Pretty Poison (Cinema Cult Series)
Pretty Poison (1968) is a psychological thriller directed by Noel Black, starring Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld, about an ex-convict and high school cheerleader who commit a series of crimes.
Newly released from a mental institution, arsonist Dennis Pitt (Anthony Perkins), seeks a new life for himself in a charming Massachusetts town. And when he meets Sue Ann Stepanek (Tuesday Weld), a beautiful all-American cheerleader, he decides to impress her by posing as a CIA agent. His false persona is seductive to Sue Ann, and in fact, her innocence begins to fade as she becomes more and more enthralled with Pitt's tales of violence.
Ultimately, the cheerleader and the ex-convict become a duo capable of doing anything to get what they want ? even murder ? in this exciting psychological drama with exceptional acting and an explosive ending you won't want to miss!
Critic Reviews:
- " This gleefully macabre tale of crime and, or maybe without, punishment is less a tale of lovers on the run than of lovers running in vicious circles and kicking up a storm of history that may never have settled down. " – Richard Brody
- " The film is strongest when focusing on the two perfect-foil leads as they blissfully indulge paranoid fantasies about poison in the local water supply and plot covert counterespionage operations. " – Keith Uhlich
- " Like any good study in couple's psychopathology, a familiar relationship is visible here, but in a parodic, mutated form. " – Nick Pinkerton