HAPPILY EVER AFTER (197?)
CAST
Mary Mendum (The Bride)
Dylan Green (Marvin)
Michael Hennesy (Hal)
Raina Barrett (Natalie)
Steve Hotchner (Ducky)
Jane Ziskind (Mrs. Ducky)
Les Schenkel (Howie)
Written & Directed
by
Ron Wertheim
Produced by
Don Walters & Norm Berns
Director of Photography
Joao Fernandes
Executive Producer
Les Baker
Running time: 79 minutes
SYNOPSIS
Once upon a time, the young man had promised to marry her. You’ve seen her – at the drugstore counter, sipping a Coke; bundled up at the football stadium grandstand; playing with her kitten on the front lawn, you know…the pretty kid with the long, blonde hair. The soft, faultless skin. The big blue eyes. Sweet, innocent and a little shy…you know her.
That’s the one he promised to marry…Once upon a time.
But, one night, very close to graduation, he brought her to his room at the fraternity house. She was a good girl, and so she felt a little tense and worried. She really didn’t mind making love to him, she was even beginning to enjoy it. But why…why was his roommate there…standing in the shadows…standing there watching them? Why did they laugh and wink at each other and why did their other ‘buddy’ just happen to come home early from a date? And why were they all over her…feeling, touching, using her? Once upon a time, he had promised to marry her…But that was a long time ago.
Now, she’s a very grown-up woman. She has not forgotten. In fact, she has thought of nothing else. She is quite, quite mad you see. And…she has a friend, but she really doesn’t like him. Maybe you’ve noticed him, hanging around outside the drugstore…glancing…no, staring at the pretty young girl at the counter. Or sitting in the grey car, watching her play with her kitten through his rearview mirror. You know the guy – balding, very quiet, wears glasses, could be anybody…nobody. He isn’t young anymore. In fact, he is going to die very soon. He has a disease…that is what he tells her, and he loves her. No, he worships her and will do anything for her, even kill…And that is exactly what she wants him to do.
So, off they go, to visit with the two old college ‘buddies,’ and like all reunions they have a wonderful time. Of course, the two guys are grown-up too, and married. Isn’t it fun to play the same games on their wives…to see them stripped and felt and humiliated and…killed. What a great reunion. Now she can laugh too. Now she’s very happily looking forward to…
Once upon a time the young man had promised to marry her. Now, he is ten years older, dissipated, beaten at the games of love by his delightfully cruel wife, and ready…wanting to play the last game. He wants to die.
Imagine, a lovely lady in a wedding gown, her blue eyes sparkle behind a lacy veil. In her delicate hand, a deadly revolver. Imagine, the man who long ago humiliated her, and caused her madness. Now she has returned…returned to kill. Imagine, a faceless man who worships this mad woman and is willing to take revenge for her as his last and only act of love before he dies. Imagine, a stunning, cruel wife, excited by the prospects of the scene. The quartet plays out slowly, violently, with much feeling. The rape of the wife, which is enjoyed with much relish…but by the victims. The transformation of the woman who has come to humiliate and kill but leaves with her old lover, her ‘prince.’ The beating of a dying man who cannot pull the trigger without the order from the woman he worships, a very charming scene.
The sun is setting…the woman’s madness seems to ebb, like the waves of the sea that she now stands before. In a few moments, she will join the man. There, in the honeymoon cottage overlooking the ocean. All is quiet and still as if time had disappeared and the wedding, forgotten so long ago, was about to happen. She doesn’t know that that at that moment they playfully act the lost ceremony and gently lay together in the moonlit cottage that the last game is silently spinning itself out. Imagine, the faceless man, left behind to take the blame for her crimes…brutally humiliating and murdering the sadistic woman he has been left with…as a victim. Imagine, as he speeds through the night towards the lovers. Imagine her face, young and radiant, as it hadn’t been since that moment ten years ago. Imagine as she turns in her lover’s arms to see him standing above them, with the deadly revolver. Seeing the smile of welcome on her lover’s face as the trigger is pulled.
She hears the man say, “I am not dying” …and now she must go away with him. Now she understands that she is trapped, and will never live…Happily Ever After…
