr. and Mrs. Bluebeard,” The Sunday Press [Binghamton, N.Y.], Feb. 18, 1951, p. 8-C.
- ^ Although the real-life Beck and Fernandez were arrested originally in Michigan and charged with the murders of the Downings, ultimately those prosecutions were suspended and they were extradited to New York to be tried for the murder of Janet Fay, because New York, unlike Michigan, had the death penalty. It was for the murder of Fay that they were convicted and executed. See People v. Fernandez, 93 N.E.2d 859 (N.Y. 1950).
- ^ The Honeymoon Killers a January 1, 1969 review from Variety magazine
- ^ Essay on the film by Gary Giddins from Criterion Collection
- ^ The Honeymoon Killers (DVD), a July 14, 2003 review by Keith Phipps for The A.V. Club
- ^ AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills Nominees
- ^ “Killer Asks for Children’s Photos,” Record-Eagle [Traverse City, Michigan], September 16, 1949, p. 11.
- ^ People v. Fernandez, 93 N.E.2d 859 (N.Y. 1950); “Says He Was Charming When He Married Her," The Lowell [Mass.] Sun, March 2, 1949, p. 1.
- ^ “ ‘Lonely Heart’ Killings Bared: Widow and Child Buried in Concrete,” News-Palladium, [Benton Harbor, Michigan], March 1, 1949, p. 1; “Justice for Mr. and Mrs. Bluebeard,” Sunday Press, [Binghamton, N.Y.], Feb. 18, 1951, p. 8-C.
- ^ “Study Love Notes for Clue to Identity of Killer’s ‘Irene,’ " Milwaukee Journal, March 5, 1949, p. 16; “Fernandez, Woman Face Michigan Murder Trial,” Kingston Daily Freeman [Kingston, N.Y.], March 2, 1949, pp. 1, 17.