You Belong to Me

 
You Belong to Me by Mary Higgins Clark

Review by Gerti

There is a great and plausible plot in Mary Higgins Clark’s offering “You Belong to Me” up until a sour note sounds when the killer is revealed at the end. The novels tells the story of a man who targets lonely women on vacation. The whack-job (and I think I can call him that!) uses the old song as the basis of his killing spree. If you don’t know the tune, it goes – “See the pyramids along the Nile. Watch the sunset on a tropic isle. Just remember darling all the while, you belong to me.” There are other verses, but you get the point. He takes women away from their tour groups and to the places named in the song, and then they disappear. Oh, and being freaky, he gives them all identical rings, which is what makes him easier to catch.

Dr. Susan Chandler is a radio psychologist like Dr. Fraser Crane. Hoping to warn women against being victims, she has a guest on her show who wrote a new book about women who disappear and have become victims of crimes due to their loneliness. That on-air discussion puts Dr. Chandler in the swirling heart of danger. She is contacted by the mother of one such victim, Regina Clausen, a wealthy successful woman who found romance on a cruise and then was never heard from again. Other women begin to call the show with clues about a ring that reads “You Belong to Me”, but when Chandler tries to track it down, she finds both that girl caller and the New York maker of those custom rings are dead. Is the killer someone Susan knows? Has he been listening to her show? Or is it the author of the book himself?

Like most Clark stories, there are red herrings thrown into the plot before the true killer is revealed. There are also other evil characters, male and female, who give spice to the action, including Susan’s man-hungry sister, Dee. In the end, however, I find that Clark’s killer choice seemed wrong. He was the least likely suspect, and even at the dramatic conclusion of the story, seems like a square peg shoved into a round hole for the sake of Clark’s being unpredictable. The rest of the writing was in Clark’s usual easy-going style, which made “You Belong to Me” a pleasure to read, although I did get tired of hearing about the lyrics to the title song! Not her best, but still fun.

A Month by the Lake

“A Month by the Lake”

Movie Review by Gerti

There are few forms of entertainment that I can abandon after committing to them. Once I start a book, I have to finish reading it, no matter how bad. Once I start watching a movie, the same thing happens. But fortunately for me, in my lifetime there have been few books and movies so bad that I wanted to stop before I had finished them. This film, “A Month by the Lake,” is one of those.

Famous actress Vanessa Redgrave stars as Miss Bentley, an older British woman at a lovely villa by Italy’s Lake Como. She has been vacationing there for 16 years, always before with her father. But now he has passed away, and she is alone. Well, not really alone, because she knows everyone else there: the owner, the staff, more older anglo ladies, and a wealthy vacationing Italian family. But the excitement this year is that a bachelor has come into their midst, an older, British gentleman named Major Wilshaw. What a perfect setting for romance!

It would be, except that I HATE Vanessa Redgrave’s character. Since she is the protagonist, I should be sympathetic to her plight, but I find everything she does annoying and distasteful. Her personality is grating, and she says all the wrong things when she is introduced to the Major, whose name is Paul. They attempt several “dates”, but things always end in disaster. They make a date to eat together, but she runs late and then decides to eat with the huge Italian family instead, and he must join them. They decide to take a boat trip together, but her watch stops, and hence they miss the boat back. She decides to hitch a ride with some hot male motorcyclists, even though he cautions her not to.

Is it any surprise then that he is far more attracted to the American nanny hired by the Italian family to care for their two daughters? This woman is young, blonde Uma Thurman, and although she seems initially to be sweet on him (giving him a rose and kiss when he leaves), she is merely playing with him. But so is Vanessa’s character, who is also flirting with a young Italian man who finds her lithe aging body attractive. He has spent time with British women before on holiday in the UK, and apparently thinks she will find his attentions welcome. She does not, although she is willing to take nude pictures of him (her idea, not his).

Behind this terrible story is flimsy political wallpaper, as several fascist parades occur and the owner of the villa seems concerned about the changes that are coming. But it is all a thin gilding of high art on what is a very bad film about British and American characters who are all terrible people. Vanessa sums her character up when she tells the major she had a 15 year affair with a married man, but when his wife died, he somehow no longer wanted to marry this mistress of his. She is an insanely selfish person who has never grown up and makes the lives of those around her miserable with her whimsy. In the end, she and the Major find romance, but that is as far-fetched as the idea that a 20-something Italian model boy would stoop to romancing a British pensioner.