BY BRIAN GREENE
Think
of Linda Blair acting in the 1970s, and the ’73 horror classic The Exorcist
will likely be the first film that comes to your mind. But while there’s ample
reason for that movie to stand out as it does, Blair put on an equally
memorable performance – albeit in a completely different type of movie – in
1974’s made-for-TV feature Born Innocent. In that release, which has the feel of an especially harsh ABC
Afterschool Special, Blair plays an average, highly likable teenage kid who
becomes estranged from her worthless parents and winds up in a rough juvenile
detention facility, following some runaway attempts. Born Innocent can be
lumped in with the “babes behind bars†exploitation subcategory of films, but
there’s nothing campy about the TV movie. It’s downbeat, super realistic, and
devastatingly sad.
Around
five months after Born Innocent originally aired on NBC, the network showed
Blair in a similar type of story, with their broadcast of Sarah T.-Portrait of
a Teenage Alcoholic, in February of ’75. Shout! Factory has just introduced a new
Blu-ray version of the film. Blair, who
turned 16 a few weeks before the movie reached households, plays the troubled
title character, Sarah Travis. Sarah is a lot like Blair’s character Chris
Parker from Born Innocent. She’s a normal, relatable, well-intentioned teenage
girl going through some rough times. Sarah’s parents divorced a few years
before the outset of the story, when her materialistically ambitious mother got
tired of her artistically inclined husband’s (played by Larry Hagman)
unreliable ways. The mother (Verna Bloom plays her) remarried a more stable,
financially healthy man (William Daniels), and the family - which includes
Sarah’s older, married sister – moves from San Francisco to an upscale
neighborhood in Southern California.
There
are some factors that differentiate Sarah Travis’s life predicaments from Chris
Parker’s. While Chris is (was, before being sent to the reform school) being
raised by a physically abusive father and an emotionally absent mother, Sarah’s
three parents are actually trying to be good to her. Her artsy dad doesn’t have
the wherewithal to be a provider to her, and he often leaves her disappointed
by not being available enough to her; but at least he loves her and sometimes
has fun with her. And while Sarah’s mom is a feminist’s nightmare whose answer
to every life problem is “I’ll let my husband decide what to do about that,â€
she means well in attempting to create a stable home environment for her
daughter. Ditto Sarah’s stepfather, who tries his best to connect with the girl
and see to her needs, without attempting to completely overtake the role of
father in her life. Also, Sarah has a love interest – a bright, sensitive guy
who is played by Mark Hamill, a couple years before Hamill’s breakthrough role
in Star Wars.
But
Sarah’s life is challenging for her, even if it’s not as seemingly hopeless as
Chris Parker’s situation. She misses her real dad and feels alienated by how
focused her mother is on social status, and how completely her mom defers to
her new husband in all matters. She’s had to change high schools, and faces the
same social pressures and anxiety any 15-year old would experience in having to
make that adjustment at such a psychologically volatile time in life. And while
the guy she likes enjoys her company and cares about her, he’s not ready to get
emotionally involved with her, the way she would like. All of this leads Sarah
to continually turn to alcohol, to “help me feel good.†What starts as an
occasional sneaky nip during a stressful moment, becomes a debilitating habit.
The
story of Sarah T. was written by the TV writing/producing husband and wife team
of Richard and Esther Shapiro, who are best known as the creators of Dynasty
and its spin-off series The Colbys. A novel based on the film, which shares its
title and plot elements, was written by author Robin S. Wagner and published as
a Doubleday paperback original a month after the movie aired on television. The
book is not something anyone needs to read if they’ve seen the film, and is
most memorable for its lurid cover image, that shows Sarah’s downcast face
superimposed over the contents of a pint of whiskey. The Sarah T. film was
directed by Richard Donner, whose other directorial efforts from the decade
include The Omen (’76) and Superman (’78).
While
Sarah T. has a little softer feel than that of Born Innocent, it is nonetheless
a hard-hitting drama about a serious crisis – teen alcoholism – and was daring
fare to present to television audiences in 1975. The Shapiros’ story is
compelling, and Donner ably brought it to fruition on the screen. Linda Blair
absolutely excels in her playing of Sarah Travis, just as she did in portraying
Chris Parker in Born Innocent. It’s interesting to see Larry Hagman in a role
that’s such a different kind of character than either Major Tony Nelson or J.R.
Ewing. William Daniels and Mark Hamill are excellent in supporting roles, and
the film’s second most powerful performance, behind only that of Blair’s, is by
Verna Bloom, who convincingly represents a complex character toward whom
viewers are likely to feel both dislike and sympathy.
Anyone
who's suffered through the blurry, choppy versions of Sarah T. that have been
posted to YouTube, will appreciate the superior visual quality of the Shout!
Factory version of the film. And the Blu-ray bonus features include a stills gallery and two new
interviews that, in different ways, enhance one's understanding and
appreciation of the movie. Linda Blair discusses her life as a teenage screen
star and what that was like when she was also trying to be a regular kid who
had aspirations outside of acting. And she reflects back on working with
Hagman, Bloom, and Hamill. In the other new piece, director Richard Bonner and
producer David Levinson sit together and shed light on how Sarah T. came
together, how they felt about it at the time and how they see it now, in
relation to their full careers. They both make it clear that the TV movie was
an extremely important and pride-inducing project for them, and that they still
hold it in high regard, as they should.
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