Lonely Hearts

Once upon a time, way back in the 1940's, there were these two really bad people, Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez, who murdered women for their money. Beck was a very large and unattractive woman, and Fernandez looked a bit like Desi Arnaz--you can see actual photos of them on Google (True Crime, the Daily News).  There you can also see a photo of Detective Elmer C. Robinson, a Long Island cop who, along with his partner Charles Hildebrandt, was responsible for the eventual capture and return to New York of the so-called "Honeymoon Killers."

If that sobriquet sounds vaguely familiar to film buffs, it's because in 1970, a low-budget b-movie bearing that title appeared, starring the amazing Shirley Stoler (so powerful as the Commandant in Seven Beauties) as Beck and Tony LoBianco as Fernandez.  That version was originally to have been helmed by Martin Scorsese--and what a film that might have been!  Still, the existing film became a cult classic with almost nothing in it about the cops who caught Ray and Martha.

Then, in 1996, famed Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein won myriad awards for his adaptation of the same true story re-told as the bloody Deep Crimson. Both films agree with most of the facts, including Beck's girth as well as her murderous contribution to what was Fernandez's simple bilking of lonely women he met via Lonely Hearts letters. She was far too jealous to let them live. All this is to underscore an ongoing prurient fascination with the tale of the small-time, toupee-wearing grifter who met his match in the overweight nurse who became his lover and accomplice.

Now comes a third film, Lonely Hearts, on the same subject from Detective Robinson's grandson, Todd, and for the most part it's an unnecessary and highly sanitized addition to the first two. Especially the casting!  Salma Hayek is far too slim and beautiful (not to mention Spanish) to be believed as the Lonely Hearts letter writer for whom a special electric chair had to be found because the regular one couldn't accommodate her amplitude. And Jared Leto is just too boyish as the low-down Latin lover. However, once in their roles, they do play them with a certain heft.

And speaking of heft, John Travolta and James Gandolfini as the cop partners bring it in abundance, both in their acting and on the hoof. Robinson the director has chosen well in Travolta to play his grandfather, who was a taciturn and unhappy man in real life. Soon to be seen in Edna Turnblad's size 44 dress, Travolta plays his role with a devotion to duty and to his partner and little else.  Gandolfini, America's answer to Gerard Depardieu, keeps getting larger and larger and still manages to disappear into his roles, even one as thankless as this second banana with a voice-over.

If the other two films did not exist, Lonely Hearts would be a passable version. But they do, and together they would make a great double bill (to rent) on the subject and cleanse the palate of Travolta, Gandolfini, Hayek, and, God help us, Leto!

                                                      Leslie (Hoban) Blake