God Damn the Poor

Edge of Doom’s less-than-captivating
poster is probably not the sole reason
the movie failed at the box office, but
I’m sure it didn’t help.

“I find it impossible to serve these people,” complains a priest at the opening of the noirish 1950 drama EDGE OF DOOM.

“Poor people are difficult to serve, George,” reminds Father Roth (Dana Andrews), the senior priest of Los Angeles’ St. Stephens’ Church.

Yes, ministry would be so much easier if it weren’t for all these fucking poors, who jeopardize their dead-end jobs by carrying illegal weapons and who refuse to call the police on their abusive husbands (that the church insists they remain wedded to). But, as long as they keep those tithes coming, the priests might as well try to save their wretched souls.

But Father Roth isn’t that cynical. Sometimes it’s the poors who bring the priests closer to God. He tells of one former parishioner who, after the church denied his alcoholic father a Christian burial because he committed suicide, was determined to keep his tithe money and wretched soul to himself.

Flashing back to what appears to be the previous week, we meet Martin Lynn (Farley Granger), working as a delivery driver for a flower shop, barely making enough to scrape by, let alone pay for his ailing mother’s medical care — or, at the very least, move her out to Arizona, which is healthier, somehow. And marrying his girlfriend Julie (Marla Powers) is out of the question, which, in 1950, means Martin is also suffering from a serious case of blue balls on top of crushing poverty. He asks his boss, Mr. Swanson (Houseley Stevenson) for a raise, reminding the old man he was promised one the previous year and, besides, Martin’s worked at the shop for four years. Mr. Swanson kicks the can down the road, telling Martin that the shop has had a lot of expenses and can’t afford any pay increases. Martin is then assured that he’ll always have a job as long as Mr. Swanson is alive. Translation: Be grateful you have a job. Now shut the fuck up.

Like a prayer.

“Who’s your daddy?”

Martin’s mother is still very devout, much to her son’s chagrin (“You’ve prayed enough, Mother.”) Her prayers don’t spare her the inevitable, however, leaving Martin is saddled with the expense of burying her. His skeevy neighbor, Mr. Craig (Paul Stewart), rants about how “it’s a rich world, but it hates to give.” Someone, somewhere, owes Martin money, Mr. Craig continues; all he has to do is have the nerve to collect. Martin takes the older man’s words to heart. His mother deserves a big funeral, and St. Stephens is going to pay for it.

The late Mrs. Lynn was usually counseled by St. Stephens’ beloved junior priest Father Roth, but it’s the grumpy Father Kirkman (Harold Vermilyea)—the same priest who refused Martin’s father a church funeral—who is available when Martin shows up at the rectory. We know the church isn’t going to pay for shit, no matter who Martin asks, but at least Father Roth would be more diplomatic in rejecting Martin’s demands. Father Kirkman’s first response, upon hearing that Martin’s mother has died, is to chastise the young man for not calling him sooner to administer her last rites (priorities). Furthermore, he can’t understand why Martin wants his mother to have such a lavish funeral (“Your mother was a simple woman.”)

Martin confronts Father Don’t-Give-a-Shit

Father Kirkman isn’t a total bastard, though, giving Martin cab fare to the funeral home. Martin, in turn, smashes Father Kirkman’s skull with a brass crucifix, killing him instantly. Oops.

Most tragic of all, no one said Father Kirkman’s last rites.

Martin barely avoids discovery by Father Roth and Father Kirkman’s misbehaving niece Rita (Joan Evans, who gets third billing even though she’s barely in the film), only to have police cars come speeding up beside him as he’s walking down the street. The cops aren’t coming for Martin but, rather, responding to a robbery — committed by Mr. Craig — at the nearby Galaxy Theatre. A mob of onlookers swarm the theater (Los Angelenos just loved gawking at robbery victims back in the day, apparently), practically carrying Martin to this other crime scene. A panicked Martin fights his way through the crowd, running to a nearby greasy spoon where he is the sole customer.

Martin’s been seen fleeing the Galaxy, which leads to two detectives flanking him in the diner and treating Martin like he’s been Driving While Black, though they keep their guns holstered (#WhitePrivilege). The cops ultimately take Martin to the station, suspecting him of committing the Galaxy Theatre robbery. He’s questioned by Det. Lt. Mandel (Robert Keith), who’s just as pleasant as the arresting officers. Martin not only fails to convince Det. Lt. Asshole that he’s innocent of the Galaxy hold-up, but he also inadvertently gets himself added to a list of potential suspects in Father Kirkman’s murder as well.

Martin is questioned by Det. Lt. Asshole.

