Candy

With a name like Betty Gore, she was asking for it.

This looks really good. Can't wait to see it.

I just read Evidence of Love a couple of months ago. There are actually two series about this case coming out this year.

Betty Gore is played by Melanie Lynskey in one and Lily Rabe in the other. Candy Montgomery will be played by Jessica Alba and Elizabeth Olsen.

R3 Melanie Lynskey is one of our very, very best. So I assume this means her series will be the superior one. Mrs Timberlake is a hack.

Just realized Melanie Lynskey is in the Jessica Biel version. What a shame, I’d love to see her paired with Elizabeth Olsen. Biel looks absolutely ridiculous in that wig.

Real life Candy and Betty for comparison.

How random that this semi-obscure story (news to me) is getting two adaptations in one year.

I wish Melanie and Elizabeth were paired together. Jessica looks like she's doing a fine job but though.

It was first made as a TV movie starring Barbara Hershey.

R8 It was but the names and certain elements were changed.

Hershey won an Emmy for that.

R10 So many terrible wigs. I wonder if Elizabeth Olsen’s will be just as frightful.

Candy got off using the White Blonde Woman Defense.

It was self defense. Betty invited Candy over and attacked her with an axe.

I like Jessica Biel in scary roles like this. I doubt many saw the Tall Man because it looked schlocky and had poor reviews but was a hella fun movie to watch and the ending is chilling (and a big twist in the story and the genre).

R13 Candy came over to pick up a swimsuit for Betty's daughter who was spending the weekend with her daughter.

According to her, one of them mentioned that affair between Candy and Alan and then Candy touched Betty which allegedly set Betty off and caused her to grab the axe.

Candy then dissociated and went into overkill (and had almost no idea what she was doing - yeah right) after gaining the upper hand.

Waaaaaaait. Elizabeth Olsen’s Candy doesn’t even have the iconic perm! SHENANIGANS! I won’t stand for shenanigans!

The reason that the ax was so conveniently at hand was because Betty had hidden it in the laundry room.

Was the too-tight perm defense ever used in the 70s?

Good r16. The poodle perm is a relic of a bygone era and would be ridiculously distracting. Hard to root for someone who looks like they’re auditioning for Little Orphan Annie, at age 40.

Poor Jessica Timberlake won’t fare well going up against serious thespian Elizabeth Olsen. Jessica (and her agent) must be livid that her gritty Emmy Bait moment has been hijacked by someone with, y’know, talent.

"For God's sake Candice, show some emotion! You look like a murderess sitting there."

Brian Dennehy coaching his client Barbara Hershey in court

I've had sufficient with Rene in a fat suit thank you.

Hershey was very good, except in the hypnosis scene where she was over the top and Hal Halbrook was dialing it in.

[quote] Poor Jessica Timberlake won’t fare well going up against serious thespian Elizabeth Olsen. Jessica (and her agent) must be livid that her gritty Emmy Bait moment has been hijacked by someone with, y’know, talent.

Jessica's Hulu miniseries will air before the Emmy deadline. The HBO miniseries doesn't have a release date and will miss the 2022 Emmy eligibility window.

I wonder why the fuck Elizabeth Olsen isn't donning a wig or something to more like Candy.

Is this the movie version of the Terry Southern novel with trans black women?

No, they did the Terry Southern adaptation back in 1968 and it sucks. Marlon Brando said it was his worst movie.

In “Evidence of Love”, Candy mentions that Alan (the husband with whom she is having an affair) has a beautiful penis.

So who is playing Alan with the beautiful penis in each version?

Pablo Schreiber is playing Alan.

Jesse Plemons is Alan in the Elizabeth Olsen version.

I don't want to see anything hanging from Jesse Plemons.

Pablo looked hot in brief clips of them playing volleyball in the trailer.

Why do they keep putting slim actresses in fat suits or making them bulk up in order to play overweight characters? Seriously, it's tough enough being a fat actress but if they won't even hire them for explicitly fat roles, how are the poor things supposed to earn a living?

R32, really. There are plump actresses out there who need the work.

R32 touches on an interesting point. It's very common to see/hear of a male actor who transforms his body or at least loses or gains weight for a role, but most actresses wear fat suits and makeup. ....and they wonder why they don't get paid as much as the men.

Candy ass

This is not a docu-series but a TRAGEDY based on her ghastly hair-do.

“Evidence of Love” is my favorite true crime book of all time, co-written by John Bloom (aka Joe Bob Briggs). I highly recommend it and the Barbara Hershey TV movie (even though it was fictionalized). Best performance of Hershey’s career and had it been released in theaters I think she could have won the Oscar for it.

