An ex-coffee salesman, Rosen, strenuously tries to help a young mother whose husband has died. He is not in love with her, or lusting for her, he wants only to help her; but the financially sinking woman keeps refusing.

This is what “Take Pity” chronicles. It’s a Bernard Malamud short story, so the characters are Jewish. And they aren’t happy. The woman is refusing to accept the norms of society and the Jewish community. She is unwise, but another fait accompli in the story is that a particular man ceases to be an angel, so to speak, and turns into a devil. In Malamud, Jews let down other Jews. The woman, I say again, is unwise. Rosen becomes worse.

The ten pages here are tough and crisp and fascinating.

Babygirl (2024), by director-writer Halina Reijn, concerns the female CEO of an automaton, or robotics, company and the sexually perverted affair she enters into. I agree with Kyle Smith that Nicole Kidman‘s Romy, the CEO, is like the “fully realized character from a literary novel or a memoir.” She is married with two daughters, and her dalliance is with a young male company intern, Samuel (Harris Dickinson).

Though not without banality, the screenplay is sharp and probing and weird. It’s weird because of Samuel’s kinkiness but also such details as Romy’s young daughter dancing the tarantella—and being named Nora (like the wife in Ibsen’s A Doll House). Too, it is non-woke.

The three main actors—Kidman, Dickinson, and Antonio Banderas—never make a misstep, which is a very big deal in Kidman’s case since the role is certifiably difficult. Not that the men’s roles are easy, though.

Blake Edwards‘s Experiment in Terror (1962) is about a bank teller (Lee Remick) forced by a murderer to rob her place of employment. A vivid thriller, it is very much a police drama—with Glenn Ford‘s John Ripley on the case—which somewhat anticipates Klute, The French Connection and Dirty Harry. Edwards did some admirable directing here and got some scary lighting from cinematographer Philip Lathrop. There is beauty (and decent acting) from Remick, sexiness from Stefani Powers as the bank teller’s younger sister.

In the 1977 Fun with Dick and Jane: “When a successful, middle-class couple finds themselves unemployed and in debt, they turn to armed robbery in desperation” (imdb.com).

Virtually the only reason I watched this comic film was to check out Jane Fonda‘s usually excellent acting. And excellent it is, though that of George Segal is also very effective. Both actors are terrifically grounded. However, three screenwriters —especially Jerry Belson, who penned Michael Ritchie’s Smile—should have engendered a sturdier script. I don’t like the movie’s loose morality, but it’s nearly irrelevant in light of the screenplay’s thorough self-destruction. Although it has its moments, it’s a movie of much hokum and, for bad measure, no personal vision. Director Ted Kotcheff is not known for the latter. But Belson provided it in Smile.