Father Roth happens to stop by the station to vouch for one of his parishioners (“Lock him up for a week. Throw a good scare into him.”) Roth is a little more compassionate when he learns Martin is also in jail. “Martin is not a thief,” the priest tells Mandel, “and he wouldn’t go robbing theaters on the night his mother died.” (Hold on to your wallet on any other night, though!) Mandel releases Martin, but he stresses to Roth that it’s against his better judgment: “He bothers me.”

“Frankly, I’m glad the old bastard’s dead.”

Roth plans to take Martin to the rectory, but Martin insists on going home. But after Roth drops him off, Martin goes to Julie’s apartment. Though she means well, she offers little comfort (“It’s not the end of the world tonight, Martin.”) Martin returns to his apartment, just in time to see Mr. Craig being hauled away by police (“Every time something happens around here, they pull him in,” gripes Craig’s girlfriend Irene). Craig tells the cops he was nowhere near the Galaxy when it was robbed, but he’s actually been taken in as a suspect in the Father Kirkman murder.

Things continue to worsen for Martin. He loses his job, and the mortuary won’t extend him any credit (“Obviously, Mr. Lynn, you can’t afford your desires.”) He’s again picked up by the cops, this time as a suspect in the crime he actually committed. In an uncharacteristic bit of luck, the eyewitness who saw him leaving the rectory doesn’t pick him out of a lineup, instead identifying Mr. Craig as the man she saw.

It looks like Martin is going to get away with murder. Alas, you can take the boy out of the Catholic church, but you can’t take the Catholic church out of the boy. (Maybe I should re-phrase that...)

“Goddammit.”

More Secular than Faith-Based

Edge of Doom is based on a novel by Leo Brady, who, though a devout Roman Catholic, didn’t shy away from criticizing the church, and while liberties were taken with the film adaption (the prologue and epilogue scenes, as well as some narration, were added to give the story a more inspirational spin), it’s far from Catholic propaganda. Part of the reason so many current faith-based movies fail as films, aside from the fact that they are uniformly terrible, is they have no nuance, with all their stories boiling down to “secularism (and non-Christian religions) bad; evangelical Christianity good.” Faith isn’t examined, it’s presented. Edge of Doom’s approach is far more palatable. Religion is a part of the story, but it’s not THE story.

Edge of Doom is more secular than faith-based — you’ll hear more about Catholic church protocols than the Lord — and ultimately, it’s Martin’s story that makes the movie compelling viewing. Martin’s mother finds comfort in the church, the promise of a rewarding afterlife validating her mortal struggles. For Martin, the church is just one more institution that’s let him down. What he wants is a way out of the misery of poverty, not justifications for why he should suffer through it.

Farley Granger made Edge of Doom between starring in the film noir classics They Live by Night (1948) and Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train (1951), and while Doom isn’t as good as either of those movies, it’s still worth seeking out (it’s streaming on Prime as of this writing). Though the inspirational bits are hokey, and several supporting characters are a bit too stock (Mr. Craig, Mr. Swanson, Mandel), Granger, who, I’m obligated as a gay man to inform readers came out as bi in his 2007 memoirs Include Me Out, keeps Martin — and the movie — grounded in reality, resulting in a movie that’s just as relatable today as when it was first released.

Irene (Adele Jergens) crashes a scene to calm audiences
worried Edge of Doom was becoming a total sausage fest.

TL;DR: ‘Deadly Illusions’ Fucking Sucks

A generic poster for a generic title.

In the 2021 Netflix thriller DEADLY ILLUSIONS, the main character, Mary, may or may not be mentally ill, but she is, quite definitively, fucking stupid.

Deadly Illusions is pretty damn dumb itself, which I’d forgive were it not for the fact that the movie expects its audience to be as well. For starters, there’s its tortured set-up. Mary Morrison (least-talked about Sex in the City cast member Kristin Davis) is the author of a lurid mystery series — or rather, she was. When we meet her, she’s settled into the life of a rich, white stay-at-home mom and would like to remain such, which is why she’s incensed when her editor shows up, with his assistant Darlene (Abella Bala, who’s not in this movie nearly enough) in tow, to propose that she write another book. She immediately ushers the editor and his assistant out of her house like they’re reporters at a Trumpist’s town hall. The editor meekly apologizes and assures Mary that those royalty checks will keep coming. Darlene, however, isn’t so meek, at least when her boss is out of earshot.

“Bitch, please.”

“You’re Mary Morrison, best-selling author. Yet there was a time when Mary couldn’t get one publisher to read her work,” Darlene says, barely fighting back a smug smile. “So, she resorted to writing salacious stories and now she gets to sit back and rake in residuals without a single thought to how she got there or who put her there.” 

Mary tells Darlene she should be fired and storms back into her mausoleum-like home. Asking a writer to write — how dare they! (Even before this meeting one senses that Mary is the type of author who puts more effort into her book jacket glamor shot than writing, so this actually tracks.) She’s so pissed that she doesn’t even open the envelope containing her publisher’s written offer. 

