SWEET REVENGE

US, 1976, 90 Minutes, Colour.
Stockard Channing, San Waterston, Franklyn Ajaye, Richard Doughty.
Directed by Jerry Schatzberg.

Sweet Revenge is an odd thriller/comedy/drama with quite some appeal. Directed stylishly by Jerry Schatzberg (Panic in Needle Park, Scarecrow and a fatality of the Streisand A Star is Born), it features a very versatile and clever comedienne (The Fortune, The Big Bus) Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston (of The Great Gatsby). Reflecting the mixed up values of contemporary urban society, the heroine sets herself a goal of buying a status limousine - but her techniques of raising the money are amoral (though providing effective comedy). Her plans are complicated by her concerned lawyer, the death of a friend and conscience. Perhaps the total doesn’t equal the sum of some very effective parts.

1. The quality of this film as drama, thriller, comedy? Its purpose?

2. The meaning of the title, application to the car, application to the heroine's behaviour? The irony of the tone and its application to themes?

3. The importance of the look of the film, colour, Panavision, San Francisco locations, expensive cars, slum houses, expensive houses, prison, the musical score?

4. The heroine and her initial encounter with the car, her ambitions, money? Her desire for status? The symbol of the car? A woman of hopes and plans?

5. Yet her being fallible and her being arrested? The encounter with the police, the details of her being imprisoned? The impact of prison on her for the future? For the ending?

6. Her behaviour in the court, her enticing the lawyer and leading him on? Did she do the same for the audience? Even if the audience knew more about her and her stealing the car, her planning for the swindle for the big car?

7. How attractive a character was she? Her background and its explanation, her various aliases? The importance of the close-ups and the focus on her expression? Her kookiness, lack of morality? Her ability at acting, eg. with the lawyer, with the various clients to whom she sold the car - the collage of her impersonations? Her values in the modern American world? Their acceptability, non-acceptability? Her leading people on? Her leading herself on? How self-centred was she, how defiant of society? How had society shaped her and yet her wanting sweet revenge on it?

8. Andy as her friend, sexual relationship, her using him? His part in the plan? His foolishness with the car and his being in jail? Her revenge and his revenge at her treatment of him?

9. The importance of her boyhood friend, his participation in her plans, knowing her for what she was? Help, truth? The impact of his death on her and on the audience?

10. The contrast with the lawyer and his interest in her, being taken in by her, the importance of the many sequences of his following her? His curiosity, attraction, wanting to help? Her offhand treatment of him, leading him on? Their outings? Her parole? Her letting him down by going to the car? His continued perseverance, the phone calls, the nightclub outing? Her final turning to him? The future?

11. The importance of the plans for getting the car, the detailed sequences of her gaining the money, going to the car and admiring it? The comic aspects of the them?

12. What was he achievement? The human repercussion for herself? The impact of her friend's death? Her joyride and the symbolic significance of burning the car?

13. The change of tone at the end when she gave herself up, her experience of prison? What did this mean? Capitulation, sense of justice? How was the film presenting her behaviour - approvingly, with criticism?

14. How well did the film blend meaning and style for an off-beat thriller, comedy commenting on modern America?