Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970)

Otto Preminger was one of those directors who always liked to be current, who always wanted to be cutting edge. You can see this in his film choices, touching on controversial topics in the 1950's such as drug abuse and rape (The Man with the Golden Arm, Anatomy of a Murder), and in the 1960's the Arab-Israeli conflict, homosexuality and racism (Exodus, Advise & Consent, Hurry Sundown). For his first feature of the 1970's Preminger made Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, adapted by Marjorie Kellogg from her novel of the same name. As far as what 'controversal' topics it covers their are a couple, homosexuality, disfigurement, the welfare state, epilepsy, though I think Preminger mostly wanted to cover contemporary youth culture, as his previous attempt Skidoo didn't quite succeeded on that front.

The characters in this feature aren't exactly your typical young people though, and some of them really aren't that young. The movie centers on three characters, all of whom had spent time together in a hospital and decided to pool their resources and live together upon release. The title character of Junie Moon is played by Liza Minnelli. Junie had been a party girl, and one night on a date the man she was with turned out to be quite disturbed and pored battery acid on her face and arm leading to some disfigurement (this is why she was in the hospital at the beginning of the film). Robert Moore is a paralyzed homosexual confined to a wheel chair, and Ken Howard an epileptic with a difficult childhood. None of these characters have much in the way of actual family and bond together because of there mutual outsider statues.

Junie secures a home for the trio, a little run down bungalow owned by a rich, eccentric elderly women, and they all move in. Robert has a small monthly stipend left to him by his grandmother, and Ken is eligible for welfare but refuses it feeling he's been on it too long. Ken decides to contribute his share to the groups expenses by getting a job, but his epilepsy prevents him from returning to his old position. A kindly, middle-aged fish shop proprietor agrees to give him a job, but backs off when he receives an anonymous call by someone accusing Ken of being a sodomite (this turns out to be the trios meddlesome neighbour who wants them to move out). Ken is distraught by this an sinks into a melancholy period of hallucinatory depression and wanders off on the road. When Ken doesn't return home after his first day on the job Liza sets out looking for him. She comes across the Marty-esque fishmonger (James Coco) who apologizes for dismissing Ken and the two set out together in search of him (with the lonely Coco hopeing this could be the start of a relationship with Minnelli.

Eventually Ken is found and returns home, though he is more depressed then before and having stopped taking his medication is experiencing increased frequency and severity of seizures. Thinking they all could use a break, and hopeing to further ingratiate himself with Liza, Coco offers to pay for them to have a free vacation to the beach (this movie appears to be set in the Carolina's). Coco stays home having to run his fish shop but the trio set out for the beach, maintaining a flimsy facade to the hotel establishment that Liza is a disfigured heiress. Its in this beach side vacation town that most of the youth culture elements come in, with Robert enjoying a spree on the town with black beach boy Fred Williamson (which ironically results in the former having heterosexual sex), while Ken confesses his love for Liza. The movie ends tragically.

Unconventional, especially for the time (this is the kind of stuff that Micheal Cunningham would do in the 1990's), likable, and very well directed. I was surprised how good this was given that the post-1965 Preminger films I'd seen had been of noticeably lesser quality then his earlier work. The movie has a nice rhythm to it, not rushed, much like the largely rural south in which it is set. Both the lead and secondary characters are intriguing, and there is a general feeling of modest nobility about it. Unexpectedly solid, worthy of its directors gifts.

Good