Last night in "The Flaw"(1955), an overly-sure-of-himself race driver marries an heiress with the idea of getting her money via the perfect murder, hence the title, because there's no such thing as perfection where murdalization is concerned. In the opening scene, the beautiful and wealthy "Monica Oliveri" (Rona Anderson) sends a letter to her former beau "John Milway" (Donald Huston), who is also her lawyer, explaining that she's now married, but hopes they can still remain friends. Milway attends her next dinner party and is introduced to her new husband, the dashing "Paul Oliveri" (John Bentley). The three share drinks and Paul seems every bit the gentleman. All seems cheery between spouses and exes. But when Milway leaves the party, he goes back to his office and has Paul Oliveri tailed. "I didn't trust him from the moment I met him," he tells his assistant. Well, he certainly did a good job of faking it at the dinner party. The tail follows Oliveri to another woman's apartment. He's had her on the side the whole time. She's a bit shabby, needing 2000 pounds a month upkeep. Oliveri gets the money from his wife Monica the heiress, saying he needs it for stock investments.
He also gets Monica to make out a will, saying "we both should do it." It's one of those "it's a good idea" things: "Everyone is dong it, honey, making out their wills. It just makes sense, like life insurance or building a bomb shelter."
Meanwhile, Milway, Monica's lawyer, breaks the news to her about Paul's cheating, and it's fortunate timing, too, because she was just about to accompany Paul to the mountains, where he was gonna push her off a cliff. Paul hasn't yet been told about Monica's decision to stay home, and he continues setting up his plan, which includes getting rid of John Milway. He's having him tailed, too! And, he knows his wife Monica is consulting with Milway. Paul sets up an alibi by being seen "on purpose" at a play, during which he sneaks out and phones Milway, under the pretext of "would you mind looking over some legal documents for me? I know you don't approve of me, but would you do it as a favor?" From what we know about what Milway knows about Paul (and that he doesn't trust him), it doesn't make sense that Milway would agree to meet with him, and even get into Paul's car, but then, maybe he knows something we don't.
Now we cut to Monica's mansion, where Paul has taken Milway. Monica is away, preparing her divorce. Paul does the classic, "would you like a whisky? Here you are, drink up. Now let me explain how I've just murdered you" routine. He continues: "What if I were to lure someone - you perhaps, Milway - to my wife's mansion, with the intent of committing the perfect murder? How would I go about it? Poison is a time honored option." Meanwhile, Milway is slowly choking to death while the smug self satisfied Oliveri is explaining how he planned Milway's murder and will get away with it. But just as Milway dies, gasping for breath, he exhales, "Yes, but there's a flaw...."
Oliveri is nonplussed. It was supposed to be the perfect crime. How could there be a flaw?
You may guess what will happen down the road. I did, but it won't play out for a while. In the meantime, now that Milway is dead and Monica Oliveri doesn't have anyone to protect her from her estranged husband Paul, he goes forth with a new plan to kill her and get her money. She's staying at a beach house with their maid. We learn that Paul had previously used poison to kill a racing rival in South America, and that's all I'm going to tell you, but there's a major league twist. "The Flaw" is directed with great theatricality by Terence Fisher of Hammer Horror fame. The plot is a well known trope (man, I hate that word): "Let me explain to you how I just murdered you and got away with it, and would you like another martini before you die?" Two Huge Thumbs Up, despite the cliche. Great black and white photography and locations, including the English seaside. How in the world do they go to the beach when, at best, it's 70 degrees outside, and most of the time, it's 56 or colder, and the water is freezing and choppy? I don't know, but the picture is razor sharp. ////
The previous night, we had another oft-used plot: a man, usually an executive, calls his valet or trusted second into his office, always on an intercom. "Jenkins, come in here at once, I must talk to you." Jenkins reports on the dot, and after taking the long route to get down to brass tacks, the exec finally gets to the point: "Jenkins, I've always relied on you because you're trustworthy and I need your trust now, because I want you to hire me a man who will kill somebody." Jenkins nods, shocked perhaps, but loyal. He asks only logistical questions. "I can find a man, sir, but it'll cost." "Money is no object, Jenkins, just hire him and bring him here."