Hershey was creepy in that movie. She's someone who can playing the loving mom type roles like in Beaches. Then play psychos like in that TV movie and later as the psycho ballet mom in Black Swan.

Barbara Hershey can act? I’ve only seen her in Beaches and wow, she really blew in that movie. I’m surprised

Hershey is great in it. Her portrayal of an unsympathetic defendant on the stand ranks as high as M in “A Cry In The Dark”, IMO.

[Quote] Then play psychos like in that TV movie and later as the psycho ballet mom in Black Swan.

The masturbation scene still haunts me.

First episode released today.

My asshole tastes just like candy!

Going to watch it tonight, I don't know anything about the case so will probably have to wait to read this thread.

LOL at Melanie Lynksey's bowlcut

Classic case of fight vs. flight. If that axe scene played out jn reality like it did in the Hershey movie (thanks R10) then I agree with the outcome of her case. Not sure how advanced their crime scene analysis was back then to actually validate her side of the story, but it rings true given the crazy dead bitch was the only one who knew where the axe was stashed.

I mean ladies, it's a fucking penis after all. Must have been a spectacular one.

One of the neighbor guys to check on her played the step dad in Rectify.

Terrible accents/10

R47 I loved Rectify! The lead actor was hunky. WHET him??

r47 that show was so well done I get excited when I see one of the cast in other roles like his mother is now on HBO's Succession and Jon Stern is playing Lenny Bruce on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. As for the actor that played Daniel Holden he has been in a few things but nothing I have watched. I fell in love with him as Daniel.

^^^ Oops I am r47 what I wrote above was to r49 (I blame the cat climbing on my lap while typing)

[quote]R13 It was self defense. Betty invited Candy over and attacked her with an axe.

If I had a nickel for every time that happened to me - -

2001 Interview with Betty's daughters. Dad was a prick and their stepmother (married 3 months after the trial) was an abusive psycho.

Please bitches. I did it better

Melanie Lynskey is turning into our generation’s Karen Black.

I'm digging it so far. I had no idea Jessica Biel was in such good shape especially in the second episode. I'm not necessarily a fan but she was good in The Sinner so I decided to give this a go. I listened to a couple podcasts when the trailer dropped about the case and in just about every single one Betty is described as a tremendously needy frau cunt. Did she deserve to be hacked about 40 times? Probably not. But it's clear eventually somebody would have slapped the shit out of her.

"Melanie Lynskey is turning into our generation’s Karen Black."

Oh, honey, what drugs are you on and where can I get them?

I thought the opening credits are quite creative.

I'm willing to cut Jessica Biel some slack. She's been doing some interesting stuff in the last few years, so do give her credit. As far as I know, she was behind both getting this show and The Sinner produced.

Buzzfeed article where a family member of Betty's spoke anonymously about Candy and the other show. I'm guessing the family member is one of the daughters. The family member said that they weren't contacted by HBO or Hulu or others involved with the shows. Below is quote from a family member.

[quote]“It’s extremely frustrating and definitely stressful,” the family member told me. “I hate that when I just want to scroll through the Hulu menu, I get slammed with a giant picture of ‘Candy.’”

Maybe, the family member will avoid using Hulu for awhile or at least attention dies off.

R59 she also produced Cruel Summer, which wasn't bad for a teen murder mystery show.

i totally dig sexy bombshell actress babes that dress down and actually ACT! even mariah in precious was amazing.

I guess Elizabeth Olsen refused to dress down and down a perm or a wig for her Candy. Texas Monthly also has some developmental deal with HBO/HBO Max to develop more shows.

When Candy puts her clothes in the washer you can see Jessica's ass and breast and she has a nice figure. Too bad it's wasted on Jussie.

Betty is such a bitch! It was despicable how she treated her foster son!

HA at giving the whole class detention.

'Don't give up on us baby' and Rockford Files. This is hitting all the 1980 spots.

I am enjoying this after muddling through Hulu's The Girl From Plainville.

This is also better than Showtime's The First Lady.

