Trashy movies can be a lot of fun to watch: often times they're so bad that they're unintentially funny. It was with that in mind that I went into my viewing of The Betsy. It's based on a novel by Harold Robbins who was famous for writing this sort of trashy material, so knowing that you should know what you're getting yourself into.
The movie starts with a young Tommy Lee Jones. He plays Angelo Perino, a race car driver on what would be the IndyCar circuit, although I'm not quite certain if they referred to it that way back in the 1970s. At his latest race out in California, he loses control of his car and suffers an accident that looks nasty and is bad enough to have him wind up in hospital, but not so nasty that he winds up crippled or brain-damaged or anything like that. But on getting out of the hospital, he's met by young Betsy Hardeman (Kathleen Beller). Betsy and her great-grandfather Loren Sr. (Laurence Olivier) had been watching the race and are fans of Angelo for various reasons. Indeed, Betsy came out to California to bring Angelo to Loren Sr.
Loren Sr. now lives in Florida, where he's been tinkering on engine designs. Back in the day, he was the founder and president of the Bethlehem Car Company. This being the 1970s, the company is beginning to fall on hard times, especially since it's not one of the Big Three automakers. As we'll see in a later scene, Loren's grandson Loren III (Robert Duvall), now the president, has been branching out into all sorts of consumer goods. But back to that tinkering, it's really more than tinkering. In part because of the oil shock of 1973 and in part because of people like Ralph Nader, the American auto industry is in trouble while the government is threatening to put onerous regulations on what sorts of cars should be built and sold in the US. Loren Sr.'s tinkering has resulted in an enging that can supposedly get 60 miles to the gallon and be in a safe compact car. But he needs someone who can get the car built without attracting the notice of Loren III, which is where Angelo comes in. Loren Sr. is going to claim to use some of his own personal fortune to have the Bethlehem Car name put on a race car, which is why Angelo will be working for the company. In secret, of course, he's going to be working on the concept car, named the Betsy after the great-granddaughter.
In and among this, we learn how the family and company have wound up the way they have and why Loren III seems to care more about the divisions of the company other than the automotive division. A series of flashbacks take us to 1931, the day that Loren Jr. (the original Paul Rudd, not the one in films like The Cider House Rules and others) got married. Loren Sr.'s wife goes upstairs to look for him at the reception, and finds him having sex with one of the maids! And it's not the only affair Loren Sr. is going to have along the way, includng one that's much more "shocking", if you will. Loren Jr. has his own problems, climaxing in the great auto strike of 1936 which Loren Sr. only learns about when he returns from a long European vacation.
In the present day, Loren Sr. and Angelo learn that Loren III is spying on them and actively trying to get the Betsy nixed, in part because of Loren III's feelings for his own grandfather. Loren III (Betsy's father) is having an affair with a British noble, Lady Ayres (Lesley-Anne Down), whom Angelo also beds, which certainly complicates matters. Further complicating things is that Betsy clearly has a crush on Angelo, who is happy to reciprocate since it means more sex. But will the Betsy ever get build and sold on the consumer market?
As you can tell from all the sex scenes I mentioned, The Betsy is certainly trashy. Unfortunately, it's not quite as garish as some of the other great trashy works of previous decades, like Valley of the Dolls. Instead, The Betsy has a decidedly 1970s esthetic with pastels, gauzy focus, and interminable slow zoom-ins. It takes the movie from being a really fun bad to one that's more of a bit of work to get through, which is a shame, because the material has the potential to be unbelievably terrible.
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