Review: 'The Victim' Only Succeeds Thanks to a Committed Performance by Elizabeth Montgomery

Elizabeth Montgomery is best known for her eight-season stint portraying a housewife who's also a witch on the popular situation comedy "Bewitched" (1964-1972).

ABC had renewed the show for two more seasons, but Montgomery and her producer/husband William Asher were in the midst of a divorce, so she walked away, more than likely looking for projects with a bit more gravitas. She would go on to Emmy-nominated roles in "A Case of Rape" and "The Legend of Lizzie Borden."

But first, in 1973, she chose to do "The Victim," a fairly standard TV-movie thriller with so much filler that nothing really happens in the first two-thirds but a lot of phone calls, driving, and running around – oh, and an off-camera murder!

Montgomery plays Kate, a well-off gal who drives to her sister Susan's (Jess Walton) remote house after an off-putting phone call where Susan explains that she asked her husband for a divorce the night before. Upon arrival, there is no sign of Susan, but Kate does find her nasty and bitter housekeeper, Mrs. Hawkes ("Butterflies are Free"'s Eileen Heckart, having a grand Bette Davis-like time being pushy and mean). She is suspect number one. Once Kate is in the basement to turn the furnace on, the camera finds Susan's corpse, B-movie style – just so we know she's dead.

Suddenly, and finally, to breathe some life into the stilted story, George Maharis arrives as the greedy husband, and some decent scenes between he and Montgomery play out. He is suspect number two. Yeah, that's pretty much it, unless you want to count Susan's chatty friend, played by Sue Ane Langdon.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who killed Susan.

Directed as if he's on vacation by Herschel Daugherty and written by Merwin Gerard with the same laziness as he penned "The Screaming Woman," "The Victim" only succeeds thanks to a committed performance by Elizabeth Montgomery. She keeps us interested even when we shouldn't be. And she knows how to scream (as opposed to Pretty Peggy, but that's another review).

Again, kudos to Kino Classics for a fab restoration. Video and audio quality are top-notch. Anyone who saw these TV movies in reruns know just how bad they'd disintegrated. These releases look pristine.

Film historian and author Amanda Reyes offers an exceptional audio commentary.

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