It’s Mary’s husband Tom (Dermot Mulroney) who actually looks at the proposal, discovering her publisher is offering to advance her $2 million to crank out another book. “That’s more money up front than all your other books combined,” he points out in a so-why-aren’t-you-writing-you-silly-bitch? tone of voice. But Mary just wants everyone to sit down for dinner.

Later, the couple has some under-the-covers sex, during which Tom deflects Mary’s attempt to blow him, like no man ever. Afterwards, Tom tells Mary about how an investment he made six months ago went tits up, costing them half their life savings, which is why it would be really super helpful if she took that $2 mil advance. Though Mary is upset that Tom risked their money without consulting her, learning that they’re now only half as rich as she thought still is not enough to convince Mary to resume her writing career.

Now, I don’t think people should do things just because they are paid a lot of money, but it’s never made clear why, exactly, Mary’s reacting like her publisher asked her to clean the grease traps at her local Carl’s Jr. “You’ve never seen me when I write. I turn into a different person,” she tells her friend Elaine (Shanola Hampton, whose character outline in the script, I suspect, was simply “Mary’s Black friend”). But ultimately, it’s Elaine who convinces Mary to write the book, suggesting she get a sitter to help with her children while she works on it, and refers her friend to a chichi childcare agency. 

So, that was why Mary didn’t want to write, because she didn’t want anything to take time away from raising her children? I call bullshit. Her two kids — basically props trotted out whenever the movie needs to remind the audience Mary is a mom — are roughly 8 or 9 years old, so they’re away at school for a good chunk of the day. Also, Tom clearly wants Mary to write this fucking book so, presumably, he could shoulder a lot of the childcare duties in the evenings while Mary’s in her office cranking out another one of those salacious stories. They may need a sitter for the occasional date night, but they do not need one to free up Mary’s “busy” schedule. (Of doing what? Going to the gym with Elaine?)

But with no sitter we have no evil nanny movie, I guess, so cue the montage of Mary interviewing potential babysitters, all of whom are rejected for one reason or another (too religious, too germophobic, too self-absorbed). But, just when Mary’s about to give up hope, she interviews Grace (Greer Grammer, Kelsey’s daughter), a sweet young woman who loves to read (they bond over the works of Gene Stratton-Porter and Judy Blume), is excited by the prospect of working for an author, and, most importantly, she’s great with kids, as she demonstrates when she quiets an argument between Mary’s two whining brats. Why, she’s perfect! Too perfect, you might say. And fake as an Ellen DeGeneres apology. But Mary—who, remember, has written a series of mystery novels—fails to see through Grace’s obsequiousness and hires her on the spot. 

She seems stable.

Grace quickly becomes a fixture in the Morrison household, preparing meals and keeping the kids occupied while Mary and Tom go into the pantry to fuck. But while Grace was hired so Mary can concentrate on writing, she’s actually a distraction for the author, their relationship going from employer-employee to BFFs to, maybe, BFFs with benefits. It’s Grace who first takes things in a sexual direction, guiding Mary’s hand to her breast while they’re bra shopping. (Do women really team up in the dressing room to help each other into a Victoria’s Secret demi bra? Seems like a scenario that exists only in porn. And bad Netflix thrillers.) 

When bra shopping goes too far.

Mary’s shocked… and also intrigued. She’s so intrigued that she does some sexual teasing of her own, first by asking Grace to rub sunscreen on her back, then encouraging her cute babysitter to doff that Catholic school girl get-up and go skinny dipping with her.

Grace opts to wear a control-top bikini instead.

These flirtations ultimately cross over fully into Sapphic territory, with Mary getting fingerbanged by Grace while luxuriating in a petal-strewn bathtub. Or was she? Deadly Illusions presents many of Grace’s seductions as possibly only happening in Mary’s head, with Mary beginning to doubt her reality.

Grace gives Mary a helping hand.

Of course, Grace isn’t restricting her flirtations to Mary. After dropping the kids off at school Tom invites the kids’ sitter to a brunch of quiche and Bloody Marys, where he gets around to asking Grace’s age. “How old do you think I am?” she asks coquettishly. Tom says a week ago he’d guess she was 20, but today, 40, which, in reality, would be when Grace would say fuck you and just go back to messing around with Mary as the only time you can get away with guessing a woman’s age as 40 is when the woman in question is obviously in her 60s. Instead, Grace stretches, causing her midriff-baring sweater to ride up, threatening to show Tom one of the sexy bras his wife helped her pick out. 

Actually, this is what I think lunch with Madonna looks like.

Poseur.

After a cutaway to Mary savoring a cigar (just… no), we see Tom and Grace bopping down the highway at night. What were they doing all day? Who picked up the kids? Mary’s not concerned, so I guess we shouldn’t be, either.

