Martha Gehman

Through a beurocratic error, a beautiful coed is assigned to share a room with two guys in an all-male dorm at a large university. All three fall into an sexualised friendship that reveals three unrequited loves.

Jonathan Corliss murders his girlfriend Dorothy and moves onto her twin sister Ellen who grows suspicious of her new lover as he charms his way into their family and impresses their father Thor Carlsson. Based on Ira Levin's novel. Realising his secret girlfriend Dorothy's pregnancy will sour her relations with her ultra-rich father, career-minded Philadelphia student Jonathan Corliss coolly murders her, making it look like suicide. He then moves to New York to woo her twin sister Ellen. All seems to go well for him, although Ellen's continued investigations into what she is convinced was not a suicide forces him to kill again. —Jeremy Perkins {J-26} Dorothy Carlsson, the daughter of Thor Carlsson, a wealthy industrialist meets her boyfriend at City Hall to get married. But the office is closed so they go to the roof and that's when he kills her by pushing her off the roof. He sends a letter that sounds like she was thinking of committing suicide. And when her father and twin sister, Ellen arrive, all Thor can think of is their family's image but Ellen doesn't thinks she killed herself. And they learn she was pregnant. Ellen would go around trying to find out who got her pregnant but so far no one knows apparently her father was so overprotective he hired someone to keep an eye on her. They guy who killed her hits the road. A few years later Ellen goes to the school to talk to her boyfriend who claims that he's not the one who got her pregnant but thinks he knows who it is. He goes to his apartment to get a yearbook with the man's photo in it but as soon as he gets it the guy shows up and kills him and makes it look like a suicide. Ellen then goes home to her boyfriend, Jay who unbeknownst to her is the guy who killed her sister. —rcs0411@yahoo.com A rich young woman named Dorothy Carlsson is eager to marry her boyfriend Jay, but it is only a ruse because she is pregnant he is not too happy about it, and her father Thor Carlsson will disown her if he finds out. He kills Dorothy and stages her death to look like she jumped from the roof of the building. Meanwhile her twin sister Ellen, is the only one who believes that her sister did not commit suicide and she starts investigating her death. Ellen meets up with Dorothy's ex-boyfriend Tommy who says he knows the guy that she was dating. Unfortunately, Jonathan (the name he is using now), strangles him, and stages his death to look like a hanging. Jonathan murders Dorothy's college best friend Patricia when she too is about to spill the beans to Ellen. Meanwhile Ellen, is becoming suspicious of her now-husband and she's determined to find out who he really is before she becomes the next victim. . —charmardee-smith

The story opens at a fancy Manhattan restaurant where an elegantly dressed woman is enjoying a night out. As she and her companion enjoy a fine dinner, another man walks up to her with a submachine gun and begins blasting, killing several people. He confronts the woman last and shoots her dead over her pleas. Suddenly a voice yells "CUT!!" The restaurant is actually a movie set and the murdered woman, Ellen Keith (Diane Venora), pops up. The shooting was a illusion created by her boyfriend, Rollie Tyler (Bryan Brown) a visual effects wizard. Tyler, working with his assistant, Andy (Martha Gehman), is approached by a man claiming to be a producer who wants to hire Tyler for his next film. At Rollie's shop in SoHo, the producer, after being scared out of his wits by a giant rubber monster that Rollie has wired to his front door, reveals that he isn't actually in the movie business but is an agent working for the Justice Department named Lipton (Cliff De Young). He wants Rollie to work his expertise in creating the illusion that a mob boss, Nick DeFranco (Jerry Orbach), has been killed publicly. DeFranco is set to testify to a grand jury about the Mafia's inner dealings and Justice wants him to appear murdered until the jury hearing. Rollie is emphatically reluctant at first but when he meets with Lipton's boss, Mason (Mason Adams), he's baited into the job when they mention Rollie's biggest competitor in the business. Rollie decides to take the job. Lipton meets Rollie at his shop and is surprised when he finds Rollie pointing a gun at him. Rollie questions him in a rapid-fire manner and fires a shot with a