Mrs. Harris (2005) (TV)

Director:

Phyllis Nagy

Writers:

Shana Alexander (book)
Phyllis Nagy (screenplay)

Release Date:

6 January 2007 (Hungary)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Plot:

Based on the sensational 1980s media event, famed cardiologist Herman Tarnower meets a particularly brutal end at the hands of his jilted lover, Jean Harris.

Plot Keywords:

Gun | 1980s | Doctor | Marriage Proposal | Lingerie Slip

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Golden Globes. Another 3 wins & 21 nominations

Cast

Annette Bening	...	Jean Harris
Ben Kingsley	...	Herman Tarnower
Cloris Leachman	...	Pearl 'Billie' Schwartz - Tarnower's Sister
Lawrence O'Donnell	...	Judge Leggett (as Lawrence O'Donnell Jr.)
Frank Whaley	...	George Bolen
Bill Smitrovich	...	Joel Arnou
Frances Fisher	...	Marge Richey Jacobson
Michael Gross	...	Leslie Jacobson
Ronald Guttman	...	Henri
John Patrick Amedori	...	Young David Harris
Brad McCoy	...	Young Jimmy Harris
John Rubinstein	...	Tarnower's Best Friend
Brett Butler	...	Tarnower Ex #1
Lee Garlington	...	Tarnower's Ex #2
Ellen Burstyn	...	Former Tarnower Steady

Runtime:

Canada:94 min (Toronto International Film Festival) | Argentina:95 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | Australia:M | South Korea:15 | Singapore:M18 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

John Wells Productions

Trivia:

Ellen Burstyn, who appears in a minor role in this movie, played Jean Harris in The People vs. Jean Harris (1981) (TV).

Quotes:

Arthur Schulte: I was asleep. You never expect one of those wee-hours phone calls informing you that... that your good friend's just been shot dead. When Lynne hung up, I said to Viv "Well, if he's dead why couldn't she have waited until morning?".

Movie Connections:

References Gilda (1946)

Soundtrack:

It Must Be Him

A Tawdry Story and an Amateurish Film!

This film was atypical of the many high-caliber films produced by HBO. "Mrs. Harris" played like a generic network made-for-television biopic. The normally excellent Ben Kingsley and Annette Bening were both mediocre, and the main problem was with the teleplay. The structure of the film was odd in the use of flashbacks interlarded with the courtroom scenes. The actual relationship of Jean Harris and Herman Tarnower was downplayed, as the film progressed through vignettes that were simply variations on a single stormy and turbulent argument.

The result was a one-note film with one-note performances. Tarnower was portrayed as a boorish womanizer, Harris as a pill-popping neurotic. There were no levels and no depth to the characters. Because the film-maker refused to take a stand on the actual sequence of events during the shooting, multiple versions of the crucial death scene were staged, and the viewer was left with no greater understanding of the events at the end of the film than at the beginning.

This was amateurish film-making with no substantial research apparent and no integrity in attempting to come to terms with this enormously publicized and scrutinized murder. Astonishingly, the film even attempted to integrate comedy with short cameos of actors playing friends and relatives and directly addressing the camera. The scenes did not work, and they tended to trivialize a serious subject.

In the tragic killing of Dr. Herman Tarnower by Jean Harris, there might have been the potential for a film to shed light on why Mrs. Harris pulled the trigger inflicting fatal gunshot wounds on the doctor. Unfortunately, this shallow film lacks intelligence in the scripting and fails even to deliver the kind of compelling drama that one may find in purely fictionalized films about a crime of passion, such as "Play Misty For Me" or "Fatal Attraction."