Hit Lady
Director: Tracy Keenan Wynn
Year:
1974
Rating: 5.0
Hit Lady may feel
like a damp squib now but to give it credit back in 1974 a female assassin
film was a rare thing and especially as a TV Movie of the Week. Over in Asia
there were plenty of films with female professional assassins, but none come
to mind from Hollywood. Murderers yes, assassins not really. Now of course,
there are female assassins on every street corner. It was one of the highest
rated TV shows for the year, showing that there was an appetite for such
films. The script came from Yvette Mimieux, who also stars as the hit woman.
A lovely winsome blonde with her wispy voice is fine in the role. She said
that she wrote it because she didn't like the roles being offered. Her original
script has her character as totally immoral with no remorse for her kills,
but the network made her soften her up which is a shame. There are also not
enough kills before it gets into the heart of the film which slows it down
to a waltz.
The director is Tracy Keenan Wynn and the
initial kill is played by his father Keenan Wynn. I wonder if he enjoyed
knocking off his dad. Let's do it again. Angela (Yvette) belongs to a syndicate
of killers run by Clu Gulager. But she is special. Using her feminine charms
to get men alone and then kill them and walk away. The scene killing Wynn
is nicely done. But it is the next assignment that takes up much of the film
and slows it to a crawl. She has to kill a union leader (Joseph Campanella)
and make it look like an accident. To do so she has to sweep him off his
feet and go on holiday with him where she can fake an accident. She does
a Gene Tierney in Leave Her to Heaven. It kind of goes where you expect it
to but with a twist. The film was limited by being TV but still for its time
was edgy.
