Dying to Love You

"Dying to Love You" is based on a true crime story that happened in the early 1990s, in the Washington, DC suburbs. The film's story line is faithful to actual events, as published in a paperback book on the crime, "Deadly White Female" (1994).

The real Lisa Rohn was born Lisa Ann Miller in northern California. Raised in a trailer park-resident dysfunctional family, she married at 16 to a sailor, Steven Rohn. When the marriage fell apart, she drifted into prostitution, and accumulated a string of arrests in the San Francisco area. While working the streets, she learned to steal everything from money to credit cards from her clients. Ultimately, she headed east with a partner in crime, Raymond Huberts, and the two ran a very successful identity-theft and credit fraud scheme.

When Huberts got caught, Lisa was on her own. She took a job using one of her favorite aliases - Johnnie Elaine Miller, which happened to be the name of an older sister who had died in an accidental shooting in 1983 (believed by friends to have been a suicide).

It is here that the movie begins. Rohn, aka "Elaine," had developed a keen ability to recognize and exploit vulnerable men, and when she answered an ad placed by Roger Paulsen in the Washingtonian magazine, she knew she had found her mark.

The movie is an accurate re-telling of real events - if anything, it understates both Paulson's naivete and unscrupulousness of Rohn.

The acting is good, and the story well-written, making this one of the better made-for-TV movies. Actress Tracy Pollan, who plays Rohn in the movie, told the Los Angeles times that the film should make people "think twice" before answering personals.

add a vulnerable divorcée (Tim Matheson) and you have this story; the true story is based on Lisa Ann Rohne, who grew up poor, transient, and ran a ring of deception around Roger Paulson (Matheson).

Overall, this is a good suspense story, although the naiveté of the victim a bit hard to believe. Tracy Pollan is very good as Rohne, who meets the Matheson character through personal ads. (Today it would be online dating, and we now have true crime based on that as well).

It is very interesting to watch, in that Pollan consistently lies and manipulates Paulson, resides at his home and uses him to set up shop for her partner's credit card fraud, among other things. There are also supporting roles with Christine Ebersole, and Lee Garlington, who is excellent as Rita, Paulson's friend who suspects trouble.

The issue of sociopathic behaviour is interesting, in general, and it would have been worthwhile for the writers to have explored Rohne's motivations, background, etc. Given the situation with online dating today, this is clearly a subject which merits more analysis, and we will certainly be hearing more about, in today's headlines. 9/10.

Okay, so this was made way back in 1993. Directed loosely by Robert Iscove and written loosely by John Miglis, it's supposed to be based on a true story. Hard to believe anyone could be so stupid and blind to the truth. For certainly it was obvious from the beginning that this dame was after all she could get.

Tim Matheson, looking somewhat older than I remember him, played the empty headed man who was looking for romance in his somewhat dull and empty life. Well, it came to him in the likes of Tracy Pollan, a somewhat vacant looking girl with kinky sex as her means of conquering her guys.

Come on, phone sex, even in the 90s was old hat. Can't believe someone would fall for that old line. But Mr. Matheson seemed to buy it. And it cost him plenty.

The hardest scene to take was when he finally threw the dame out of his apartment, putting all her junk in the hallway (IN FRONT OF HIS APARTMENT) and then had the stupidity not to change the locks. That's when I had enough of this trite movie. It made me want to wish the dame had tried it on me so I could have the satisfaction of telling her to take a hike.

I give this chestnut a 1 out of 100. That's how bad I thought it was. I guess you can't blame the actors. But they were awful. Did they actually try to play this with a straight face?

Today's pulp novels seem to be ubiquitous, toss-it-out & forget about them TV movies. "Dying to Love You" is equivalent to the best pulp novels of the 40s & 50s by people like James M. Cain, Jim Thompson, David Goodis, Patricia Highsmith, Dorothy Hughes, Cornell Woolrich, etc. No great melodramatics, no deep message, no glamorous hero or romantic heroine. Just a gritty, menacing & very scary story right out of today's (& yesterday's & tomorrow's) headlines. Very well made, very well cast & as sweaty & nerve-wracking a 90 minutes or so as I ever want to spend watching the screen. Kudos to all involved!

Not a well-made film, this made-for-TV movie will finally answer the question, "What does Michael J. Fox see in Tracy Pollan?".

Perfect cure for the "I've got the 4 a.m. insomnia blues". Otherwise, don't fail to miss it.