1970 Directed by Otto Preminger
Junie Moon is in the hospital after her face has been disfigured by her deranged boyfriend. There she meets two other patients — Arthur, an epileptic, and Warren, who is gay and uses a wheelchair. The unlikely trio of outcasts decides to move in together and manages to enjoy a series of adventures as they endure various forms of prejudice and struggle with their own issues.
Dimmi che mi ami, Junie Moon, Dis-moi que tu m'aimes, Junie Moon, Dime que me amas, Junie Moon, Скажи что ты любишь меня, Джуни Мун, Powiedz, że mnie kochasz, Junie Moon
USAPG
USA
A time capsule distinguished by its utter strangeness. Here’s the setup: A kooky woman with severe facial scarring; a flamboyant gay guy in a wheelchair; and a strapping, blonde, all-American, epileptic survivor of child abuse leave the hospital and rent a ramshackle house together.
The film gets into issues of shame, marginalization, self-love, trauma, and reinvention. The blonde, Arthur, has nightmarish flashbacks of being serially assaulted by gray-skinned children. The sequence depicting Junie’s scarring is truly harrowing; it’s not particularly graphic, but it convincingly progresses from ordinary to garden-variety creepy to full-on seething misogyny. (The writer was a social worker in NYC, and it’s easy to believe that she based that part on real events.)
But outside of that, the…
I like that Otto Preminger is perverse enough artist Tell Me Thart You Love Me, Julie Moon is his idea of youth movie. Like most of his late work, drama is treated in big melodramatic terms, while the surface counters it with a lot of realistic detail. Unlike most of those, this one dos seem less interest in harmonizing its elements or push them in one of the directions than make the crash uncomfortable. There are some very goods bits throughout and most of the cast is quite strong although Ken Howard is a bit lost. It is cruel and curious, a very sealed object, probably for Preminger heads only, but the best parts are more than worth it.
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It's rare for me to see a director so thoroughly torpedo a movie with such promising characters and story material with their own horrible production and directing choices like Otto Preminger did here with this film.
Junie Moon is a slice of life film about three misfits, all disabled or outcast in their own ways who bond with each other and find their way through life together. Liza Minnelli, Robert Moore, and Ken Howard are all great in their roles, as is James Coco as a sympathetic shopowner. The characters are so warm and fun to see and watch a film about, but it's the film around them that fails them.
This may be the worst sounding movie I've ever…
lovely movie with interesting characters, sad that i'm apparently the only person who likes it
A very poorly made film that's somehow enjoyable to watch thanks to the cast and (most of) the script. By the second half I was really enjoying this "Island of Misfit Toys" story that teeters on the line between regressive/progressive. Has some surprising moments of sexual fluidity and acceptance that still feels relevant today. But WTF was with that ending. 🦉
seventy percent basic sixventies schlock and thirty percent cavalcade of bad taste (not in the john waters sense, more in the book of henry sense). the “come again?” factor is high throughout, but it never reaches the lulu heights of liza’s opening flashback, a genuinely disturbing vignette most memorable for featuring what i can only describe as “non-diegetic free jazz masturbation drums.” the second big flashback setpiece defies description, but i can tell you that it’s incited after a friendly italian fishmonger is compelled to look up the word “sodomite” in the dictionary. the last act is basically an episode of the love boat, wherein a young and beatific fred williamson cures a young man’s homosexuality by hooking him up with a poetry-loving beach bunny. just about the goddamndest thing i’ve ever seen. otto preminger was one crazy cat!
A clumsy mix of message movie and mismatch comedy. Its progressive themes of sexuality, psychological trauma and social acceptance are easily balanced out by heavy-handed symbolism and shallow characterisations. Veering wildly from kitchen-sink drama to surrealism, the film never really finds its narrative feet and wanders at length, before finally grasping for profundity in its crushingly predictable closing scenes.
Yet, there's something in its naivety and wilful abandon that I found refreshing and certainly compelling, though maybe more out of bewildered fascination than anything. A shame, because it comes dangerous close to being truly captivating for the right reasons.
Otto Preminger a visiblement bien profité des années 60 pour arriver avec un film aussi bizarre et décousu. Fidèle à lui-même, il traite de sujets rarement abordés pour l'époque avec trois protagonistes attachants dans plusieurs situations loufoques. Heureusement, la solide distribution nous fait oublier quelques-unes des nombreuses longueurs qui semblaient être inévitables dans les drames des années 70. 🦉
Former patients leave a hospital and rent a place where they can emotionally support one another in TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON. The film is a meandering, yet affectionate story of what these social cast-offs do to survive in a society that is mostly antagonistic toward them.
Once more, Liza Minnelli turns in a solid performance. Robert Moore as the wheelchair-bound Warren has most of the good lines. Ken Howard as Arthur, a man prone to seizures, is probably the most empathetic ... although I often felt his “acting technique” being put on display.
The Director is Otto Preminger, and TELL ME THAT YOU LOVE ME, JUNIE MOON is quite a departure from…
Half dated misunderstanding of mental illness and half beautiful character study of three lost souls coming together (four if you include a wonderfully touching James Coco). The acting here is solid, although Otto Preminger's stodgy attempts at being modern get in the way (why is Pete Seeger wandering through the forest singing?). It makes you wish that Liza had a longer film career, or that Ken Howard and Robert Moore had become the stars they should have been.
A friendship movie starring Liza Minnelli as a young woman in need of excitement with the various men she dates...she finds one seemingly harmless guy but he has a sickening idea of what excitement is to him. She gets acquainted with two other co-patients Ken Howard, Robert Moore and they decide to live together under one roof with each trying to deal and cope with their inflictions.
The films story evolves organically..you’re just waiting for something happen...of course there’s humor injected in the dialogue, which in most drama’s isn’t a bad thing. Along the way they get acquainted with some good folks...James Coco as the sympathetic fish market owner, Kay Thompson as the eccentric landlady who resides in a castle, Anne Revere…
Objectively, this sure ain't too good, but I'll be damned if I didn't really quite enjoy the experience (for the most part). The whole thing is kind of bonkers. Starts out with some really ill-earned violence that makes no sense other than to kickstart the story. Preminger is no closer to understanding the youth culture here than he was in "Skidoo." He is just so far out of his element that it becomes giggly fun to watch him falter. I find Liza Minnelli quite affecting here and doesn't let her obtrusive face make up take over her performance. The stereotypes fly fast and free here and it all plays somewhat like a message movie with an abundance of wacky hijinks thrown in. Could be a TV movie except for a few swears and boobies and adult situations. Look, it's a mess, but I liked it! No matter what, Preminger does have a way, even this late in the game.
