Very disappointing...

Simply A Masterpiece

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

hyped garbage

I have found this film to be a true 'cult' movie, and have been bemused by the number of reviewers who have said that the chemistry between Stoler and Fernandez was 'not explained'. It is a no-brainer that the chemistry between any 2 people is unique to them - and other people are not a privy to that chemistry. Yes Stoler is overweight and sullen and Fernandez is thuggish - but I can see how he would be attractive to some women. The direction is superb - with a feeling of claustrophobia emanating from the constant presence of Stoler's large body in the frame- and the black and white photography gives a 'noirish' presence. And if not in the frame she is always around - scheming. I had to disagree with 1 reviewer who criticised Stoler's acting as having only 2 expressions - I found her acting incredible - in particular watch her near the end when she is about to report Fernandez to the police.I also felt that some reviewers found the conning of the women inexplicable - they need to watch 'A Current affair' or its overseas equivalent- to observe how many people are conned when there is a whiff of romance in the air. I was shocked at Stoler's comment about how 'Hitler was right about you people' when as a nurse she is fired by a foreign-sounding doctor. How did THAT one get past the censors? Maybe the reason why Pauline Kael hated the film and Kastle never directed again?Trivia: When they were in Sing Sing Martha offered to donate her body to science in order to save Ray - an offer which was declined. Margaret Reines

Hollywood has glamorized crime for decades. What better way to push back against this message than grace you with the sight of a pudgy, shovel- faced woman screeching at her man for getting too touchy-feely with their latest mark?Martha (Shirley Stoler) is a bitter nurse with a brutal manner and a need for love she can only find in Ray (Tony Lo Bianco), a con man she meets after answering a letter from a "Friendship Club.""Do I have to tell the truth?" she asks a friend."Whose puttin' you on the witness stand?" replies the friend, played by future "Everybody Loves Raymond" star Doris Roberts.That everybody loves Ray is part of the problem. He's as attractive as she is not, and whenever he works his con on some shy spinster or swoony old woman, Martha gets angry. That's when the film veers from black comedy into considerably darker material.I see what Leonard Kastle was aiming at here with his harsh and often brutally effective screenplay. I only wish he had let someone else direct it. Alas, he let Martin Scorsese go after a few days of shooting, because the guy was taking too much time on set-ups. That kind of style is sorely missed. "The Honeymoon Killers" tells the real story of Martha and Ray, a pair of con artists who bilked, and eventually killed, some very sad and trusting people. That it's not for the faint-of-heart speaks well for Kastle's humanity, his willingness to push against the Hollywood filter, but as a film it struggles with the seriousness of its material.Firstly, the film suffers from being made on the cheap. Apparently for many of the set-ups, there was no Take Two, and you see the results. Lines getting garbled or muffled by someone dropping a coat on a chair. A boom mike slipping into a shot. A murder victim whose tongue is still moving after she is pronounced dead.Second, I can't say I want to go out and see another Shirley Stoler movie after this. She evidences no subtlety in her central performance. Lo Bianco performs better, but his wheedling accent is like something Hank Azaria would use for a walk-on character on "The Simpsons." Since the film is pretty much just these two, it is rendered more painful for their lack of believability. Why must Martha huff and shriek so whenever Ray is working his cons, in plain view of the person they are conning? It's like Kastle doesn't trust you enough to twig onto the feral nature of this couple.Finally, there are the obvious left-wing clichés Kastle plants to give his film a timely message. A couple of the victims are characterized by their inane patriotic banter. Another is a cross-clutching Catholic. Kastle wants to use them to mock the middle-class values that surround Martha and Ray, who alone seem alive to the static nature of suburbia (Ray: "One little jail after another with ten feet of grass between them.") But it clutters the film with subtext it can't carry. Also, this feels too much like patronizing people who have already been victimized enough.What the film does quite well is showcase Martha and Ray's twisted natures in service of their crimes. A lot of reviewers have problems with why Ray takes up with dumpy Martha. I didn't. Martha is the one person who sees him for what he is, and loves him for it. Plus, she's kind of a surreal mother figure, as several characters note. He's as desperate to be loved as she is, and just as sick. She may kill the victims, but he's the one in the mood for love when it's over.I can't recommend "Honeymoon Killers," but it has a power like few films you come across. Crime films should be brutal at some level, and this one certainly is. It's like the tagline in the trailer says: "See 'The Honeymoon Killers,' and then just try and forget them."

