TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON (1970)

Three people who think of themselves as misfits share a hospital recovery ward: Junie Moon (Liza Minnelli) is a chipper young woman who had battery acid thrown at her by a psycho date and is now heavily scarred on half of her face; Warren (Robert Moore) is a gay man who was shot at by a guy he was flirting with and is now confined to a wheelchair; Arthur (Ken Howard), a epileptic loner who spent most of his life being made fun of in a orphanage, is recovering from a serious seizure. Their prospects in the outside world seem dicey, so the three decide to move in together. They rent a small house from Mrs. Gregory, an eccentric rich lady, and they all experience ups and downs as they acclimate to their conditions. Arthur gets a job at a nearby fish market run by Mario (James Coco), though he loses it after a jealous next-door neighbor tells Mario that Arthur is a "sodomite"; later, Mario, who has an unrequited crush on Junie, sends the three off on a beach resort vacation. Warren has an interlude with a hunky Black social director who carries him around from place to place on his shoulder; Junie and Arthur take tentative stabs at becoming a couple. By the end, there has been comedy, melodrama, romance, redemption and tragedy.

In her third movie, just after her breakout role in THE STERILE CUCKOO, Liza Minelli continues to build the perky, flighty persona she would polish to an Oscar-winning sheen in CABARET two years later, and she is the reason to watch this movie. As a narrative, it's kind of a mess. Junie's background is given in a reasonably straightforward, if relentlessly creepy, flashback; we get Arthur's story through a series of dreamlike fragments in which the adult Arthur appears surrounded by the children that mocked him; Warren relates his background involving a gay father figure (with a brief appearance by Leonard Frey) but dismisses his fateful shooting in just a sentence or two. For all the flashbacks, the central three are not terribly well fleshed out--their "misfit" problems pretty much stand in for their characters. It's also a little odd that Warren's "happy ending" consists of him having sex on a beach all night long--with a woman! Emily Yancy makes that character, Solana, quite appealing, but still I'm sorry that Beach Boy (the social director, well played against type by Fred Williamson, later a star of Blaxploitation action movies) isn't the one whom Warren spends the night with (Beach Boy may be bisexual). Robert Moore (who later directed the classic mystery spoof MURDER BY DEATH) and a young Ken Howard are quite believable in their roles, thin as the writing is. Kay Thompson, author of the classic Eloise books, and Minnelli's godmother), does well in the small role of the strange Mrs. Gregory who starts out as rude, then becomes interesting, and ends as somewhat cruel. Not a film for all tastes, as it's definitely a quirky period piece, but a must for Liza fans. Pictured, from left: Moore, Howard, Minnelli. [TCM]