Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon **** (1970, Liza Minnelli, Ken Howard, Robert Moore, Kay Thompson, Leonard Frey, James Coco, Wayne Tippit, Guy Sorel) – Classic Movie Review 9473

Director Otto Preminger tugs determinedly at the heartstrings, and, despite the odd slip into sentimentality and plot contrivance, gets through to the target in his beguilingly sweet and sensitive 1970 drama Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon.

Preminger is helped enormously by the fresh young Liza Minnelli, who is superb as Junie Moon, a young woman facially scarred by burns by psychopath Jesse (Ben Piazza).

She leaves hospital to set up home with a wheelchair-bound gay man, Warren (Robert Moore), and an epileptic, Arthur (Ken Howard).

Perhaps it could be easy for the cynical to sneer, but for the kind hearted it is easier still to sit back and be moved, amused and entertained. Screen-writer Marjorie Kellogg adapts her own novel.

Also in the cast are Kay Thompson, Leonard Frey, James Coco, Fred Williamson, Ben Piazza, Nancy Marchand, Anne Revere, Emily Yancy, Donald Clement, Clarice Taylor, James Beard, Barbara Logan, Wayne Tippit, and Guy Sorel.

Charles Schramm, who created Liza Minnelli’s facial scar make-up, worked on her mother Judy Garland’s make-up for The Wizard of Oz (1939).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9473

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