Thursday, July 30, 2009

Sandy Good family fun, Mar. 1976

Just how long did these people clog our nation's courts and news outlets?  To be sure, there can be no question that Manson Family business made for news of cinematic quality.  For better or worse, it was more of the grindhouse variety one would find at the drive-in.  As such, it was rich enough to produce quite a few sequels with new storylines, kind of like a proto-Friday the Thirteenth franchise for newspapers.

Apparently the Sandy Good and Susan Murphy case of malicious letter writing and talk radio media blitzkriegery was the next installment, quickly following "Squeaky" Fromme's assassination attempt on President Ford the prior year.  In fact, Squeaky returns from prison in a cameo role as unindicted co-conspirator and witness for the defense, while Good performs a dual role as poison pen femme fatale as well as, Charlie-like, her own defense attorney.

This production was not entirely the disappointment one expects as descending  sequels usually progressively get worse the longer they get churned out, especially when it has devolved to becoming a vehicle for raising awareness of environmental issues rather than the famed "Helter Skelter" revolution.  However, one must bear in one's year-2009-mind that pollution concerns were fresh and new while the old grievences that had made the Family a household name had become played out by 1976.

But a Manson Family newstory rarely fails to electrify when it comes to courthouse turbulance.  Misses Good and Murphy, two swinging chicks in their 30s and quasi-nun's habits (adding unexpected Edith Head-type costume values) are provocative during the proceedings, with verbal and literal courtroom pyrotechnics making for another hot courtroom drama.  Yet again we leave the story in typical terrorist tale fashion:  another unsettling ending in which the accused roils with the wrong kind of regret.

ALSO:  The pharmacist with the apparent herpe just above his eyebrow would like us all (and future girlfriends) to know Herpes has now become a common venereal disease.

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