blank cartridge. Lipton is angered by the exchange but backs off a bit when Rollie shows him how the illusion he'll use works on the monster rigged to his door. It involves a radio transmitter and explosive squibs to simulate bullet hits. Lipton is impressed. Lipton brings DeFranco by to have him rigged for the illusion: Rollie takes a plaster cast of DeFranco's upper chest and head and builds the plates necessary to place the squibs on the mob boss. Mason later meets with Rollie personally and asks him to be the trigger man since he knows the job and can work the equipment better than anyone else. Rollie becomes very reluctant but agrees with the promise that he'll be fully protected. Outside the restaurant where the assassination is planned, Rollie and Lipton get DeFranco ready. Rollie notices Lipton playing with the prop pistol and orders him to put it down. At first DeFranco is hesitant to try the radio box used to trigger the squibs because of his pacemaker but Rollie proves the amperage won't have an effect. DeFranco is sent out to the restaurant and Lipton has Rollie destroy the plaster casting of DeFranco's head. The assassination goes off perfectly and Rollie runs out of the place and jumps in a car with Lipton and a driver. After questioning Rollie about how the stunt went, he pulls a gun on Rollie, saying he's a loose end. Rollie grapples with Lipton and the car careens into a construction site and crashes. Rollie escapes to a pay phone a few blocks away and calls Mason. Mason tells Rollie that Lipton might be a mole they've been looking for. He tells Rollie to stay by the phone and that an NYPD car will pick him up. Rollie gives the phone booth to another person and hides nearby. When the cops show up they riddle the booth with bullets, killing the other caller. Rollie escapes again, going to Ellen's apartment in SoHo. He tries to figure out the turn of events and determines that Mason and Lipton will continue to hunt him. When he and Ellen wake up the next morning, she suggests he call the media. When she steps to the window and opens the curtain, she's immediately shot through the chest. Rollie looks for her killer with a compact mirror and then has to hide when he hears someone approaching the loft door. He surprises the assassin and manages to tie him up briefly. After he checks on Ellen, who's dead, he beats the assassin, demanding to know if he works for Mason. The assassin puts up a good fight but Rollie eventually knocks him cold with a steam iron and beats him to death. Before he leaves her loft, he takes Ellen's body and places it on her bed. The NYPD sends a homicide team to the apartment. One of them, Mickey (Joe Grifasi) calls another detective, Leo McCarthy (Brian Dennehy) to the scene. After getting some of the details, he reports to police plaza downtown and runs into Lt. Murdoch, who'd just had a meeting with Lipton and Mason about DeFranco's murder. Mason and Lipton had played up the angle that DeFranco had somehow slipped them to get to the restaurant. Though Mason gives Lipton and chewing out, it's a ruse designed to throw Murdoch off the trail. When Leo finds Murdoch, he offers to take the DeFranco murder off his hands -- previously, Leo had been the lead investigator who'd brought DeFranco in. Murdoch refuses to give up the case. Leo checks with a records specialist, Velez (Jossie DeGuzman) and finds out that the dead man in Ellen's apartment, Adams, has virtually no information available as to his current position. Mickey arrives and tells Leo that Ellen and Rollie had been a hot item before her murder and that Rollie had disappeared a couple of days before. Leo charges Mickey with finding Rollie's address and Velez with finding out more about Adams. Rollie places a call to his assistant Andy and tells her to meet him at the boathouse at the Conservatory in Central Park. She arrives, towing a small makeup kit and one of Mason's men. Andy gives the man a boat under the pretext of it being a signal to meet Rollie, but when the man puts the boat in the water, Rollie charges him, pushing him into the pond. Rollie and Andy escape into the park, finding refuge in a hidden chamber under a pedestrian bridge. Rollie explains a little of the situation and disguises them as homeless people. Rollie later calls Mason, using a simple trick with payphones and telling Lipton to meet him at a specific location. When Lipton gets into his car, Rollie throws a garrote around his neck and forces him to drive to a remote location. He takes Andy out of the trunk and puts Lipton