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Hit Lady
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Wikipedia article
'Hit Lady' is a 1974 made-for-TV film that aired on October 8, 1974. Starring Yvette Mimieux as artist and assassin Angela de Vries, it was written by Mimieux and directed by Tracy Keenan Wynn.
Plot
An artist works part-time as a syndicate assassin. She decides to do one last job, killing a labor leader Jeffrey Baine. However she can't go through with the job.
Cast
in a publicity photo for the film
*Yvette Mimieux as Angela de Vries
*Joseph Campanella as Jeffrey Baine
*Clu Gulager as Roarke
*Dack Rambo as Doug Reynolds
*Keenan Wynn as Buddy McCormack
*Roy Jenson as Eddie
*Paul George as Webb
*Del Monroe as Hansen
Production
'Hit Lady' was written by Mimieux, and directed by Tracy Keenan Wynn.
Development
By the early 1970s Mimieux was well established as an actor but was unhappy with the roles offered to female actors. "The women they [male screenwriters] write are all one dimensional," she said. "They have no complexity in their lives. It's all surface. There's nothing to play. They're either sex objects or vanilla pudding."Yvette Mimieux's Right for This Role Los Angeles Times 7 Oct 1974: e17.Mimieux had been writing for several years prior to this film, mostly journalism and short stories. She had the idea for a story about a Pirandello-like theme, "the study of a woman, the difference between what she appears to be and what she is: appearance vs reality." Mimieux says the more she thought about the character "the more I wanted to play her. Here was the kind of nifty, multifaceted part I'd been looking for. So instead of a short story, I wrote it as a film."
She wrote a thriller called 'Counterpoint' about a female killer who used her attractive appearance to get close to her victims. She said the character was "not... a good housewife or sex object. The character I wrote is like an onion, layers upon layers, multi-facted, interesting, desirable, manipulative... It's about what people are saying to each other and what they mean."Meet a Renaissance glamour girl: Digging Yucatan Private 'I have always been liberated'
By Nora E. Taylor. The Christian Science Monitor 1 June 1972: 10.
Mimieux had appeared in two TV movies, 'Black Noon' and 'Death Takes a Holiday', so took her script to producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg who submitted it to ABC as a TV movie. The network wanted some changes. "I created a totally amoral creature who killed people like you'd swat a fly, with no remorse, no regret," said Mimieux. "That was a little too strong for the network. So they made me soften her." They also insisted the script be retitled from 'Counterpoint' to 'Hit Lady'.
Tracy Keenan Wynn was the son of Keenan Wynn and grandson of Ed Wynn. He had developed a strong reputation as a screenwriter, his credits including 'The Longest Yard', 'The Glass House' and 'The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman'. This allowed him to make his directorial debut with this film. His father Keenan made a cameo appearance as he wanted to be the first actor ever directed by his son. (It would be the only film he ever directed.)Tempo/TV-Radio: Hang on there, Clint Eastwood!
Norma Lee Browning. Chicago Tribune 18 Sep 1974: c13.
Broadcast and reception
'Hit Lady' first aired on ABC on October 8, 1974 as part of its ABC Movie of the Week anthology series. It was one of the highest-rated and most talked about TV movies of 1974.
The 'Los Angeles Times' called it a "tightly structured, richly textured melodrama".Yvette as Gunperson in 'Hit Lady' on ABC
Smith, Cecil. Los Angeles Times 08 Oct 1974: e12.
The movie was repeated in June 1975.YVETTE'S 'HIT LADY' TO STRIKE AGAIN
Los Angeles Times 15 June 1975: o5.
References
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