The Preppie Murder

The Preppie Murder (DVD) (*)

Out of Stock

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital Stereo )

Product Origin/Format:
United Kingdom ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
96 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Photo Gallery
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1989 and produced in:
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
John Herzfeld

Written By:
Irv Roud
John Herzfeld

Actors:
Danny Aiello ..... Det. Mike Sheehan
William Baldwin ..... Robert Chambers
Joanna Kerns ..... Linda Fairstein
Lara Flynn Boyle ..... Jennifer Levin
Dorothy Fielding ..... Detective Quinn
James Handy ..... Jack Litman
William Devane ..... Grandfather
Allan Arbus
Christine Healy
Herb Mitchell
J.C. Quinn
Alan Blumenfeld
Thalmus Rasulala
Alan Rosenberg
David Spielberg

Synopsis:

A variety of crooks, losers, and working stiffs living in the shadow of Hollywood find their various personal crises overlapping in this intricately woven melodrama. Lee Woods (James Spader) is a cold-blooded hit man and Dosmo Pizzo (Danny Aiello) a soft-at-heart gangster; they've been sent to murder Roy Foxx (Peter Horton), the former husband of also-ran Olympic skier Becky Foxx (Teri Hatcher). Lee's girlfriend Helga (Charlize Theron) is unhappy about his habit of killing people, and she attracts the attention of Alvin (Jeff Daniels) and Wes (Eric Stoltz), two cops who've been put on vice detail but don't have the heart to bust the prostitute they've been trailing. Alvin dreams of becoming a homicide detective, so when he discovers that he might be on the trail of a murder, it's like Santa Claus showed up in mid-July to hand him a present. Dosmo manages to escape the crime scene, only to foil a murder attempt by Lee, forcing him to hide out in the home of Hopper, a pretentious English art dealer (Greg Cruttwell), whom Dosmo holds hostage along with Hopper's long-suffering assistant, Susan (Glenne Headly). In the midst of all this, a down-on-his-luck television director (Paul Mazursky) contemplates suicide (the main stumbling block is finding someone to take care of his dog) while also being pestered by an actor with equally bad luck (Austin Pendleton) and meeting a compassionate nurse (Marsha Mason) on a visit to a cemetery.

Based on a true story, The Preppie Murder begins on August 26, 1986. This was the day that 18-year-old Jennifer Levin (Lara-Flynn Boyle) was strangled to death in Central Park. The prime suspect, Jennifer's 19-year-old boyfriend Robert Chambers (William Baldwin), confesses to the crime. The well-to-do young man insists that the killing was accidental; he claims that it occurred during a "rough sex" session that Jennifer had inaugurated. The ensuing media frenzy forces the old "she asked for it" defense to rear its ugly head. The Preppie Murder's attempts at fairness caused a great deal of critical turmoil when the film first aired on September 24, 1989.

TV film. A dramatisation of true events surrounding a murder case in which the victim was as much on trial as the accused.

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 29 July, 2009.