That queen of long suffering scheming and melodrama only has one goal in this soapy lifetime movie, to protect her daughter by getting away from her megalomaniac violent husband, and if she has to stoop to manipulation to get someone to kill him, well...a girl's gotta do what a girl's got to do. Susan Lucci, "All My Nominations", is sincere and convincingly delivers her lines, but she's still playing a variation of Erica Kane, a fun part for sure, but derivative and predictable. John O'Hurley went from soap hopping character actor game show host, returning to acting with such roles as the abusive husband of Lucci who will stop at nothing to keep her under his thumb, well, until he goes too far.
Stage and TV actor Philip Casnoff (once an "Edge of Night" D. A./TV's "Sinatra") is Lucci's lover who has allegedly hired a hitman to take O'Hurley out, and to bring this uniting of soap actors full circle Kamar De Los Reyes ("One Life to Live") is the defense attorney whom Lucci hires to represent Casnoff. Lucci isn't a one dimensional character as her love for her daughter is genuine and unselfish, although she eggs her husband on needlessly, spending his money obsessively and even tossing it in his face. It's fun to watch Lucci's scheming get out of control, eventually leading her into a sensual liason with De Los Reyes, getting more careless.
Lucci is a great femme fatale in this (Erica was never this deadly), as amoral as those 40's vixens played by the likes of Stanwyck, Luling, Turner and Greer, and achieves what she set out to accomplish. Certainly not fully realistic, but like a good dime store crime novel, fun to watch unfold. The daughter never seems to grieve for her father and is far too accepting of the line of step daddies and lovers in her mother's life. Beautiful sets and costumes accompanied by tight editing, decent photography and chilling music makes this one of the better Lifetime films of the 90's.
Stage and TV actor Philip Casnoff (once an "Edge of Night" D. A./TV's "Sinatra") is Lucci's lover who has allegedly hired a hitman to take O'Hurley out, and to bring this uniting of soap actors full circle Kamar De Los Reyes ("One Life to Live") is the defense attorney whom Lucci hires to represent Casnoff. Lucci isn't a one dimensional character as her love for her daughter is genuine and unselfish, although she eggs her husband on needlessly, spending his money obsessively and even tossing it in his face. It's fun to watch Lucci's scheming get out of control, eventually leading her into a sensual liason with De Los Reyes, getting more careless.
Lucci is a great femme fatale in this (Erica was never this deadly), as amoral as those 40's vixens played by the likes of Stanwyck, Luling, Turner and Greer, and achieves what she set out to accomplish. Certainly not fully realistic, but like a good dime store crime novel, fun to watch unfold. The daughter never seems to grieve for her father and is far too accepting of the line of step daddies and lovers in her mother's life. Beautiful sets and costumes accompanied by tight editing, decent photography and chilling music makes this one of the better Lifetime films of the 90's.