Jodie Foster

Smile, Jenny, You're Dead

Genre/Type:  Detective Film, Mystery
Artistic/ Production Styles:   Made for TV
Major Cast:   David Janssen, Andrea Marcovicci, John Anderson, Jodie Foster
Director:   Jerry Thorpe
Plot Summary: As a beachfront-living private investigator with a bullet still lodged in his back, David Janssen made a terrific, hard-bitten crime-fighter of the Old School (not quite Bogie, maybe a latter-day Dana Andrews). This pilot for his very successful TV series "Harry O" is mostly memorable though for young Jodie Foster, playing a pre-teen street urchin waiting for her shoplifting mother to get out of jail(the movie opens with a beautiful shot of Foster asleep on Janssen's boat, The Answer). Foster has all the film's best lines, and she reads them straight--without a hint of precociousness; just try finding a little actress today that can pull that off so nonchalantly (today's youngsters are TRAINED to be Jennifer Love Hewitt, which isn't progress). As a murder-mystery, the film lags a bit and as a film it certainly doesn't benefit from future-director Zalman King's unpleasant presence (he's like a second-rate Marjoe Gortner). But for Foster-philes it's a goldmine, and students of cinematography should ! study that amazing first shot. 'The Answer' indeed! -- summary written by moonspinner55