ThiefHott Too much of everything

Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

John Brooks This has everything of a 6 or a 7: the plot, setting, cast...but turns out to be more of an 8ish, or at least a superior grade than one would think of giving it before having watched it full. We're given a synopsis that quickly reveals itself to be misleading, while not being a lie either. The evolution the movie is subjected to is a very refreshing and entertaining boost to it at the mid-film mark, where one thinks he's got the film just about figured out, and then it sees itself completely rejuvenated with gusto and new intrigue. The acting is good, and for both lead roles a difficult job because complexly ambiguous. The pace is lively, and the events and dialogs in the film coherent and pertinent to the plot.Ultimately I believe this film was highly influential, possibly even a pioneer in what it did. I can think of many plots from here and there following its core concept.

lasttimeisaw A low-budgeted romance-cum-crime dark comedy from director Noel Black, his debut feature PRETTY POISON was dead on arrival upon its release, but its reputation has been rescued ever since, arguably categorised as a "Neo-noir", it stars Anthony Perkins, 8 years after PSYCHO (1960), as an apparently self-referential young man Dennis Pitt, who was a teenage arsonist and has been recently released from mental institution on parole and works in a lumber mill, he looks normal, a breezy lad is ready to embrace his freedom. But a forewarning from his parole officer Morton Azenauer (Randolph) "you steps into a tough world where it got no place at all for fantasies" reveals his concerns.Dennis has a crush on a blond local high-schooler Sue Ann (Weld) and tries to impress her by claiming himself as a secret agent, and it works! A guileless Sue Ann believes him and spurs him to do something exciting together. Smitten with her, Dennis invents a series of missions including sabotaging the chute of the mill where he works, under the fancy of a water-poisoning conspiracy theory. But during their jejune mission, things escalate into murder, and guess who is the perpetrator, it's Sue Ann, it turns out that she has no conscience of killing at all, she is the real psychopath and from then, the scale has been tipped. Dennis behaves more like a normal person while Sue Ann's escape plan goes wilder and scarier, there is no way this will end like Oliver Stone's anti-social affidavit NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994), so the only safe way for Dennis to cut off with her completely, is that he goes back behind the bars and leaves the pretty poison to the next victim and hopes one day, she can get her comeuppance.The passive, self-preserving ending where vice gets away with murder is shockingly at odds with most Hollywood commodities, but the story itself has a semblance of food for thought. Anthony Perkins credibly juggles levity and seriousness with his unique greenness, he is less neurotic and more sympathetic here. Tuesday Weld, on the other hand, is much too calculated to underline an 18-year-old murderess' twisted frame of mind, and Beverly Garland is quite memorable as her controlling mother who doesn't have any inkling about the true nature of her daughter - surprised but not scared, when her doom abruptly arrives, that's the bloody irony of parenting.

Cathy Sargent Am not sure who is enabling whom in this 1968 sociopathic thriller?Is it Anthony Perkins who plays a disturbed man named Dennis or Tuesday Weld who plays Sue Ann as his pretty sidekick?All I know is that I never felt any desensitized violence in the killing. No agent orange here. There were too many pregnant pauses evoking images of the rippling effects of actions and their effects upon others. How does a sociopathic thriller evoke empathy? Visionary director Noel Black made it happen by planting Hollywood in New England and drawing on styles of the past.He brought neat touches, flashbacks, naive and knowing together in a magical way."There is an extraordinary patience and calculation to Anthony Perkins elaborate ruse" writes one reviewer. I couldn't agree more as in spite of the hectic pace of the plot, Dennis seemed to be in the slow time as his earlier film "Psycho"Pretty Poison was reel therapy for the Vietnam Era and casting Anthony Perkins for the disturbed young man was brilliant. There was no slow time or cinematic moments on Vietnam's Hamburger Hill. Instead there was only cold beer, hamburger and the Follies Bergere after seeing your buddies get blown away.It has been over 30 years since Vietnam and the war is still not over because of the herbicide agent orange sprayed into the de militarized zone. Dennis was right after all about the poisoning in the water.

brefane A fine, atmospheric thriller and an absorbing psychological drama that makes a few cogent sociological observations as well, the aptly titled Pretty Poison is based on Stephen Geller's novel She Let Him Continue and is the only film of note from director Noel Black who gets uniformly persuasive performances from the entire cast especially Beverly Garland and John Randolph, and the finest, most nuanced performances of their careers from Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld who as Dennis and Sue Ann are more complex than Bonnie and Clyde, Butch and Sundance, and Thelma and Louise. The highest compliment I can pay to Perkins and Weld is that they are simply believable, and they are a credit to Lorenzo Semple Jr.' script which won the NY Film Critics Circle award for best screenplay. This sleeper along with four other 1968 releases: Night of the Living Dead, Faces, Rosemary's Baby, and Rachel,Rachel, is one of the essentials of 60's American cinema. Released without fanfare by 20th Century Fox, Pretty Poison is rarely shown and the remake is, UNsurprisingly, inferior. The original is available on DVD, and definitely worth your time and money.