THE EXECUTION

US, 1985, 82 minutes, Colour.
Loretta Swit, Valerie Harper, Jessica Walter, Sandy Dennis, Rip Torn, Barbara Barrie, Robert Hooks, Michael Lerner.
Directed by Paul Wendkos.

The Execution is a television melodrama focusing on the holocaust. Decades after their experiences in the concentration camps, five American women who gather. together to play cards each week, see one of their persecutors on television. They consult together, concoct a plan to execute him, draw lots for it. The man is killed. There is a police investigation, a court case. The women, through turns of their plan and the courts, are free. Surprise information comes in the last few moments to let the women off the judicial hook - a bit far-fetched at this stage of the film.

However, the film reminds us of the intensity of Jewish response to the persecutors in the concentration camps. There is always the cry for justice, no matter how long after the event. The American actresses affect Teutonic accents - sometimes credibly, sometimes not. Rip Torn is very strong as their victim.

1. The impact of this telemovie? Drama and melodrama? Important issues? For a television audience? Certainties and uncertainties about justice and its execution?

2. A piece of Americana, America and the war, the Jewish experience, tile camps, the war criminals. their being in the United States? Decades after the event?

3. The title, its severity, moral complexities, resolution?

4. American domestic atmosphere, the town, the various families, seeing then., in their ordinary activities. social life, friendships? Audiences identifying with the women?

5. Their seeing the criminal on the television, his career, success? The discovery, their reaction, their plan? Their execution of the plan?

6. Each of the women and the effect on each? Psychological effect, willingness and unwillingness to participate in the plan, their strengths, the cover? The effect on their family life, break-ups, reconciliation or not? Their futures? The execution and its plan, the carrying out, the cover-tip, behaviour in court? The different personalities of each of the women? The woman who had the task to do the execution? Her inability to do it?

7. The spouses and families? Mystery, reaction, the courts, reconciliation?

8. The court sequences, prosecutor and defence, trying to understand the women, their strategies, support, the judge? The prosecutor visiting after the trial and giving them the tape?

9. The effect of the court case on each, their freedom?

10. The letter tape, the truth, flashbacks, the true killing - over-dramatic at this stage of the film?

11. The moral dilemma about justice, injustice, possibilities of the courts to administer justice?