So, that’s the first hour, with not much happening beyond a bitchy confrontation with Darlene, the sassy assistant, and a few non-explicit sex scenes. Do things get more thriller-y in the second half? Yeah, but also a lot dumber.

The story jumps ahead three weeks, when Mary and Grace go on a bike ride down to a river, where they have a picnic and start to make out, Mary stopping things before Grace has a chance to burrow under her skirt. When they return to their bikes they discover their tires have been slashed. It’s nighttime when they get home, where they’re greeted by Tom and Elaine, who’s dropped by to share her suspicions — once she and Mary are away from Tom — about Tom is schtupping the help. Mary is indignant and accuses Elaine of having the hots for Tom.

Girl, don’t even.

The next night, Grace gives Mary a taste of the chili she’s preparing, then helps herself to a taste of Mary’s pussy. Things end abruptly when Tom walks into the room, though he’s so clueless I bet Grace could finish the job without him noticing. Mary is suddenly woozy (possibly roofied) and Tom has to help her to bed. Minutes later Mary comes to, hears the unmistakable sounds of people in the throes of passion and gets up to investigate. To her horror she discovers Tom, now blindfolded, going down on Grace in the kitchen (this movie really champions cunnilingus and sex in kitchens). Mary collapses, and as the screen fades to black we hear Grace tell Tom not to worry, his wife won’t remember any of this. 

When pillows attack.

But then, a few minutes later, Grace is once again getting out of bed and joining the family for that chili dinner, saying she had the most disturbing dream. And it does seem like it was a dream. To suggest that it wasn’t is to suggest that the kids were also roofied to allow time for Tom to go clam diving. It doesn’t matter, because Mary goes batshit at the table like this dream (or “dream”?) did happen (“You and my husband were fucking! Over there, on the counter!”) Later, Mary goes on a rant about how she’s been putting all her energy and talent into her family and all she gets is “fucking screwed!” I so wanted Tom to ask Mary by whom does she feel betrayed, him or Grace, but all he does is apologize to Mary like she’s an angry caller on a customer service line.

Mary then finds out that (gasp!) Grace just might not be who she says she is. She investigates further, starting with finding out Grace’s last name. Seriously. Grace has been working for the family for roughly two months and neither Mary nor Tom bothered ask her last name? And how does Mary go about learning this crucial information? Maybe ask Grace directly. Or, how about handing her a W2 to fill out? No, Mary goes to the library to see if the librarian will give it up. “She’s your best friend and you don’t even know her last name?” asks the librarian/audience stand-in, a rare moment of self-awareness on the movie’s part.

Then there’s a murder and all evidence points to Mary as the prime suspect. With only 24 minutes left in the movie, Mary will have to act fast if she’s to clear her name and find the real (or “real”) killer. Good thing for her the cops at the station don’t keep too close an eye on their murder suspects.

Potential as an R-Rated Lifetime Movie Squandered

So much of Deadly Illusions’ story plays out as if writer-director Anna Elizabeth James was selecting tropes like they’re dishes on a buffet line: “Let’s see, I’ll start with The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, with a generous side of Single White Female and just a dallop of Basic Instinct—but hold the cooch flashing, please. Ooooh, and how about a helping of Identity? And let’s ladle on some of that old-fashioned Gaslight gravy.” This wouldn’t be so bad if these tropes were used in an interesting way, but James struggles to use them competently. She frequently loses her place in her own script, introducing some potentially interesting story elements (alluding to Mary’s dark past; rifts in the Morrison marriage) only to forget them a scene later, then summon them in the last act when they’re useful to the plot. 

The people most short-changed by Deadly Illusions, second only to the audience, are the movie’s cast. Kristin Davis seems game for Mary’s many mood swings, but I have to think that even she wondered at some point if her character was A.I.-generated. Greer Grammer fares a little better in that Grace is a bit a more of a fully realized, if poorly written, character. Elaine has little character beyond being The Best Friend, but Shanola Hampton doesn’t let that stop her from injecting a little personality into her role. On the other end of the spectrum, Dermot Mulroney is barely present in the part of The Husband (at one point he clearly calls Grace Chris). Then again, the role gives him little reason to be.

Mulroney does show some skin, so if you like your men to
have some mileage on them, enjoy. Lookin’ good, Dermot!

Only Abella Bala seems to realize this movie’s potential as an R-rated Lifetime movie, making me wish that Deadly Illusions was about an editor’s assistant out to sabotage a best-selling author’s career rather than an evil nanny story. 

James’ previous films have been family friendly, equestrian-focused fare like Destined to Ride. Deadly Illusions is her first produced thriller, and if it’s anything to go by perhaps James should just stick to stories about girls and their horses. The rest of you should just avoid Deadly Illusions, which isn’t even worth a hate watch.