THE STRANGE VENGEANCE OF ROSALIE
US, 1972, 107 minutes, Colour.
Bonnie Bedelia, Ken Howard, Anthony Zerbe.
Directed by Jack Starrett.
The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie is certainly a strange but not untypical film of the early 1970s. Director Jack Starrett, who acted in many films also, directed a number of biker films and then made this film which includes a biker but focuses on a teenage girl who is quite demented. She entraps a travelling salesman, breaking his legs (with many afterwards noting the similarity with Misery, Stephen King’s story). She becomes entangled with a biker who had raped her and goes off with him, finally meeting the salesman again, and committing murders and accusing the salesman of committing them.
The film probably sounds more sleazy than it actually is in its treatment. Bonnie Bedelia was at the beginning of her career, appearing in many films and telemovies, especially as Bruce Willis’s wife in several of the Die Hard films. Ken Howard was also a young actor at the time – and graduated to father roles in later years (In Her Shoes). Anthony Zerbe served as a villain in many films at this time, particularly in The Omega Man.
1. The interest in this kind of film? As thriller, as likable, as repelling? The purpose of the film makers?
2. The significance and tone of the title, and its ultimate explanation?
3. Audience interest in the mystery of Rosalie, the explanation of her background and her type, character, strengths and weaknesses, her hitchhiking and her attractiveness, her seduction and power over Virgil, her cruelty, possessiveness, holding him, fascination with him? Did she have the same fascination for the audience?
4. What had happened to Rosalie? Her grandfather, the gold wine, isolation and madness, sexuality and brutality? How in this illustrated by her dealing with Virgil? By the confrontation with Fry?
5. How was Virgil meant to represent the ordinary man, lured by Rosalie, letting himself be taken in, becoming a victim, suffering cruelty? And yet the fascination of Rosalie, his helping her, his explanation of love and relationships, sexuality? His defending her from Fry? His use of Fry to save himself?
6. The importance of Rosalie’s going to town, buying dresses, her returning and saving Virgil, the irony of this because of her later vengeance? The murder of Fry?
7. The horror and the tension of the final encounter, Virgil as victim again, Rosalie confronting him with the murder of Fry?
8. How could the audience feel for the victimisation of Virgil?
9. Was this an interesting piece of Americana, a thriller, interest in its psychological tones, questions of sanity and madness, love and hate, greed and cruelty, the nature of vengeance, men and women and relationships?