And when the meeting takes place between the hitman, usually an eccentric, and the executive, and the hitman asks, "who do you want me to kill?", the answer is always "me."
I think we've seen two other versions of this scenario, though I don't know the titles at the moment. In "Vengeance is Mine"(1949), the movie starts off exactly as noted. The executive's name is "Charles Heywood" (Valentine Dyall). His Man Friday is "Stacy" (Sam Kydd).) Stacy finds a hitman, a weird little guy with a lisp, and the deal is made. Once the hitman hears Mr. Heywood's story, of spending years in prison on a frame job, he offers to kill him for free, to put him out of his misery. Heywood only has six months to live anyway (another integral part of this format), so he's gonna die either way, and by hiring a hitman to kill him, he can make it look like murder and frame the guy who framed him! Now that's payback! But of course, another required part of the format is having to call off the hitman after the target falls in love with his secretary, and b) his doctor says his terminal medical condition isn't fatal after all. Both of these things happen to Mr. Heywood and now he wants to live. Call off the hitman, stat! But the hitman (of course) is nuttier than an English Christmas Fruitcake. He's gone into hiding as part of the original plan and can't be found, or stopped, and is 100% committed to carrying out the crime.
This version is pretty faithful to the formula. We've seen Dyall, the star, in some Gothic horror movies. He had a distinctive, rubbery face and a sharp-angled London accent. A lot is made of his character's heart condition, and his refusal to change his lifestyle. "I'd only live six more months anyway." Revenge against his framer is worth losing those months. English caricature actor Sam Kydd, always good, is valiant as the trustworthy Stacy. Ann Firth is the secretary/love interest. Two Big Thumbs Up for "Vengeance is Mine." The picture is very good. ////
Now, we need to go back to the mid-August 1989 (apprx. August 17th) screening of "Casualties of War" at UCLA, and Lillian's mention of Mrs. Birke when the movie was over. That set off an argument on our way home that we will come back to, but for now, let's look at Lillian's mention of Mrs. Birke by itself. The first thing you might ask, if you were me, is "how do you know Mrs. Birke?" And I did ask her that, and it started the argument. But, in thinking about it over the years, I've also considered her need to mention Mrs. Birke. When we look at that aspect, the first thing we ask is, "why mention Mrs. Birke at all, if knowing her is clandestine?" If Lillian knows I don't know about it, why mention Mrs. Birke to me? That answer is simple: perhaps part of her wanted to get caught, wanted to expose her lifestyle. Lillian wasn't stupid. She knew I'd wonder how she knew Mrs. Birke. I mean, hell, I knew the Birke boys since (I think) about the late 70s, through Chris, and I had never met Mrs. Birke. But all of a sudden, Lillian knows her, and either consciously or subconsciously, she wants me to know she knows her: "oh, there's Mrs. Birke. I'm gonna go say hello."
But that brings us to the next question: Why Mrs. Birke? What I mean is, let's say she went to Dave's student movie (an entirely separate issue, involving who invited her without inviting me because they knew Lillian was with Terry). If she was merely introduced to Mrs. Birke, say, after the movie, "Lillian, this is my mother. Mom, this is Lillian," you'd think she would've said, to me at "Causalties of War", "oh, there's Mrs. Birke." and kept walking. It's Chris's friend's mom, you recognize her, point her out and keep going. She's just someone you met, and that's all. But what Lillian said was this: "I'm gonna go over and say hi to her." That suggests a closer association than just a casual introduction. It suggests at least a chat, a friendly chat, after Dave Birke's student movie, a chat that was long enough to make an impression, and enough to say, "I wanna go say hi," like you would if you saw a friend. If she was just "Chris's friend's Mom, who Dave introduced me to after his movie", you'd say, "oh, there's Mrs. Birke", and that's all. Then you'd walk to your car.