It's in black and white, the opening scenes are not well-acted, and the sound is not good. After awhile I was thinking this would segue into a color film that would explain that this was an early film by Ed Wood or John Waters -- you know, before they got good. But no."The Honeymoon Killers" opened in 1969. I saw the movie on DVD, with an interview of the screen writer and director, Leonard Kastle. He said it was a direct response to "Bonnie and Clyde," which he despised. "Bonnie and Clyde" had Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the leads, of course, and glamorized Barrow and Parker and their violence. Kastle said he wanted to make a more realistic movie and picked a couple called "the lonely hearts killers."Kastle said in the interview that he had just written an opera and that it was being performed in LA, when an acquaintance of his suggested that they do a movie. There was $150,000 available, so Kastle wrote a script, they hired new-comer Martin Scorsese to direct, and they started casting. They hired Tony Lo Bianco as Ray Fernandez and Shirley Stoler as Martha Beck. Lo Bianco is a recognizable face from the many movies he did in the 70s, and Stoler of course is famous for her role in "The Seven Beauties." The rest of the cast was drawn from local talent in upstate New York, when the movie was filmed.Kastle said Scorsese was fired for taking too long; with a budget of $150,000, they had to shoot very quickly. The assistant director took over, but he was fired, too, so Kastle directed with the able assistance of cinematographer Oliver Wood. In the interview, Kastle said many of the scenes were filmed only once -- much of the movie was done in one take. I believe it. (The cinematography is excellent, by the way.) Lo Bianco was good given the material, and Stoler got better as the movie went on. In her opening scenes she was decidedly amateur; however, she got some real emotion going by the end.The cast is amateurs, and the script is, too. I can't remember why this was in my list of movies to watch. Although the events depicted occurred in the late 1940s, no attempt is made to set the movie in that time; all the costumes and cars are current for 1969. An end card on the movie tells us that the couple was executed in 1951.It gets rave reviews on IMDb and is called elsewhere a cult classic. It's beyond me why. It's interesting to watch a movie Scorses got fired from; according to the interview with Kastle, Scorsese directed the scenes at the lake. Given Kastle's sensibilities as shown in the interview, I can understand why Kastle let him go. I think it was the right decision. But it's interesting to contemplate "The Honeymoon Killers" as it would have been if Scorsese had been able to finish.In his interview, Leonard Kastle says although he's open for another movie, no one in Hollywood has come calling. I understand.

Chubby ex-nurse Martha Beck over-eats and gets confused as she and gigolo boyfriend Ray Fernandez murder their way across the Northeast.No doubt about it, the movie's a sleezeball masterpiece. There's maybe one likable character in the whole hundred-minutes-- a prison guard, of all people, and she has maybe all of five lines. The rest are either slimy (Ray), monstrous (Martha) or pathetic (the victims). Only an indie production would dare combine such ugly photography with such a succession of dismal characters. But, for a real shudder, imagine how a Hollywood studio would have prettified the same movie.Nonetheless, the sleeze has genuine style behind it, along with two tacky Oscars for the leads. As Ray, Lo Bianco exudes more oily charm than a BP platform, while a stretched-out Martha (Stoler) resembles nothing less than a beached whale. Just the thought of the two of them clinching is enough to sound an environmental alarm. And the fact that the kinkiest things turn them on makes the picture even worse and not even their "mad love" helps.I don't know how many movie details are based on fact, but two of the murder scenes are genuinely ugly. And the fact that it's nurse Martha, not the squeamish Ray, who handles the messes says a lot about gender equality. Most chilling to me, is the fact that these two psychos merrily bludgeon, shoot, and poison their way from one place to the next with nary a police siren in sight. It's almost like they're planning a vacation itinerary from one murder site to the next. In fact, it's a betrayed Martha who finally puts a stop to things. Anyhow, no movie I know makes crime and murder any more sordid than this one. And in my little book, that's a genuine achievement. Plus, I think the movie changed my mind about the merits of capital punishment.