The Honeymoon Killers

A.I.P./Roxanne. Dir Leonard Kastle; Producer Warren Steibel; Screenplay Leonard Kastle; Camera Oliver Wood; Editor Stan Warnow

Shirley Stoler
Tony LoBianco
Mary Higbee
Kip McArdle
Barbara Cason
Doris Roberts

Made on a very low budget by a writer-director Leonard Kastle, The Honeymoon Killers, based on the Lonely Hearts murder case of the late 1940s, is made with care, authenticity and attention to detail.

The acting throughout the film never falters, each of the lonely heart victims presented as a fully rounded character.

Theme, presented with perhaps a shade too heavy an underlining is the desperate search for love in the US, the idea that no woman is complete without a man beside her.

Fernandez has disappeared from the lives of a score of women, after receiving their 'dowries', when he meets Martha, but it is only when she becomes intimately involved in his life, bringing her fantastic jealousy to bear on his new targets, that murder enters the picture. There are a few lapses, but the pic goes towards its harrowing climax without losing step.

(B&W) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1969. Running time: 115 MIN.

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