Illustration : Unknown

The Deadly Affair
 

Murray Markowitz | Canada | 1978

Canada, July 18th 1973: Christine Demeter, the fashion model wife of Hungarian émigré and successful land developer Peter Demeter, is found bludgeoned to death in the garage of the family home in Mississauga, Ontario. After an 11-week long trial, Demeter is convicted of his wife’s murder — following rumours he hired Imre Olejnyik, a Hungarian underworld criminal also known as “The Duck”, to murder Christine. A heinous act which was hatched to snare a $1,000,000 life insurance policy, paid in the event of her untimely demise...

Canadian director Murray Markowitz, no stranger to directing true-life crime — specifically after his earlier Recommendation for Mercy (1975), paints the Demeters' story with an opaque cinematographic palette, punctuating the soap opera-like story with sporadic pockets of rabid sleaze and violence. An immediate post credit disclaimer informs that “the circumstances and characters have been deliberately and extensively altered”, but the film follows the details of the case so closely (even replicating the style of spectacles worn by Demeter), that this statement is merely redundant. This represented the last film from Markowitz to date.

Addressing the crime literally(!) head on, the film opens with the jaw-dropping, brutal and bloody murder of Christine Demeter — here, deviating from the actual case by being re-named Magdalene Kruschen (German actress Elke Sommer). The murderer is explicitly revealed to be one John MacGregor (Miguel Fernández; Ghost Story), an escaped criminally insane mental patient.

Via the narrative of flashbacks, from the courtroom where the bespectacled Charles Kruschen (Donald Pilon; The Pyx) stands trial, the squalid drama portrays a tawdry group of protangonists dripping with manipulation, greed, jealousy and infidelity.

As the story unravels to its murderous conclusion, we learn that Charles and Magdalene’s unhappy marriage was so bitter that the acrimonious pair considered murdering one another: Charles conspired with photographer friend and ex-lover of Magdalene, Gershen Isen (Chuck Shamata), while his coquettish wife hired a tough boxer to beat Charles to death for $10,000. Contrastingly however, as shown in the film’s explicit opening, Magdalene is the one who pays the ultimate price.

 

Intercity Video of Coventry gambled on Markowitz's film with their slightly cut release on home video in April 1982.  It might possibly have remained fairly low key, were it not for gaining the attention of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who placed it on their list of offending titles in August 1984. It didn't last long on the list, subsequently being dropped two months late in October. 

Ironically, a month previous to the film's placement on the DPP list, Videoform had already managed to re-release the feature as Drop Dead Dearest, but with an ‘18’ certificate from the BBFC and 1m 06s of additional forced cuts as extra baggage (removed was a shot of Magdalene's head bleeding profusely after the opening assault, scenes of her being beaten over the head — as featured in courtroom flashbacks whilst the verdict is being delivered, and the elimination of an unconscious sixteen-year-old girl being raped by MacGregor).

The rarest, most obscure and final video release belonged to Alan Welch's Paragon Communications, whose films were distributed by Polygram Records after forging a three year distribution deal. Again re-titled, this time as The Deadly Affair, this version is identical to the censored Videoform release — despite not having a record in the BBFC database.
      

aka : I Miss You, Hugs & Kisses; Drop Dead Dearest; Left For Dead

cast : Elke Sommer, Donald Pilon, Chuck Shamata, George Touliatos, Cindy Girling, George Chuvalo, Cec Linder, Richard Davidson, Miguel Fernandes, Michele Fansett, Corinna Carlson, Linda Sorensen, Susan Hogan, Larry Solway, Ned Conlon, Henry Cohen, Bill Walker, Lawrence Elion