It's rather straightforward with not a lot of bells and whistles. Not as complex as "The Staircase" (which I love), but I am enjoying this so far. I didn't realise they were having an affair, so watching Episode 2 made me reflective of how I watched Episode 1

never heard of this story, was there any lesbian relationship involved? it sure looks so

R71 you'd think there would be.

just watched the first episode, GOD DAMN AWFUL, it's painfully bad, bad wigs, bad acting and bad pace. Can Pablo Schreiber be more pathetic ? He must be thinking if he speaks slowly really slowly with an emotionless face, the viewers will feel him as a worried husband desperately trying to locate the whereabouts of his wife, but no we don't feel that way, we think you are borderline retarded!

and judging from how they managed to drag a 5 mins scene (calling friends and family to check the house) to 20 minutes and beyond, this should be a tv movie less than 2 hours, not a 6-part mini series.

I grew up in Plano/Wylie and in 1980 was basically the same age as all the kids being portrayed in this at that time (I do vaguely remember hearing about it from my parents when it was all over the news at the time). We lived farther north in Plano.

My first criticism is they got so much wrong about the look of the era and the setting. This looks like an ironic Italian fashion magazine spread version of 1980’s white Texas Christian suburbia. Everything’s done way too perfect. Not everyone and everything at the time was a flawless, shiny stereotype of whatever set designers and wardrobe and hair people in 2022 thought was “cool” in 1980. These people look like they inhabit a retro SIMS game.

Plus that area back then was flat, flat, flat. Tall trees were around, but very rare. There weren’t tall pine trees in the background of every shot. This looks like Canada. And where are the Texas accents? And the mannerisms are all wrong. And DFW airport looked nothing like that.

Yes I AM being a crab about all this! A TEXAS CRAB!

R75 I haven’t seen the Biel version but the Hershey version gets so right much of what you mention. Spot on. I hope those interested in this story will see the Hershey movie. It’s creepy and disturbing.

I still remember one scene after the murder where Candy, in her car, is at a stop sign, and the camera focuses on the sleeve of her coat dripping water. It was so unsettling.

It was probably shot in Georgia (Georgia Films), hence the tall Georgian pines. I noticed that, too.

But otherwise, I think they ‘captured’ the era. I grew up in that era and had some fun recollections from my childhood…the muzak at the drug store, furniture styles, vintage cars. I don’t demote points for perfection in a series such as this. They are trying to capture the era for Everyman. I think they succeeded.

Yes, the Biel version was shot in Georgia.

The Olsen version was shot in Texas.

Retro stuff like that always looks too perfect. There’s also the high resolution of today’s digital “film.” I thought they got the movie theater right.

So, I'm watching A Killing in a Small Town, and it seems as if Candy pretty much copies a large portion of it (Candy's side of things anyway). They stretch out a 90-minute telefilm to almost four hours with the same story and a more streamlined look. They even both open with the story about trees and God having a different plan. Where is the originality in this series? The fact that make Betty a central character?

Barbara Hershey is good. And Brian Dennehy is such a presence, per usual.

I am loving it, the 3rd episode has a few laughs like Candy's disco outfit.

DL fave Raul Esparza plays Candy's defense attorney Don Crowder.

Pornstache comes off a little hotter in episode 3

It’s boooooring

It’s terrific! Just finished 3rd episode. Great writing and acting. I was sure it was a crazy mistress story. But it’s just the opposite.

The people calling this boring must have the attention span of a 2 year old

Just watched the first episode after I caught up with Under the Banner of Heaven. Rory Culkin's character is bat fucking shit crazy btw.

Justin Timberlake is in this. LOL

Allan Gore's Facebook page, looks like he reconnected with his daughters, both are in his friend's list.

R88 who does he play?

He plays the sheriff.

The reviews are in, not so good!

The reviewer is woke!🙄

R93 read the old magazine article, the role of Allan Gore in the murder was almost completely brushed off, he was portrayed like a victim here, he was seduced by Candy, and Bette was unpleasant, and he even tried to do the right thing to end the affair, except he would never be able to tell Candy to end it because of what? He was too polite and didn't want to hurt Candy, it's laughable.

Less than 2 months after his wife's death, he already moved on and married another woman, before the trial of Candy even started, he was a sleazy guy!

Barbara Hershey is phenomenal in the original movie. Why remake perfection.

BTW you have to stick thru to the end to see Barbara Hershey's true brilliance. The courtroom scene at the end-----------WOW!!!!!!

It was nice that Jessica and Melanie brought their husbands to work this episode

Biel doesn’t have perm in the whole trailer. I would guess Olsen had perm too but not in the promo pic.

