Remember My Name (1978)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This film had a lot going for it: Decent dialogue, and great acting by Perkins and Chaplin.The cinematography is pretty good for a low-budget, minimalist film too. The problem is the ending.Perhaps I'm to blame for expecting an over-the-top movie like Fatal Attraction. I expected a slightly more profound, emotional climax after all the buildup. The stalker character seems legitimately deranged, albeit in a subtle, slow-burning, methodical way. But the character is wasted. Whereas Fatal Attraction had a cartoon ending, here it is a pathetic whimper. The film intensifies the paranoia, and it does manage a good twist. All the characters are well rounded, and the story had a lot of potential, but it doesn't really go anywhere. It just looks that way because the film ends so inexplicably and abruptly, so you are left confused by her scheme. Apparently all the antagonist was after was her ex-husband's credit cards. She does manage to screw up his life a bit, but it almost seems coincidental.

I suppose the main criticism you can level against a film like REMEMBER MY NAME is that it has a distinctly tame, quiet, television-movie style feel to it, so that the drama feels oddly muted for a movie made for the cinemas. It's a late '70s stalker story along the lines of PLAY MISTY FOR ME, although not quite as good as the Eastwood movie.What REMEMBER MY NAME does have going for it is an excellent cast of past and future stars who enliven an otherwise ordinary tale. The story involves a seemingly happily married couple who are disturbed by the arrival of the husband's old flame who seems obsessed with resuming their relationship. What follows is quietly gripping in places, although the film as a whole is let down by a non-existent ending and a definite lack of incident.Anthony Perkins is excellent at playing these mild-mannered characters hiding dark secrets but the real acting honours go to Geraldine Chaplin, who invests her disturbed character with real authenticity; she's absolutely frightening in the part. The supporting cast includes plenty of faces who would go on to become famous in the future: Tim Thomerson, Dennis Franz, and best of all a skinny Jeff Goldblum. Blaxploitation actor Moses Gunn also has a role.

I'm a big fan of Alan Rudolph's. There's something "real" about his movies. I haven't seen this movie in a long time (where do you find it?), but I loved it.There is one scene in which Tony Perkins and Geraldine Chaplin go into a bar. They decide to drink their way through the "menu," and hours later, they are pictured sitting at a table covered with empty glasses of all shapes and sizes, quite inebriated. For some reason, I have never forgotten that scene. (Perhaps because I thought it would be an interesting thing to try.) The movie also introduced me to the blues of Alberta Hunter, which I still love.

This movie is about sweet revenge for a betrayal.Chaplin's character was once a trusting innocent and was used; now she gives him his fair due. Perkins and Chaplin and Gunn are all so right in their characters (though Chaplin's accent is "off," as it was again in "Nashville"), but they each gave real humanity to their characters. And the haunting music is for me the best part of the show. This film introduced me to Alberta Hunter, and in the years following this film I searched out five more albums by her. Bravo! And when shall we EVER get a DVD publication of the full film? Evidently Ms. Hunter died before signing a release for a commercial VHS (or DVD), so it's legal wrangling that prevents us from having our own copies of this powerful character study.