Main Cast: Liza Minnelli, Ken Howard, Robert Moore, James Coco, Kay Thompson
Release Year: 1970
Country: US
Run Time: 112 minutes
MPAA Rating: GP
Plot
Upon completing Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon, a tearful Liza Minnelli declared publicly that she would never, ever work with tyrannical director Otto Preminger again. Worse luck for her: Junie Moon contains what may well be Minnelli's best non-musical performance. Based on the novel by Marjorie Kellogg, the film surprisingly manages to evoke humor and pathos from some of the least promising material in movie history. Minnelli plays an emotionally imbalanced young girl whose face is horribly disfigured by her psycho boy friend Ben Piazza. Ken Howard is cast as an epileptic who has wrongly been diagnosed as mentally retarded. And Robert Moore (future director of such films as The Cheap Detective and Murder by Death) portrays a homosexual, confined to a wheelchair after a hunting accident. After meeting one another in a hospital, these three social outcasts decide to move in together, forming a united front against a cold, judgmental world. The devastating events that follow might have lapsed into the grotesque and exploitational, but director Preminger is extremely careful to depict his protagonists as three-dimensional human beings rather than "freaks." Unfortunately, some filmgoers, assuming that any film with a title like Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon just had to be a campy laff riot, were turned off by the repellant aspects of the early scenes and refused to give the rest of this fascinating film a chance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Always one to push the borders, Otto Preminger's production of Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon deals with the problems of three outcasts from society and features a rather disturbing opening in which Liza Minnelli's face is brutally disfigured. Released at a time when cinema was exploring new subjects and new ways of presenting people onscreen, it seems unfortunately dated. Although Preminger takes pains to make his trio of misfits human and realistic, there's an air of melodrama that hangs over the proceedings, and some of the sequences are unintentionally amusing. Still, there's a poignancy to much of the film, and the cast attacks its roles with sincerity and commitment. Liza Minnelli leaves behind many of the mannerisms for which she is famous and delivers a fine, touching performance. Ken Howard is good, if occasionally stiff, and Robert Moore overcomes many of the problems inherent in his character. In a smaller role, Kay Thompson is memorably and deliciously over the top. Uneven, often sluggish and at times grotesque, Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon nonetheless has a certain -- if limited -- fascination. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Ben Piazza - Jesse; Fred Williamson - Beach Boy; Leonard Frey - Guiles; Emily Yancy - Solana; Clarice Taylor - Minnie; James Beard - Sidney; Julie Bovasso - Ramona; Anne Revere - Miss Farber; Nancy Marchand - Nurse Oxford; Lynn Milgrim - Nurse Holt; Ric O'Feldman - Joebee; Pacific Gas and Electric - Themselves; Angelique Pettyjohn - Melissa; Guy Sorel - Dr. Gaines; Wayne Tippett - Dr. Miller; Pete Seeger; Barbara Logan - Mother Moon; Elaine Shore - Mrs. Wyner
Credit
Morrie Hoffman - Art Director, Phyllis Garr - Costume Designer, Ron Talsky - Costume Designer, Halston - Costume Designer, Otto Preminger - Director, Henry Berman - Editor, Philip Springer - Composer (Music Score), Thomas Z. Shepard - Musical Direction/Supervision, Charles Schram - Makeup, Lyle Wheeler - Production Designer, Boris Kaufman - Cinematographer, Otto Preminger - Producer, Morrie Hoffman - Set Designer, Franklin E. Milton - Sound/Sound Designer, Ben Winkler - Sound/Sound Designer, Marjorie Kellogg - Screenwriter, Johann Sebastian Bach - Featured Music, Marjorie Kellogg - Book Author
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon is a 1970 film directed by Otto Preminger. The film is based on the book by Marjorie Kellogg. The film starred Liza Minnelli as the title character.