I prefer Olsen as an actor to Biel, but Biel's performance and series is "serviceable" enough (even if the critics haven't enthusiastically supported it by and large). Considering it doesn't really add much to the Hershey telefilm (other than fleshing out Betty), I'm not sure what else Love and Death can do. Lesli Linka Glatter is directing (who is no slouch). David E. Kelley and Nicole Kidman are producing (they seem to work together a lot). It's based on the same book the 1990 telefilm was (or, at least, based on material by the same authors). But, so is Candy, which also retained the writers as consultants (according to an article I found on ShowbizCheatSheet). Lily Rabe was cast as Betty and her episode involvement is ambiguous (IMDb suggests 1 - 3 episodes out of a total of six), so perhaps Betty doesn't play as big of a role as she does in Candy.

It happens all the time that two projects come out around the same time essentially telling the same story. UCP announced Candy in July 2020 (getting bought by Hulu five months later), nearly a year before HBO Max announced Love and Death. The latter started filming within four months (getting a four month jump on Candy). The promotional shot of Olsen which has been hanging around on the IMDb since does seem oddly inaccurate (Candy is blonde, missing that trademark tight perm). A second promotional shot substantiates that they stuck with that hairstyle. And, yet, Olsen's series has yet to even announce a premiere date and Biel's series is almost finished.

Is it possible the Olsen project was pushed forward in haste and it ended up. being terrible? I can't see any advantage to waiting for the dust to settle. I guess we wait and possibly watch.

It's amazing how old 30-year-old women looked in 1980. I'm talking about the real life Betty and Candy. They both looked like they were in their fifties but were barely out of their twenties.

[quote]Poor Jessica Timberlake won’t fare well going up against serious thespian Elizabeth Olsen. Jessica (and her agent) must be livid that her gritty Emmy Bait moment has been hijacked by someone with, y’know, talent.

Jessica Biel is opposite Melanie Lynskey, not Elizabeth Olsen. Olsen is in the other version. Or do you mean they are in competing series?

Jessica was very good in The Sinner, she's not such a terrible actress.

[quote]They both looked like they were in their fifties but were barely out of their twenties.

Fifties? Not back then. Rue McClanahan was 46 when this happened. Betty White and Bea Arthur were both 58.

The pressures to "look good" are greater these days, R100. People are getting work done at an earlier age. The fashion is less oppressive today. Young middle-class couples have healthier food options today. They're not having kids right away (which ages anyone). There is more emphasis on exercise. People are more weary of being out in the sun and applying sunblock. The lessons of the past have benefited the subsequent generations.

[quote] Less than 2 months after his wife's death, he already moved on and married another woman, before the trial of Candy even started, he was a sleazy guy!

If I recall correctly, in “Evidence of Love” it mentions that he did crossword puzzles all throughout the trial.

On the other hand, he had an amazingly beautiful penis. So there is that.

R99 I was thinking that the images released from the Elizabeth Olsen version must be from an earlier timeframe. I recently read Evidence of Love, and I recall that Candy’s perm was somewhat recent and that closer to trial Candace Montgomery’s lawyers requested she grow it out.

The actor playing the husband of Betty’s black friend (the couple who introduce her to therapy) is drop dead gorgeous! If I was Candy I’d be fucking him on the side instead.

It’s been years since I read “Evidence of Love” but I don’t recall the part about Betty and Allen taking in a foster kid. Betty making him pass out Raggedy Ann invitations to his birthday party, then reprimanding him for not passing them out, was really shitty.

Apparently, Betty's family was never consulted, and the story about their life and interaction was almost all fictional and heavily in favor of Candy's character

Can the family sue the show for defamation and slander?

[quote] Is it possible the Olsen project was pushed forward in haste and it ended up. being terrible? I can't see any advantage to waiting for the dust to settle. I guess we wait and possibly watch.

There are news article from February that mention filming was going to or had started a courthouse in Georgetown, Texas. Also, on the wikipedia page for Love and Death, they mentioned wrapped on April 7th.

[quote]It's amazing how old 30-year-old women looked in 1980. I'm talking about the real life Betty and Candy. They both looked like they were in their fifties but were barely out of their twenties.

True. It really is amazing how much older people used to look. This is the real Candy at the time. You would never guess this woman was only 30ish years old.

[quote]Apparently, Betty's family was never consulted, and the story about their life and interaction was almost all fictional and heavily in favor of Candy's character

[quote]Can the family sue the show for defamation and slander?

They can. I'm not a legal expert, but I remember when one of those former prosecutors involved with the Central Park Five case sued Netflix and Ava Duvernay after that limited series came out. This article also references Olivia de Havilland's suit against FX after Feud aired.

Some people may not want to go through the financial costs of dealing with a lawsuit.

