MY HUSBAND IS MISSING

US, 1978, 99 minutes, Colour.
Sally Struthers, Tony Musante, Martine Beswick.
Directed by Richard Michaels.

An effective telemovie taking a topical theme of the 60s and 70s. A wife, searching for her husband, visits North Vietnam. The film is able to rekindle, especially for American audiences, the memories of the war, their attitudes towards the war, the loss of American men. In her discovery she finds that her husband has a child in North Vietnam. The repercussions for her in her search, discovery of what happened to her husband, discovery of the child highlight the crises for American women at the time. Sally Struthers, from television's All In The Family, does very well in the central role. Tony Musante has a rather artificial role as a journalist photographer. The film is made for the television audience and adapts its serious themes for home viewing. This provides a limitation, but it also means that serious themes are able to confront the audiences in their living rooms. One of the better telemovies.

1. The impact of television movies? Themes, home audiences, viewing such movies at home? The effect, involvement? Audience response to topical themes, social criticism? An authentic experience?

2. The significance of the Vietnam war for the United States? The sixties and the changes of the seventies? (The impact of the Vietnam films at the end of the seventies ? Coming Home, Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now?) The importance of the war on American women, on the wives who sacrificed husbands, had to cope with family and children? The hindsight of the American filmmakers? How accurate their portrayal of the war, American involvement, the repercussions? The film highlighting the changes in attitudes of the seventies?
hope for the United States of the future?

3. The quality of the production, especially the presentation of North Vietnam, the incorporation of newsreel footage? The atmosphere of the war? The contrast with Vietnam and the style of life in the United States?

4. The importance of the war in hindsight - the reasons for American involvement, the ending of the war, American expenditure of energy, personnel? American grief? The comparison of this grief with the effects on Vietnam and its people?

5. The film was contrived, effectively so? Emotional involvement, personal understanding? The message about Americans and Vietnamese? The contriving of what happened during the war, what can happen to ordinary Americans? Torture, death? Emotional involvement of soldiers in war with local women? The children? The American wife facing this?

6. The portrait of Katherine in herself? her pleas to the French and to the Vietnamese to be able to search? The interspersing of her memories - real, remembered with romantic touch? The response of the Consul, the arranging of the trip, the arrival in Vietnam, the officials, customs? The prospect of the trek? Derek and his inquisitiveness, collaboration? The hardships of the travelling, the jeep, the roads, the bees? Life in the Vietnamese villages after the war? Their being robbed? The bashing? The discovery of clues, the final trek to the cave? Katherine's collapse? Her falling and need for coping with the experience? Her coming to terms with her
search, the reality of her husband's death? The importance of her needing to experience his death?

7. The build-up to the discovery of the cave, the letter and its contents and tone, Katherine's realising the truth about the child? Her husband's grave? The interplay of memories and the present?

8. The characterisation of Derek, his background, personality, work in the East, relationships? His search for a story, support of Katherine? His help? The encounter with the girl? The revelation of the type of person that he was, relationships? His falling in love with Katherine? His accompanying her to the village, the impact of the stealing of the camera, carrying her when she fell, encountering the young men who bashed them? The end and the farewell, the rightness of his being at Los Angeles?

9. The portrait of North Vietnam ? the officials, the villagers, robbers, the woman and her child and the relationship with the American soldier? The American view of North Vietnam in the sixties and seventies? The impact of this film and the reality of war?

10. Paul as the average American, his life in the United States, his going to Vietnam, the impact on his life, the experience of war, torture, escape, friendship and love, the birth of the child? The reality of war for the men involved, for those left behind?

11. The effect of the journey on Katherine, her love for Derek, the experience of his support, her needing time to assimilate the experience of the search and Paul's death? The child? The possibility of a future with Derek?

12. The blend of the serious, the comic, the realistic, the lyrical, the romantic? The various climaxes for the home audience and focussing the audience attention on characters and themes?