Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Excellent but underrated film

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Cathryn Damon, Loretta Swit and Paula Prentiss stand out in this all female cast. This was a highly experimental film, had an obvious feminist bent but stands up to modern day scrutiny. I was a 17 year old closeted gay male at the time, but I was touched by the performances then as now. These women are real, perhaps idealized and stereotypical but they speak for women in general. The none too subtle feminist narrative supposes that one of these women self aborted a child while in her college sorority days. I don't know what Los Angeles suburb this was filmed in, but the license plates on the cars seem to be yellow. The all for one march down Main Street is effective and warm hearted. Tina Louise seems to have drifted in from The Stepford Wives, her role is close to her role in that earlier film. Also Paula Prentiss was the same sort of gadabout free spirit here as she was in The Stepford Wives. I still watch it from time to time with reverence and love.

This is not an excellent movie, but it's not that bad and worth a view. Like other posters have mentioned, there are no men in any of the scenes of this movie. Its six lead actresses are like a who's who from (mostly) the 70's era of films and TV comedies: Cathryn Damon ("Soap") is Martha; Paula Prentiss (The Stepford Wives) is Sandy; Shelley Fabares ("The Donna Reed Show"/"Coach") is Mary Alice; Tina Louise ("Gilligan's Island") is Joan; Stella Stevens (The Poseidon Adventure) is Edyth; and Loretta Swit ("M*A*S*H") is B.J. Sondra Locke, one of Clint Eastwood's many girlfriends, plays Jessie the reporter who is trying to determine which of the Sigma Beta Chi sorority sisters is the guilty party. The supporting characters are: Clarissa, Joan's maid who was the sorority housemother to all of the women in the mid-50's; Layne Plowden, the woman who stole Martha's husband from her; Livia, Sandy's daughter, and B.J.'s two daughters, who aren't given any first names. Oddly, none of these characters or the actresses portraying them are listed in the cast credits.Watching this movie is like watching "Dynasty"... it shouldn't be taken too seriously and it's a "guilty pleasure" of sorts. The plot seems like it could have been taken from this show or any other nighttime soap of that era. I have an old tape of this movie, taped from TV in the 80's. I wanted to see it again after recently viewing the original The Stepford Wives movie in which both Paula Prentiss and Tina Louise co-star with Katharine Ross. Paula Prentiss steals all the scenes she's in in both movies and Tina Louise portrays similar characters in both movies. This movie is worth a shot if only to see if you can figure out "whodunit."

I vaguely remember watching this movie on TV. All the while, something seemed really off about it, something vaguely odd, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Then, while watching the final scene, it suddenly hit me - - the entire movie was filmed without a single male in the cast! None! Not even the extras in scenes where you would normally see male and female extras in real world settings. Now, this _was_ a movie written and filmed by feminists, fair enough, but this total exclusion of males from the cast - - even in outdoor scenes around town, etc. - - was positively bizarre. As Ma Bailey tried to tell Anne in "It's a Wonderful Life", "But if there weren't any boys, there wouldn't be any...oh, never mind."

Which it is.It has been so long since I have seen this thing, but the deal was there were no men shown here. At the beginning there may have been construction workers shown, and I don't recall about crowd scenes, I guess men would have to be shown, but none of the major cast members were men and no dialogue was spoken by men.Didn't hurt the story at all, truthfully.An interesting idea, I'm sure it was provoked by Roe v. Wade. A baby's skeleton is found in the sorority house when it is torn down. Only one of the sorority sisters could have done it, correct? Or could they know who did it?Assembling a television cast to be the sisters, I remember thinking Cathryn Damon of Soap was much too old for the other women.Agewise they come up thusly: Damon was 49, Shelley Fabares was 35, Tina Louise was 45, Paula Prentiss was 40, Stella Stevens was 43 and Loretta Swit was 42.Sondra Locke was the investigator.One would have a drinking problem, one would be an abused wife (interesting to see when there were no men shown), and as posted, one was a homosexual.Paula Prentiss' character was the one that was picketed, that the mob mentality said must have done it and no doubt, had it occurred for real, the media would have gone after her. Prentiss comes home one day and casually removes a picket sign left on her doorstep and goes on about her business. My brother solved the mystery when he watched it and guessed Fabares' distinction as well. I was left in the dark.I would like to see it again after all this time, but I doubt it would be any better now. Good for watching only once, I'm sure.