Randle Mell | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay. Today’s film is 1992’s What She Doesn’t Know! It can be viewed on YouTube!

Molly Kilcolin (Valerie Bertinelli) has graduated from law school!

In fact, she’s not only graduated from law school but she’s graduated from Harvard Law School, the most prestigious and most expensive law school out there. And she’s graduated at the top of her class. She’s the one who gets to give the speech at graduation, where she says that everything she knows about justice she learned from her father.

It’s really quite an accomplishment when you consider that Molly isn’t even from a rich family. She’s from a family of blue collar, New York City cops. Her father, Jack Kilcoin (George Dzundza), certainly never had a chance to go to Harvard. How did Molly even afford to go to Harvard? Apparently, her tuition was paid out of a trust fund that her aunt set up for her when she was a child. Seriously, that must have been a helluva trust fund because Harvard is not cheap or easy to get into.

Unfortunately, Molly disappoints her father when she tells him that she will not be accepting a job with a high class law firm but instead, she plans to work for the District Attorney’s office. Her fellow prosecutors are skeptical of her as well. Why does she want to go from Harvard to making next to no money in the trenches? Someone asks her if she has political ambitions but no, Molly just wants to do the right thing. She grew up in the neighborhood, don’t you know. She knows the people who are getting caught up in the Mafia’s schemes.

After Molly convinces a young mobster named Joey Mastinelli (Peter Dobson) to testify against his boss, she is shocked to discover that over half of the NYPD is on the Mob’s payroll. She is even more shocked to discover that her father is one of those dirty cops. For years, her father has been taking bribes and hiding the money away in Molly’s trust fund. Molly’s Harvard education was paid for by the Mafia!

As you can probably guess, family dinners are about to get awkward!

I usually enjoy films like What She Doesn’t Know because I’m always interested in the Mafia and there was a time when I briefly thought it might be fun to grow up and go to law school. I don’t know if I would have wanted to become a prosecutor, of course. Unlike Molly, I probably would have taken that ritzy law firm offer. The idea behind What She Doesn’t Know had potential but it was let down by the execution. Valerie Bertinelli tries hard but she’s just not convincing as a tough-as-nails Harvard grad. George Dzundza is a bit more believable as an aging New York cop but he’s still a bit on the dull side. (It would have been nice if this film could have been made a few years later, with Mira and Paul Sorvino in the lead roles.)

The film’s biggest flaw is that it portrays Molly as being so totally clueless about her father’s activities that it makes her seem to be impossibly naïve. I mean, did she never wonder how she could possibly afford to go to Harvard?

Seriously, Harvard’s expensive!

Once upon a time, there were two movies about the legendary Western lawman (or outlaw, depending on who is telling the story) Wyatt Earp. One came out in 1993 and the other came out in 1994.

The 1993 movie was called Tombstone. That is the one that starred Kurt Russell was Wyatt, with Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton in the roles of his brothers and Val Kilmer playing Doc Holliday. Tombstone deals with the circumstances that led to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. “I’m your huckleberry,” Doc Holliday says right before his gunfight with Michael Biehn’s Johnny Ringo. Tombstone is the movie that everyone remembers.

The 1994 movies was called Wyatt Earp. This was a big budget extravaganza that was directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starred Kevin Costner as Wyatt. Dennis Quaid played Doc Holliday and supporting roles were played by almost everyone who was an active SAG member in 1994. If they were not in Tombstone, they were probably in Wyatt Earp. Gene Hackman, Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Jeff Fahey, Mark Harmon, Annabeth Gish, Gene Hackman, Bill Pullman, Isabella Rossellini, JoBeth Williams, Mare Winningham, and many others all appeared as supporting characters in the (very) long story of Wyatt Earp’s life.

Of course, Wyatt Earp features the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral but it also deals with every other chapter of Earp’s life, including his multiple marriages, his career as a buffalo hunter, and his time as a gold prospector. With a three-hour running time, there is little about Wyatt Earp’s life that is not included. Unfortunately, with the exception of his time in Tomstone, Wyatt Earp’s life was not that interesting. Neither was Kevin Costner’s performance. Costner tried to channel Gary Cooper in his performance but Cooper would have known better than to have starred in a slowly paced, three-hour movie. The film is so centered around Costner and his all-American persona that, with the exception of Dennis Quaid, the impressive cast is wasted in glorified cameos. Wyatt Earp the movie tries to be an elegy for the old west but neither Wyatt Earp as a character nor Kevin Costner’s performance was strong enough to carry such heavy symbolism. A good western should never be boring and that is a rule that Wyatt Earp breaks from the minute that Costner delivers his first line.

Costner was originally cast in Tombstone, just to leave the project so he could produce his own Wyatt Earp film. As a big, Oscar-winnng star, Costner went as far as to try to have production of Tombstone canceled. Ironically, Tombstone turned out to be the film that everyone remember while Wyatt Earp is the film that most people want to forget.