Even if it was heavy fiction, Melanie Lynskey did a decent job of playing that dopey and annoying whiner type that we all know in our lives who always sucks to be around.

There was a case years ago in Pennsylvania where a woman (Randi Trimble) was killed by her husband's friend. ID's American Monster docuseries show covered the case with dramatized scripted parts played by actors and Randi was portrayed as a whiny controlling penny pincher wife who disliked that her husband Brian and the friend Blaine Norris wanted to make indie horror films and she had refused to allow the husband to invest money in a film project. I thought the controlling penny pincher wife thing was played up for drama on that show. But, when I read articles and the Dateline episode articles/transcripts, there were people who them that eluded to Randi heavily controlling the purse strings and Brian wasn't happy about having to get her permission to occasionally withdraw money to go to lunch. Randi didn't deserve to be murdered and her husband Brian sounds like the type of guy who have been better off as a perpetual bachelor. It was interesting how some people were ok with dishing how Randi was and not completely whitewashing her.

In this pic, Betty reminds of Alex Borstein

Candy's husband is a doofus but in the Hulu series he comes off as a great dad. Most men back then only spent dinner time with the kids and then didn't talk much.

r112 not all dads. Mine and many of my friends' dads were very involved with their kids. Boomer dads didn't want to repeat the same mistakes of their Greatest Generation fathers.

Is Melanie Lynsky really that heavy now? I remember her much thinner. Did they pad her up?

Melanie Lynsky and Megan Mullally need to play sisters in something.

"On the other hand, he had an amazingly beautiful penis."

Pics or it didn't happen.

R112 that's the problem with this series, they present it as a true crime story but the events were mostly fictional, especially the ones involving Betty. What happened at her home and the conversations she had with Allan and Candy etc were made up by the writers, they was no evidence they ever took place. On tv she came out as an insufferable wife at home and a constant headache to everyone around her, but was that really her in real life? Most likely not, from other reports she was a positive person to people around her. But we didn't get to see any of that in the series, why? Because the writers made up their minds that Betty would be the "bad" one here, not the other two, they can do this and not worry about the truth, since Betty was dead, she cannot speak out, dispute the stories or defend herself. On the other hand, Allan and Candy are still alive, the writers have to tread very carefully, there are real chances they could go after the show and HULU if they were portrayed too negatively. With this in mind, it's not hard to understand why there is an overwhelmingly sympathetic undertone towards Candy and Allan throughout the series...

I find this very troublesome since it's a fictional tv but presented as based on facts, for viewers at home, some might take it as true accounts of what happened in their lives, Betty was a bad wife, it's unfortunately she was killed but she sort of asked for it... that would be a gross injustice for Betty, she was the real victim of a heinous crime and she had to take the blame for it.

It will be interesting to see if the HBO show makes Allan and Candy to be sympathetic and Betty the annoying housewife type.

I wonder if that comedic actress Mary Holland could have played Betty if she gained some weight.

R117 I don't disagree with your premise, however the book Evidence of Love makes it quite clear that Betty was a neurotic and annoying woman. Alan had to travel for work a great deal and she made a huge deal every time about "being left all alone." At one point she even called Allan's boss to beg/demand that he be sent home and not sent out on business again. Then there was her teaching career, which was never successful because she was such a martinet and sent second-graders to the principal's office for minor things like talking in line. She wound up substitute teaching because she couldn't keep permanent teaching jobs.

So she was indeed difficult and needy. However, embellishing that in a show that purports to be based on the truth is in poor taste, especially considering her horrific end. I'm sure it's especially hurtful to her daughters.

Betty had to be the villain because Jessica Biel wouldn’t ever gain weight to play the sympathetic character aka the woman who was murdered with an axe! They let a woman go who left a baby all alone in a house for 13 hours and then pretended like nothing happened with the daughter of the woman she killed. Self-defense my ass!

Now that I've seen A Killing in a Small Town and finished Candy, the 1990 telefilm is the superior production. Hershey had two big acting moments: the psychiatrist office where she breaks down, and then on the witness stand where she melts down again. For the former, in Candy, we get a couple of seconds of Biel on the couch in silhouette. For the latter, most actors could have delivered that performance. I'm unimpressed. I think Lynskey was better as well.

As far as the series itself, it tries to give Betty "a voice," I guess as much as it can. I don't think it totally absolves Candy either (that spooky closing shot with the title-cards muddies the waters). But, at the end of the day, it can't really tell Betty's side of the story, regardless of what happened, which is a huge problem in cases like these.

