As a fan of bad movies I finally found a copy of The Betsy on DVD, and I have to say I totally agree for once about the rating it has on IMDB at the moment. I have a failing for large casts of has-beens and never-weres together in forgotten and forgettable films that cost a fortune to make but didn't get an audience running to see them as maybe they should have, but then none of us is perfect.
To start with, the script is atrocious, when you consider the film was based on a novel, maybe not a very good one but you would think it made the writers job a little easier. I don't have the patience of a saint and found this intergenerational story impossible to follow. For most of the movies running time for example I was mystified as to the role Katherine Ross is supposed to be playing. There's nothing wrong with her performance but with generations of this rich family running around doing not much of anything but talk, it definitely gets confusing about who is supposed to be who.
What also mystified me was the lack of thought behind giving so many interesting performers such small parts, and the leading roles to youngsters who were so bland and uninteresting. I refer to Tommy Lee Jones and Kathleen Beller who have a romance of sorts but share zero charisma when they are actually together. Joseph Wiseman is not a household name perhaps, but his part is miniscule, while Laurence Olivier gives a hammy performance, maybe out of shame that he ever got involved in a project so obviously beneath him.
Apart from the obvious camp appeal of The Betsy, it never made any waves of significance and really should consider itself lucky to be remembered at all by fans like me and other fools for big talented wasted casts, overinflated budgets and dud writing.
