May 19, 1992

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Amy Fisher's shooting Mary Jo Buttafuoco. For those who don't remember, Fisher, dubbed the "Long Island Lolita", was a 16-year-old who met auto body shop owner Joey Buttafuoco and began an afair with him that resulted in the shooting of Joey's wife.

Now, I was thinking about which old movie comes closest to the events in the sordid Fisher tale. Of course Fisher was referred to as the "Long Island Lolita" based on the Nabokov book and later movie, but Lolita doesn't shoot Mrs. Humbert or anybody else if memory serves.

Gene Tierney lets Cornel Wilde's kid brother die in Leave Her to Heaven, andn even goes so far as to kill herself and put the blame on her sister (Jeanne Crain) when that sister is found to be in love with the Wilde character. I suppose it's a bit of a reverse of the mistress trying to kill the wife.

Another woman got in the way of Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins in Pretty Poison, but that woman was Weld's mother, not Perkins' wife. Still, Pretty Poison is worth another watch, or a first if you've never seen it before.

Imitation of Life would have been much more interesting if Sandra Dee had tried to kill Lana Turner and run off with John Gavin. And in similar family shootings, there's Where Love Has Gone with Joey Heatherton killing her mother's new boyfriend. But that's a replay of Lana Turner/Joey Stompinato, and not Amy Fisher.

Ah yes, there's also Dead Ringer, in which Bette Davis kills the wife of her former lover, the wife also being played by Bette Davis. But in that one, the husband has already died.

Any other good ideas? There's gotta be a lot of them in noir.