It seems extremely plausible that things happened exactly the way Candy said they did. And I don't discount the impact childhood trauma can have on us, especially subconsciously. And I don't even know if I believe Candy should have done any time. It's just a weird case. And I don't understand why you would remain in the house of someone who produced an axe (in both versions, Betty sets it down, and Candy remains). Who would give a shit about the bathing suit or peppermints at that point. Perhaps Candy had a predisposition to danger (affairs with two married men, short story writer with active imagination).

I think I'll still watch Love and Death. I don't want to watch this story for a third time, as I'm doubtful they'll be able to produce an angle/content to make it worth it. But, I do think Elizabeth Olsen could rise to the occasion. I watched her in Silent House the year Martha Marcy May Marlene came out (her first two feature films and she led both). She was excellent in both, but she really went places in Silent House, and I can see her doing the same here.

[Quote] It was nice that Jessica and Melanie brought their husbands to work this episode

Good for Jason. I liked him in Raising Dion. So of course Netflix had to cancel it.

I feel like this version is on the edge of being a dark comedy (complete with cameo appearance by Justin Timberlake). I wonder if the Olsen version will have the same tone or be more serious and straightforward like the Hershey version.

[quote] Pablo Schreiber is playing Alan.

[quote] Jesse Plemons is Alan in the Elizabeth Olsen version.

John Terry from the 1990s TV version for the fuckable win!

I'm disappointed we didnt get the community's reaction to Candy's arrest.

The Queen Bee of a small town arrested for hacking up a neighbor? It must've been HUGE news.

But the show just skips to the trial.

I hope David Soul makes a couple of bucks from this.

Candy's perm and disco outfit deserve their own social media account.

Until this I'd forgotten David Soul had a single on the radio.

I feel really sorry for the poor foster kid.

R126 Maybe, the HBO series will touch on the community reaction.

The 1990 TV movie

Who was the 2nd man she had an affair with? At first I thought she was going to say her lawyer.

Isn't that the actor who played Jean Smart's homo husband in another tv movie?

Jean Smart’s real life hetero and recently deceased husband (Richard Gilliland) played the husband of “Candy” in the 1990s movie version.

[quote]I feel like this version is on the edge of being a dark comedy (complete with cameo appearance by Justin Timberlake). I wonder if the Olsen version will have the same tone or be more serious and straightforward like the Hershey version.

I'm on the first episode and I definitely get a camp/subversive vibe. The opening titles sort of remind me of [italic]Feud: Bette and Joan.[/italic]

R134 Yes, John Terry who played Allan in A Killing in A Small Town played Jean Smart's husband in the Lifetime movie Change of Heart where she finds out he's gay. I remember it being a decent TV movie.

I really miss many of the TV movies that broadcast and basic cable networks use to make. They weren't always cheap "women in peril movies" like Lifetime constantly makes today and they weren't always major cheese fests like Hallmark movies. Even the broadcast networks were able to make a lot of decent TV movies and I thought A Killing in A Small Town was one of them.

I finally watched the last episode last night. My overall take was it was definitely good, not great. It did focus on the crime and the dark elements, but overall I think made Candy’s character too lovable at times, and “quirky.” I dunno, it’s a take, but it just didn’t sit right with me at times. Especially in the last episode, I was practically rooting for her. Candy’s behavior after the crime showed her true guilt. It’s a shame she ended up with such a sleazy showman lawyer who knew how to bulldoze over everything and get what he wanted.

And showing Betty’s ghost making comments like that worked great I thought, really necessary.

I loved that they showed the murder (or Candy’s version of it) so brutally and uncompromising. Well done. That’s how it should be done!

I agree with above posters the “retro look” thing was too perfectly done. But that’s just how movies made now are going to look when they do that. I thought it looked fine.

I’m curious to see the other one coming out. And have A Killing In a Small Town bookmarked on YouTube.

Does anyone know what Candy changed her name to and where she ended up? Has it ever been revealed?

R138 I read some article that stated it's believe Candy is using her maiden name Wheeler.

Somewhere it was written Candy moved to Georgia.

Fuck off with your anti-white woman bullshit, Chaos.

She's a therapist, of all things.

Justin Fucking TImberlake plays the damn Police??? So a family project.

The first episode is actually good. Then it’s downhill from there.

Jessica has given birth? Her body is amazing.

I didn't like the pacing. This and that Rene Zellwegger series about the murderous Pam, sort of fell short to me and I usually like true crime, and I love black comedy. BTW: Didn't Melanie Linsky get murdered by Rene too?

