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In the early 1950s, Martha Beck, who lives with her slightly senile mother, is the head nurse in a Mobile, Alabama hospital. She is bitter about her life, she not having male companionship in large part because she is overweight, while her bitterness in turn does not endear her to people. She is initially angry with her best friend, Bunny, for signing her up to a lonely hearts club, but eventually decides to give it a try. Through it, she meets Ray Fernandez, a suave Spanish immigrant living in New York, he who contacted Martha as the first through the club. After Rays trip to Mobile to meet Martha, they fall in love. Upon a subsequent visit Martha makes to Ray in New York - which leads to her being fired in part for her time off work - he decides to be up front with her: that she is not only not his "first" but that he is really a con man who, primarily through the club, seduces then bilks lonely women of their money. Pretending to be his sister to prospective targets, Martha decides to join Ray on his cons as they travel the country together. Their differences in style causes problems, Martha who is more direct, more impatient and more violent, she who is the first to consider killing to get what they want. But what has the potential to be the primary cause of their downfall is Marthas jealousy over Ray even pretending to seduce other women, let alone any time he may have sex with them.
Based on the true story of Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck, who met through a lonely-hearts correspondence club. Ray is weedy, feral, and untrustworthy; Martha is enormous, compulsive, and needy. Together, they play out a horrifying scheme in which he lures lonely women out on dates and proposes marriage to them, with her pretending to be his sister. They take the womens savings and then murder them remorselessly. Dank, claustrophobic, and weirdly engrossing, this movie never quite gives in to the comforts of conventional narrative. Francois Truffaut named it as his favorite American film.
Shirley Stoler
Martha Beck
Tony Lo Bianco
Ray Fernandez
Mary Jane Higby
Janet Fay
Doris Roberts
Bunny
Kip McArdle
Delphine Downing
Marilyn Chris
Myrtle Young
Dortha Duckworth
Mrs. Beck - Martha's Mother
Barbara Cason
Evelyn Long
Ann Harris
Doris
Mary Breen
Rainelle Downing
Elsa Raven
Matron
Mary Engel
Lucy
Guy Sorel
Mr. Dranoff
Michael Haley
Jackson
Diane Asselin
Severns
William Adams
Justice of the Peace
Eleanor Adams
Mrs. Hand
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