Cruel Doubt--Parts I & II

 ((Sun. (17), Tues. (19), 9-11 p.m., NBC-TV))

By TONY SCOTT

Filmed around Southern California by Susan Baerwald Prods. in association with NBC Prods. Exec producer-producer, Susan Baerwald; co-producer, Dan Franklin; director, Yves Simoneau; writer, John Gay, based on book by Joe McGinniss.
 
Cast: Blythe Danner, Matt McGrath, Gwyneth Paltrow, Adam Baldwin, Miguel Ferrer, Ed Asner, Dennis Farina, Ben Masters, Travis Fine, Neal McDonough, Denis Arndt, R.D. Call, William Forsythe, Louise Latham, Ben Masters, Neal McDonough, John C. McGinley, Jim Norton, G.D. Spradlin, Ken Welsh, David Arquette, Stefan Gierasch, Richard Grove, Matthew Posey, Tyagi Schwartz, Douglas Roberts, Jeanine Jackson, Jordan Lund, Kathy Kinney, Annie O'Donnell, Sheila Shaw, Charlie Holliday, Steve Danton, David Wells, Michael Heintzman, Gunnar Peterson, Martin Grey, Scott Allan Campbell, Noah Margetts, Jake Busey, Richard Schiff, Kristin Dattilo, Kelly Connell, Jill Andre, Luanna Ponce, Claudette Sutherland.
 

Another twice-as-long visit to the North Carolina Von Stein home, where CBS stopped on April 26 with its two-hour "Honor Thy Mother," reasserts the concept of bloodletting to bolster ratings. A dramatized true story with the stabbings illustrated again and again and with no clear-cut definition of the principals should give the viewers a surfeit of Von Stein blood and agony.

John Gay, who's written the script for this outing, goes over the ugly facts. Bonnie Von Stein (played in different degrees of seriousness by Blythe Danner got up as a drab, salad-mixing widow) and wealthy second husband Lieth are attacked late at night by a masked stranger. Lieth's dying screams don't wake Bonnie's another-world daughter, Angela Pritchard (Gwyneth Paltrow), who's asleep in the next bedroom; it doesn't make sense.

Stepson Chris (Matt McGrath) has gone back to college in Raleigh when the murder takes place. He doesn't seem broken up about the grisly death--he's a walking drugstore whose only interest is the game Dungeons and Dragons. Bonnie's been blissfully oblivious to Chris' way of life; she won't be from now on.

The police take over, and a state cop (smartly played by Miguel Ferrer) goes to work. Clues are scarce and misleading: A knapsack, a burned map, a broken window, a knife and burnt clothing are nearby; the motive could be the $ 2 million estate left by the young people's stepdad, but no one ever satisfactorily explains a certain glass of water with ice in it.

Bonnie hires a mouthpiece, Bill Osteen (Ed Asner all but burying his persona in a Southern accent and attitude), and Chris comes into the foreground only a step behind Bonnie.

Two of Chris' young associates, his buddy Moog (Travis Fine) and Neal Henderson (Neal McDonough), become involved, and the police procedure lurches ahead. An interminable passage about taking polygraph tests slows the telefilm; Bonnie's plaintive appeals to the authorities to know what's going on become increasingly repetitive.

Taking four hours to tell the horror tale waters it down, and director Yves Simoneau permits scene lapses that deaden impact. What has happened is that, though the story's being inexhaustibly unwound, questions remain unanswered, as several characters point out to the camera at the vidpic's finale.

Matt McGrath turns in an unsparing study of a young man dazed by drugs and self-doubts--his last words to his mother are uttered painfully. Paltrow's intentionally vague interp, eerily effective, leaves Angela an unknown quantity.

Just what their natural father was like would be intriguing; he's never mentioned.

Jan Scott's design for the production makes areas and structures around Southern California appropriate to the Northern Carolina locales. Interiors are splendidly on target, and Elliot Davis' camerawork is sharp.

How the Blythe Danner version stacks up with CBS' Sharon Gless study remains a matter of choice. One thing's certain: With all the questions about guilt that are left unresolved, it's time for TV to get into something more enlightening and to butt out of the Von Stein-Pritchard lives.

Camera, Elliot Davis; editors, Michael Ornstein, Richard Fields; art director, Sandy Getzler; sound, Mary Jo Devenney; music, George S. Clinton; production designer, Jan Scott.