Death Sentence (1974)

You won't be disappointed!

How sad is this?

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Taking a tip from Edna May Oliver in "Ladies on the Jury" and Helen Broderick in its remake "We're on the Jury", simple housewife Cloris Leachman becomes embroiled in danger when she becomes compelled to investigate the murder of a married woman whose husband she is sure did not kill his wife. Her husband (Laurence Luckinbill) is upset because she has postponed their vacation in order to serve on the jury, and the involvement in trying to discover who the real killer is becomes frustrating to him as well.The ever busy Leachman was everywhere on TV and in movies during the '70's, but she is not well served by this obvious "movie of the week". Even worse is the fact that the killer's identity and motive are revealed at the beginning of the film, removing all suspense and making it all pointless. Even if it wasn't seen earlier, the revelation is so far fetched that even a child would shout "Hog Wash!" as it all comes out. Leachman is also badly served by some unflattering photography. A bevy of familiar '70's faces from TV and movies make this a curio, particularly William Schallert and Allan Oppenheimer as the attorneys, Peter Hobbs as the judge, and Hope Summers as a very hostile witness.

Plot Synopsis: John Healy is placed on trial for the murder of his wife. Everyone in the town is of the opinion that he is guilty but as the trial goes on, one of the female jurors begins to suspect that her own husband had an affair with the murder victim & killed her to keep their affair secret.The Review: Death Sentence (not to be confused with the more recent film by SAW mastermind James Wan) was an early 1970s made-for-television film produced by Aaron Spelling, the master of that era's television soap operas. It also features Nick Nolte in one of his early roles.Death Sentence is, in most respects, an unremarkable film. Nothing in the film stands out in any way (except perhaps for Nolte giving one of his better performances as the murder victim's husband, a role that Nolte nails with such precision that you wonder if he was actually being himself), not even the novelty plot device that plays with every juror's worst nightmare – what if you were on the jury in a murder trial & you discover that your partner was responsible for the deed?The other thing I must mention is the fact that producer Spelling must have been hands-on with the film featuring the same brand of needless melodramatics that his other works have featured. I thought the idea of revealing the killer early on in the film was kind of interesting but it also has the effect of taking all the mystery out of it – other than the climax, you are never on the edge of your seat..

This "movie" was incredibly painful to watch. Stilted, wooden dialogue, utterly predictable plot, lousy directing and bad camera work - in short, this thing's a train wreck.The film possesses a strange juxtaposition of talented-but-wasted well-known actors (Leachman, Nolte, Luckinbill, Schallert) and eager-but-untalented relative unknowns. That the director approved this atrocity and that TV network executives allowed it to be aired is incredible. And now it's available on DVD - but why???The talents of Ms. Leachman and Mr. Nolte are completely wasted. At least Ms. Leachman redeemed herself later that year (1974) in Young Frankenstein.

One out of dozens and dozens of tightly constructed TV movies of the 1970's (some hilariously bad, some unforgettably distinctive, most - sadly - missing in action!) Hincks is a clinging mistress, desperate to hang on to her married lover (Luckinbill) despite her own good-looking, but hard-drinking husband (Nolte.) When she pushes too far, Luckinbill does her in, but lets Nolte take the rap. Leachman plays a sincere and naive jurist at the trial who begins to doubt Nolte's guilt despite everyone else's sense that he killed her. When she begins to put the pieces together, she finds that she may have imposed a death sentence on herself! Made when Leachman was still knocking them dead on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" and about to embark on "Phyllis", she clearly tries to downplay her glamor and attractiveness for this "serious" role. The result is high comedy almost as funny as what she did in her sitcoms! With mousy hair parted in the center, no make-up and some really ugly glasses, she spends the entire movie with the same pinched, unappealing expression on her face. Her character is dippy to begin with, but she adds extra hilarity through her wooden reactions to the events around her until she is forced to confront the killer personally, at which point the film soars into the comic stratosphere. Sopping wet, wearing ugly cream-colored heels and with her glasses all smeared, she creates the most abhorrent expressions paired with the zaniest physical manifestations. She flails around at the end like someone who's being zapped with a cattle prod! All this work and her name isn't even printed on the DVD case! Luckinbill gives a decent double-edged performance. Nolte, at the very start of his career, has almost nothing to do (and his case is never properly resolved.) Various familiar TV actors dot the cast such as Oppenheimer and Schallert as lawyers and Lang (famous for her hysterical turn in "The Birds") as the victim's devastated and opinionated mother. As loony as it is (and there is one twist to the tale not divulged here), it's great to see some of these old films turning up as they are too enjoyable (for either the right or the wrong reasons) to stay buried in a vault somewhere.