Betsy, The (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: May 05, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Daniel PetrieRelease Date(s)
1978 (February 26, 2025)Studio(s)
Harold Robbins International Company/Allied Artists/United Artists (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a Region-Free Australian Blu-ray import.]
Calling The Betsy (1978) the best adaptation of a Harold Robbins novel isn’t saying much, yet beyond Robbins’s emblematic trashiness and steamy sex scenes, the film is actually pretty entertaining, and it operates from an unusually intriguing, strong premise. Robbins himself co-produced it, and considered it the best film of his two dozen or so bestsellers.
With the American automobile industry in decline due to the oil crisis and competition from abroad, Loren Hardeman III (Robert Duvall), head of Bethlehem Motors, has successfully diversified the company into other areas; so successfully, in fact, he’s planning on shutting down the auto manufacturing division founded by his Henry Ford-like grandfather, “Number One,” 85-year-old Loren Hardeman Sr. (Laurence Olivier, top-billed).
Loren Sr., retired to Florida, however, has other ideas. He recruits racecar driver and builder Angelo Perino (Tommy Lee Jones) to within the company secretly use its resources to develop with engineer John Duncan (Roy Poole, of 1776) a completely new automobile that will revolutionize the industry. Using innovative technology, the prototype of “The Betsy,” named after Sr.’s great-granddaughter (Kathleen Beller), gets 60 miles-per-gallon with virtually no CO2 emissions. Loren III, however, resents his grandfather’s interference and is determined to put the kibosh on The Betsy’s development.
Angelo, meanwhile, has steamy sexual dalliances with widowed Lady Ayres (Lesley-Anne Down), who is having an affair with Loren III, he not-so-secretly cheating on his wife, Alicia (Jane Alexander); while Angelo also flirts with their 21-year-old daughter, Betsy.
In flashbacks, the background of the company and the origins of Loren III’s resentment toward his father are gradually revealed. In the 1930s, Hardeman Sr.’s heir-apparent son (Paul Ryan Rudd) married Sally (Katherine Ross), but after the birth of Loren Jr. became embroiled in a gay love affair with a Bethlehem Motors executive, that relationship drawing the lonely Sally into a relationship with her own father-in-law, all this leading to tragedy that still haunts Sr. 40 years later.
At the center of it all is Olivier’s fascinatingly hammy, paycheck performance. For his shaky, broad American accent, it’s as if he based it on California Carlson, the ornery Hopalong Cassidy sidekick played by Australian comic Andy Clyde. Olivier was 70 at the time but wears light “old man” makeup in the present-day scenes, but what’s really interesting is that, in the flashbacks, he’s given the reverse treatment, made to resemble what he looked like in his 40s. Incredibly, he almost pulls it off. The actor’s health went into sharp decline starting about the point The Betsy premiered, so this may well be the last picture before he became so physically frail that, on his last films, it looked a light breeze might topple him. Yet in The Betsy we see Olivier’s auto tycoon banging a maid and later in bed with Ross’s Sally. Whatever the state of Olivier’s health during film, in those flashback scenes he impressively fakes a youthful energy.
The more explicit content is left to Kathleen Beller and Lesley-Anne Down, in their lovemaking scenes with Tommy Lee Jones. Both women are undeniably beautiful, though it’s all shot in the very dated, pseudo-erotic visual style of Playboy magazine circa 1978. Nevertheless, it’s the kind of sexual content rare in mainstream Hollywood movies today.
Director Daniel Petrie (A Raisin in the Sun) knew his way around this kind of material, having helmed sprawling historical TV miniseries like Eleanor and Franklin and its sequel; those starred Jane Alexander and Edward Herrmann, who both appear here, Herrmann as an ulcer-ridden Bethlehem executive. The story was timely, even prescient; left-leaning co-writer Walter Bernstein, formerly blacklisted, had written or co-written a number of fine screenplays, including Fail-Safe, The Molly Maguires, and The Front; possibly it was he who emphasized the film’s cynical take on American capitalism: the auto industry’s ties to organized crime, its suppression of cleaner and more efficient vehicles, etc.
Imprint’s new Region-Free Blu-ray, licensed from current owner MGM, is a 2K scan in 1080p, the 1.85:1 theatrical release reformatted slightly to 1.78:1 fullscreen. It’s a decent, not great transfer, but free of damage and the color is good. The LPCM 2.0 mono audio is okay, if a little disappointing, as John Barry’s score is a lot better than the picture deserves; not his best work from the period, but typically memorable work from the composer. Optional English subtitles are provided.
Extras are limited to an archival interview from the period with Harold Robbins, running just shy of 10 minutes. Also included is an okay audio commentary by film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson.
I was expecting The Betsy to be awful but maybe amusingly so. It’s better than that; still trashy, but surprisingly not at all bad in some respects, and entertainingly bad in other ways. It’s worth a look.
- Stuart Galbraith IV