The Honeymoon Killers [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Leonard Kastle Leonard Kastle

Overview

Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler) is a lonely nurse who takes care of her invalid mother in Mobile, Alabama. Starved for affection, she places an ad in a lonely hearts column and soon receives a letter from Ray Fernandez (Tony LoBianco). He meets her and runs off with her dowry to New York City. Martha puts her mother in a nursing home and follows the handsome con artist. She agrees to pose as his sister as the two fleece lonely, unsuspecting women out of their money. Martha's jealousies of Ray's victims leads to murder. In Grand Rapids, Michigan, an elderly matron is killed and her child is drowned in a washing machine. Martha considers confessing to the police when she finally realizes Ray will never be true to her or any other woman. The story was taken from actual events, and the real-life couple were eventually executed in Sing Sing prison in 1951. The black-and-white photography adds an aura of authenticity to the documentary-style production.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/29/2015
UPC:	0715515156318
Original Release:	1969
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:47:00
Sales rank:	12,975

Special Features

Interview with writer-director Leonard Kastle from 2003 Love Letters, a new interview program by Robert Fischer, featuring actors Tony Lo Bianco and Marilyn Chris and editor Stan Warnow "Dear Martha...," a new video essay by writer Scott Christianson, author of Condemned: Inside the Sing Sing Death House Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Shirley Stoler	Martha Beck
Tony Lo Bianco	Ray Fernandez
Dortha Duckworth	Mrs. Beck
Mary Jane Higby	Janet Fay
Doris Roberts	Bunny
Kip McArdle	Delphine Downing
Marilyn Curtis	Myrtle Young
Barbara Cason	Evelyn Long
Ann Harris	Doris
Mary Breen	Rainelle Downing
Elsa Raven	Matron
Mary Engel	Lucy
Guy Sorel	Mr. Dranoff
Mike Haley	Jackson,Jackson
Diane Asselin	Severns
Marilyn Chris	Myrtle Young
William Adams	Justice of the Peace,Mrs. Hand
Gustav Mahler	Composer

Technical Credits

Leonard Kastle

Leonard Kastle	Director,Screenwriter
Warren Steibel	Producer
Fred Kamiel	Sound Effects,Sound/Sound Designer
Paul Asselin	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Leonard Kastle's sole directorial credit, The Honeymoon Killers, is a stark but compelling thriller that aims a good bit higher than most horror films of its day (not many filmmakers would use Gustav Mahler to score a true-life crime story, let alone make it work), and generates a cold and darkly disturbing tone that's all its own. While The Honeymoon Killers is (purposefully) rough around the edges, Kastle uses the deep shadows of his high-contrast black-and-white camerawork and ratty low-budget art direction to conjure up a strange and troubling world where the surroundings are as flat and empty as the consciences of its protagonists. (Part of the film's look and feel might be attributed to a young Martin Scorsese, who was the film's original director, but was fired after a few days for taking too long with his set-ups.) The underappreciated Tony Lo Bianco is a fascinating mixture of greasy charm, bravado, and cowardice as serial bigamist Raymond Fernandez; Shirley Stoler is superb as Martha Beck, who seems to have been waiting all her life for Ray to come along and unleash her appetite for both sex and bloodshed; and the parade of sadly ordinary women who portray their victims look just real enough to give this a semi-documentary feel that makes the proceedings all the more uncomfortable. While far from perfect (the pacing is a bit uncertain and the dialogue sometimes clunky), The Honeymoon Killers' virtues far outweigh its flaws, and one has to wonder what else Kastle may have had to say if he'd ever had the chance to make another film.

All Movie Guide - Mark Deming