This thread inspired me to read the book Evidence of Love. It's really good.

[quote]“Evidence of Love” is my favorite true crime book of all time, co-written by John Bloom (aka Joe Bob Briggs). I highly recommend it and the Barbara Hershey TV movie (even though it was fictionalized). Best performance of Hershey’s career and had it been released in theaters I think she could have won the Oscar for it.

The TV version was great but took some over-the-top liberties with the storyline, the main one being that Candy killed under the influence of an alternate personality.

The Gores' house on Realtor.com

Yikes I think they show the utility room the body was in

They do show it! Interesting how the set designers (location?) tried to mimic the actual inside of the house. Lots of specific similar details.

I heard Jessica Biel replaced Elisabeth Moss. That's like going from Nirvana to The Backstreet Boys.

[quote] Candy got off using the White Blonde Woman Defense.

That’s funny because looking at this trailer I thought the actress playing her was biracial.

My asshole tastes like candy.

R153 is drunk.

[quote]It’s been years since I read “Evidence of Love” but I don’t recall the part about Betty and Allen taking in a foster kid. Betty making him pass out Raggedy Ann invitations to his birthday party, then reprimanding him for not passing them out, was really shitty.

According to this BuzzFeed article, the Gores did take in foster kids, but there are no accounts of Betty mistreating them. To the contrary, she was remembered as a loving mother who was well liked in the community despite her personal problems. (Interestingly, she was known for "keeping a fashionable home" in contrast to the frumpy middle-class interiors depicted on the show.)

The BuzzFeed writer (and Betty's family) think the showrunners had an agenda in making Betty a mopey, clingy black hole of need

I think it would have been more interesting with Elisabeth Moss as Candy as was originally planned. She is a kooky $cieno but she is a better actress than Biel.

The Barbara Hershey film from 1990 did an excellent job of telling this story in 100 minutes (and Hershey is indeed wonderful and richly deserved her Best Actress Emmy and Golden Globe). The direction, performances, and script economically convey a great deal about the characters and their environment without having to show everything.

It makes me miss the made-for-TV movie genre; these days everything gets stretched out to 5-8 episodes so it can be a "limited series."

I was amused to see that the actress who originally played ax-wielding Betty Gore (renamed Peggy Blankenship in the 1990 version) was also Rose's bitchy, whiny, accusatory daughter Kirsten on The Golden Girls -- and played both parts basically the same way.

^ Lee Garlington, who has been in a ton of things. They should have cast her to replace Brett Butler in ‘Grace Under Fire’.

The one thing that didn’t really ring true to me about this was the big deal they made about Bette threatening to slap the foster kid. Corporal punishment was very much more part of the norm and not the sin it is considered today.

Also regarding the wigs….people must be forgetting exactly how BAD 80s hairstyles were.

So what really happened? Was the murder premeditated? Why an axe? What does the public think really happened in that suburban home? Did Betty’s husband have any idea Candy would consider killing Betty? Has the adopted kid ever spoken about his experience in the home?

I personally don’t believe it was premeditated. I think Betty confronted her and threatened her with an axe. Candy first fought to defend herself but once she got the upper hand, she lost her shit.

R162 The foster children have never come forward with their experiences in the Gore home and they aren't any records of Betty mistreating or abusing foster kids.

In the book Evidence of Love, Betty is portrayed not as abusive, but as a very strict disciplinarian, even for the place and standards of the day. As a result, she wasn't popular as a teacher and they did "return" one foster child because he and Betty clashed. Again, this is how the book presented her, maybe not how she really was.

But 41 blows? That seems overkill for self defense.

I'm familiar with both Wylie (a deep-Red, rather hick suburb) and also Methodist churches in Texas, and as a result the diverse casting in the Hulu series is jarring to me. There's simply no way there would be a mixed-race pastoral couple in charge of that church, and the black best-friend relationship Candy has is just not believable for the time period in Wylie. It's also highly unlikely there would be other black couples in the congregation. This is a town where the top community festival is still a lily-white God & Country rodeo.

I liked that there was a black female divorcee minister. It added colour, so to speak.

It's a dramatisation of a story that has little to do with race relations anyway. It doesn't matter (to me) or bother me.

I didn't mind it in The Staircase either.

[quote]Also regarding the wigs….people must be forgetting exactly how BAD 80s hairstyles were.

