The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag

Stupid title, stupid movie, but not without its saving graces. A would-be comedy about busting loose, The Gun In Betty Lou's Handbag takes aim but misfires, hitting few of its intended targets. Grace Cary Bickley's screenplay has the potential to subvert the cliched -- a mousy librarian confesses to a murder simply because no one believes she would do it -- but it bogs down in so many formulaic conventions that it ultimately becomes a cliché. To some extent, the movie is doomed by its failure to believably set the stage for Betty Lou's walk on the wild side. Whether the result of Moyle's poor direction, Bickley's underdeveloped script, or a studio's impatience, the title character's seemingly abrupt decision to take a big bite of the forbidden fruit isn't credible; you never believe this woman has been pushed to her rational limits to the extent she falsely admits to killing someone. And although there's something uplifting in Betty Lou's liberation, the absence of logic in her folk hero mystique and other contrived plot turns dampens your enthusiasm for this film. (Like last year's unfairly maligned and better made The Butcher's Wife, this movie is nevertheless a guilty pleasure, despite its shortcomings.) The cast shines in The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag; watching these performers, you know this movie would have made for an inspired farce given better writing and direction. As the unshackled Betty Lou, Miller is giddy in her new-found notoriety; it's only at the end of the film, when the feminist bent gives way to the picture of helpless female saved by her man, that Miller's performance turns sour (through no fault of her own, mind you). Thal is boyish and sexy as the befuddled husband who discovers his wife is nothing like the woman he married, while the always superb Moriarty almost steals the movie as the hooker who befriends Betty Lou in jail and teaches her a thing or two about being a bad girl. Moriarty gets some competition, however, from Grant, who plays the philandering wife who last saw the murder victim in his motel room. Wound up like a top but always trying to play the lady, she's not onscreen long enough. What a shame to fail to put her and the others' talents to better use in a better movie.