We point this out because we are closing in on a nexus around the monster Jared Rappaport, and we keep running into this combo of David Birke and Lillian Matulic. At face value, it wouldn't make sense, because they were two entirely different people, and Lillian, with all of her nutty sexual pathologies, would've been attracted more to a Terry Meissner-type (also because he was a weak person she could manipulate). But we can't dismiss the Lillian - David Birke combination because there is someone who connects them, and they all connect to Jared Rappaport.
In addition, we have two pieces of news, learned recently, that are going to help us narrow things down. The first is an absolute bombshell. It's about the post-"Casualties of War" argument between Lillian and me. It started on the freeway coming home. It began with me asking her "How do you know Mrs. Birke?" You know the answer to that question. It was answered in one of the last two blogs. I also mentioned a quote that night from Lillian that I've never forgotten: "I do a lot of things I don't tell you about!" She was angry and defiant when she said that. But what I'd forgotten was that the argument didn't end there. No sir. It continued when we pulled up to 9032. That's when Lillian spilled the beans, and that's the bombshell. I wasn't about to let it go at "I do a lot of things I don't tell you about," and I demanded to know what she meant. She told me about other things because she wanted me to know what a square she thought I was. "I go to parties I've never told you about." That's as graphic as I'm gonna get, but she basically opened up about a free-love or "swinger" lifestyle that she'd been carrying on for years. I was shocked, needless to say, because I had thought the cheating was limited to her and Terry. I will swear on a stack of bibles that this conversation took place. My questions that night frustrated her and made her defiant. Finally she stuck up for herself with a kind of strange pride. These people hide their lifestyle, like child molesters do, and while they would say they are all "consenting adults", they know the lifestyle is aberrant, which is why it's not out in the open, like a hippie commune or nudists or something. I mean, good grief, even porno stars, who are disgusting enough, don't hide what they do. And maybe Lillian was tired of hiding. She let me have it, with an almost-full disclosure that night.
And all of this happened after an argument about Mrs. Birke. Isn't that interesting? I think it is. Because Mrs. Birke was David Birke's mother, and we keep coming back to him.
We also have a better look at David Birke's meeting with Jared Rappaport on Memorial Day Weekend, and the party he got invited to. That will have to wait for another blog. But that's a bombshell about Lillian, right? She admitted the whole thing, after that night at UCLA and just two weeks before the Concord Square incident happened on September 1st, 1989.
We've asked how she can get up and go to work every day, knowing what happened to me, but I wonder if she also knows that I wasn't the only victim as a result of her actions. Does Lillian know, for instance, that my Mom was in the room at Howard Johnson's on Reseda and Valerio, and that she was humiliated by Howard Schaller? That's right, my Mom. Does Lillian know that Helen, Pearl's daughter, was viciously attacked by Howard Schaller and some unknown scumbag thug, that she was attacked so brutally that I'm not gonna print it here, but will put it in my book with Helen's permission? And Howard Schaller was in that room because, down the chain of incidents, it all started for him with a connection to Lillian and Dave Small.
Man, these are some fucked-up people. Demented, trashy and sick. Dangerous, too. If you got to know them, you'd learn that there's no "there, there," as Gertrude Stein so famously said. They're spiritually and emotionally vacant, like Lynne Archambault, Rappaport's brain-dead idiot wife, who was also in the house when I was kidnapped. She offered me a bowl of cereal in the morning, as if I had merely slept overnight. A brain dead bitch, who knew her husband was torturing me and didn't do a thing about it. But she was one of the lifestyle people, too. Good lord did they do a lot of damage. Good lord are they evil beyond measure. But it was all about living their "lifestyle", right Lillian? You didn't count on a psycho in the woodpile like Jared Rappaport.
How the hell do these fuckers get up and go to work in the morning? Because they're crazy, that's how. ////
My blogging music is PFM's first album, my late night is Handel's Mucius Scaevola Opera. I hope you are having a nice weekend, and I send you Tons of Love, as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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