More to the point, it was 1980, the tail end of the disco era and hideous '70s style. I didn't realize for the longest time that Candy and Betty were both just 30 at the time. They were so dowdy they could have passed for their mid-40s.

84

Percentage of DLers who clicked on this thread thinking they were going to get to weigh in on M&Ms versus Reece's Pieces and Almond Joy vs Mounds

"You're overworking your meat."

It's not a "black comedy" but it's filled with throwaway witty lines and the camera and art direction make a lot of gags, too.

And the black casting is stunt casting.

I have never heard of this case. Jealous lesbian attacking with an ax?

Lesbian?

She became a family therapist and is in practice with her daughter. She changed her name back to her maiden name. I wonder how many of her clients know.

[quote]I'm familiar with both Wylie (a deep-Red, rather hick suburb) and also Methodist churches in Texas, and as a result the diverse casting in the Hulu series is jarring to me. There's simply no way there would be a mixed-race pastoral couple in charge of that church

Things were a bit more chill in the late 1970s, it was before the right-wing backlash started, and people started freaking out about mixed-race couples like it was the 1960s again. We had a mixed-race couple who taught in the grade school I went to in southern Missouri in 1980. There were a lot of comments about how the husband "wasn't like other blacks" and such, but people were polite and seemed to like them.

Candy is a murderous slut, is Pat still married to her?

The series is soooo slllloowwww. It could have been a two hour movie.

The real villains here are the drooling morons on the jury - Texas redneck scum.

I think Jessica did a decent job here, aside from the uneven accent. Also not sure why we needed to see her nude. But i would really love to know what the wig budget was for this show 😆

Teaser for the HBO series Love & Death

[quote]Candy is a murderous slut, is Pat still married to her?

They divorced in 1984. She reportedly moved to Georgia and works as a therapist under her birth name, Candace Wheeler.

I'm guessing the Olsen one was delayed to distance itself (or a variety of reasons) from this one. At least Biel had the balls to agree to that granny wig.

R184 when was the Olsen version supposed to come out?

R185 April 27th

R141 I'd tell you to fuck off right back but you've proven yourself to be such a huge asshole on this board that Muriel seems to have already done it for me.

And I was wasn't being anti-white, Marjorie Taylor Greene. I was just stating the facts. If both women or just Candy were African-American there would be no way in hell she'd get away with the self defense bullshit. Especially not in Texas in 1979-1980.

Moving along, I think this series was decently done. It seemed to have caught the Era pretty nicely although a bit too nicely. Melanie Lynskey is an amazing TV actress. She needs more movie roles as she excelled in Heavenly Creatures alongside Kate Winslet.

I'm waiting for the Elizabeth Olsen version to come out so that I can compare notes.

[quote]I'm waiting for the Elizabeth Olsen version to come out so that I can compare notes.

Reviews for that one seem incredibly split, with some calling it the next big thing and IndieWire saying it's DOA. That usually means there's something interesting going on that might be worth checking out.

HBO version starts today. I already am biased against it because the Olsen chick wouldn’t wear Candy’s permed hairstyleA

Love and Death thread.

Please read all of the comments on this page. Reveals from church members who knew the adults involved include the following:

The 2 adulterers met at their Methodist Church's marriage encounter event. There have been allegations of active wife swapping groups within the church and the entire county as well as the neighboring one.

Widower Alan married another woman 3 months after the exonoeration. Many quesiton when they actually started sleeping together. They have since divorced.

His 2 very young daughters were raised by their maternal grandmother in KS after repeated allegations of emotional abuse by their stepmother. "Dad" wasn't allowed to come to his daughter's wedding. Both of his daughters got college scholarships and are successful professionals.

"Murderer" moved to GA and became a therapist. Her lawyer divorced his wife, and then committed suicide.

Pastor of the small Methodist Church also divorced his wife.

Widower came out as gay and has had a same sex partner since 2017.

Real reason Candy was acqutted of the murder is that there was a belief that Alan, the murdered woman's husband, was at least somewhat involved in his wife's death.

Questions if he egged Candy on to get out of a very bad marriage or if he was present at any point at the murdere scene. A very heavy refrigerator which had fallen down during the ax killing had been put back in place. That was deemed too heavy for Candy to do by herself.

I found this version to be superior to the HBO one with Elizabeth Olsen. Funny because I have never been a Jessica Biel or Melanie Lynskey fan. Maybe because I find them annoying they fit the characters better for me.

Interesting r191

[quote]He’s (Betty's husband Allan) gay now? He’s been in a domestic partnership since 2017.

Thanks for sharing R191 and R192