Friendships, Secrets and Lies (1979)

Fresh and Exciting

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Fantastic!

As Good As It Gets

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."

Agreed...don't take this movie too seriously. It's worth it to see Shelley Fabares' big announcement at the end. And come on, any movie with her, Loretta Swit, Tina Louise, and Sondra Locke is pure camp fun anyway. I think the plot's a decent idea, and the flashback scenes are pretty atmospheric. This is like the prototype Lifetime movie, only without Jaclyn Smith or Nancy McKeon. In fact, a "Friendships, Secrets and Lies 2003" would be fabulous...I'm thinking Kim Fields, Justine Bateman, Erin Moran, and Alyssa Milano would be a fine cast, with of course Charlotte Rae as the aging housemother.