I first saw this TV movie in the mid 90's and i was just shocked to hear that this was a true story, tough i had heard of Roman Polinski and seen some of his films,I did'nt know that his wife had been killed with such brutality and viciousness. The scene with Susan "Sadie" Atkins where she's bragging about the murders to her jailhouse friend, I just could not get it out of my head, she was so f***** up, this was just so freaky. This got my interest in the Manson family and the Tate-Labianca murders started and I've seen the film 3-4 times since then. But there were just so many things unanswered so i bought the book which goes a lot deeper into this very complex case and is a lot better than the film, which is usually the case when films are made after a book. The movie does a pretty good job getting in the enormous amount of material but a lot of things got left out. The murders are not played out, the film starts the morning after which i think is very effective. But the victims are totally ignored and their families and we don't go very deep into the "family" I would have like'd to see more dept in the characters of Manson and the girls and we hardly see Tex Watson, some scenes are are almost silly and not all the acting is good but i think Steve Railsback who plays Manson is very convincing, you really buy that he is manson and Nancy Wolfe who is Susan Atkins is just great, a total sicko. What irritates me a lot in this film is the look of it is sooooo dated, very bad late 70's style with ratty hair and terrible clothes but in reality this happened in the late 60's, i would have like'd to see them get the look right ( that went dead wrong in the new re-make also). I would also have like'd to see more people and spectators in the courtroom scenes, this was the trial of the century with a crowded courtroom but in the film we see Bugliosi's wife and a few other people, there are many little things like that i dislike about the film cause they could have done this a lot better. But most of the courtroom drama is pretty well played out. This movie is far from being perfect but i think it does a very good job considering that it's a TV movie from 1976 and they did a good job keeping to the facts of the book. But this great but sad story has yet too be produced for the big screen and i think with the right director and the right approach it could be a great movie but it's also easy to f,,, it up. In the meantime we have this production from'76 and the new 2004 version directed by John Gray,"Manson" a documentary which gets very close to the truth and we have the ultra violent and gory Jim Van Bebbers "The Manson Family".
I would recommend too watch all these if you are interested in this case..........have fun
I would recommend too watch all these if you are interested in this case..........have fun