in, demanding to know Mason's address. When Lipton refuses, he smashes the rear end of the car into several obstacles until the beaten Lipton agrees to talk. Leo and Mickey enter Rollie's shop without a warrant, scared by the rubber monster. After looking around a bit, Leo finds a connection: the fake bullet hits to the monster match those that killed DeFranco. Before he can clear his name, Rollie needs to get his van out of the impound lot on the West Side. Leo had charged Mickey with watching the van. Rollie and Andy sneak into the lot. Rollie has Andy place several small and harmless explosives around the lot as a distraction. Rollie roars out of the lot and Mickey gives chase, following Rollie through the meatpacking district in Chelsea. Rollie and Andy are able to place a few traps that stop the cops but Mickey persists until Andy throws a mannequin into the street, stopping the chase. Rollie suddenly pulls over, thinking something's wrong with his truck. He fools Andy into stepping out and he takes off, not wanting her to get involved any further. Leo, having found out that DeFranco is staying at Mason's house, wants to go out there and arrest him but his superior officer puts him on suspension for interfering with the case. Leo appears to take it pretty hard but does so to steal the Captain's badge. He goes to Mason's mansion and gets the local police to help him secure the front gate. Meanwhile, Rollie has managed to subdue several of Mason's guards and sneak into the house. He uses sound effects devices and a mirror sheet to fool some of them into killing each other. Rollie also trips a few fuses to cut power to certain rooms. He tricks DeFranco into shooting out several windows in the living room and falls into the room, allegedly shot to death. When DeFranco tries to leave the house, he touches a door rigged by Rollie to shock him. The surge scrambles his pacemaker and he falls to the floor, near death. Mason gets DeFranco to give him the key to a safe deposit box in Geneva that contains all the money he kept or stole from his Mafia days in cash. Rollie finds Mason getting ready to leave the house and hold him at bay with DeFranco's Uzi. Mason tries to talk his way out, giving Rollie the key and promising him a large share of DeFranco's money. Rollie considers it for a moment and lays the Uzi down on a sideboard, hovering over it for a few moments. When Mason grabs the Uzi, Rollie tells him it's unloaded and that he'd smeared Krazy Glue on the grips. Rollie pushes Mason out the front door where he's shot to death by the police when he can't let go of the gun. Leo and the local cops clear the area, finding DeFranco's dead body, as well as that of Rollie. When Rollie's body arrives at the morgue, he slips himself out of the body bag and peels off Latex skin he'd covered his neck and wrists with to fool the paramedics into thinking he had no pulse. He climbs out a window and is stopped immediately by Leo. The story closes with Rollie wearing a mask of DeFranco's face and emptying the safe deposit box in Geneva. He meets Leo outside and the two drive off.

In Corpus Christi, Texas, teenagers Billie Jean Davy (Helen Slater) and her younger brother Binx (Christian Slater) drive to a lake, and while they swim, a bully named Hubie Pyatt (Barry Tubb) and his gang steals Binx's motorbike. Billie Jean reports the theft to police, but Lieutenant Ringwald (Peter Coyote) tells her to wait two days for Hubie to return it on his own before he gets involved. Billie Jean goes home and finds the damaged scooter, and her brother bloody and beaten after retrieving the bike himself. Billie Jean visits Hubie at his father's surf shop, and gives him a $608 bill for damages. Hubie's father, Mr. Pyatt (Richard Bradford), agrees to give Billie Jean the money, but when he gets her alone, he gives her only $50, and tries to assault her. Binx and their neighbor Ophelia (Martha Gehman) wait outside for Billie Jean. When she takes too long, they enter the empty shop, and Binx opens the register, planning to take the money he is owed, but instead finds a gun. When Billie Jean runs into the room with Pyatt chasing after her, Binx points the gun at him and demands his sister's release. Hubie enters the shop and his father falsely accuses Billie Jean and Binx of attempted robbery, and tells Hubie to call police. Pyatt walks toward Binx and tells him the gun is not loaded. Binx checks the chamber for bullets, and the gun accidentally goes off, shooting Pyatt in the chest. The teens flee, and Billie Jean wants to go to the police, but Ophelia insists they will not believe their story. Instead, they return home, pack a few items, and go on the run, with their young neighbor, Putter (Yeardley Smith), tagging along. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Ringwald learns that Billie Jean and Binx were involved in a robbery, and blames himself for not properly handling their initial complaint. The teens listen to news of the shooting on the radio, but are not sure if Pyatt is alive. When they stop for food at a gas station, some teenagers approach Billie Jean with her picture in the newspaper and ask for her autograph. They buy the runaways some groceries, and treat them as heroes. Billie Jean and Binx are relieved to learn that Pyatt is in good condition. Billie Jean telephones Lt. Ringwald and the fugitives agree to turn themselves in, on the condition that Pyatt pay the $608 they are owed. Billie Jean agrees to meet Ringwald the following day at a shopping mall. Her photograph is posted around town, and she develops a following among her peers. Pyatt refuses to pay the money, so Ringwald donates his own $608 to make things right, and Pyatt gives Billie Jean the money, as if it came from him. At the hand-off, Pyatt continues to sexually threaten Billie Jean, and has Hubie attempt to grab her. She runs away as Hubie and Ringwald's officers chase after. Ringwald is furious with Pyatt, and tries to help the teens, but Binx points a toy gun at the Lieutenant before they drive away. On the run again, Billie Jean's legend grows. The runaways seek food and shelter in what they think is in empty mansion. While exploring, Billie Jean enters a room full of Halloween decorations, and the homeowner's son, Lloyd Muldaur (Keith Gordon), playfully sneaks up on her wearing a mask. She kicks him, and he removes the mask to reveal he is her age. Lloyd recognizes the "outlaws," and welcomes them into his home. They watch the television news and hear untrue stories being spread about them. On another channel, Billie Jean sees a movie about Joan of Arc. Lloyd regales the story of how she was a hero who sacrificed herself, and Billie Jean becomes inspired. She instructs Lloyd to get a video camera prepared so she can record a message. Billie Jean cuts off her long blonde hair in the short style of Joan of Arc, puts on a colored wet suit with the sleeves ripped off, and records a message claiming her innocence. The teens leave so they do not get Lloyd into trouble, but he suggests they use him as a hostage to get their demands met. Billie Jean sneaks her videotaped message into the police station and on television. In the video, she demands Pyatt pay her the $608 for the scooter repair claiming, "fair is fair," and her supporters begin using the phrase as a slogan. Ringwald investigates Lloyd's home and surmises the teens are working together. Lloyd's wealthy father Mr. Muldaur (Dean Stockwell) offers $10,000 for his son's safe return, but Lloyd is insulted at the bargain-basement ransom amount. Pyatt sells T-shirts and souvenirs with Billie Jean's name and image on them. While her friends are in a store, children approach Billie Jean and ask her to help their friend, Kenny, who is being abused by his father. They lead her to Kenny's home, and when Billie Jean enters, the boy's father recognizes her from the news, and sees the large group of children gathered outside his window. He allows his son to leave with Billie Jean, and she announces to her followers that Kenny will be moving in with his grandmother. As the teens drive away, a local man shoots at them, hoping to capture Billie Jean for the reward money. He chases the teenagers down city streets and shoots their tire, before his own truck flips over. The teens rest for the night and discuss going to Vermont, where Binx has long dreamed of visiting. Lloyd advises they stay in town to clear their names, and kisses Billie Jean. To prevent Ophelia and Putter from getting into trouble, Billie Jean waits until the girls are asleep, and reports their whereabouts to Ringwald. Binx, Lloyd and Billie Jean make their way to a country club and discuss stealing a vehicle, but Billie Jean does not want to commit yet another crime. However, Binx attempts to steal an automobile, and is chased by security guards. The teens become separated, and Billie Jean is offered a ride by a girl sporting her same short hairstyle. Elsewhere, Ringwald questions Ophelia and Putter at the police station, and several girls with short hair turn themselves in, claiming to be Billie Jean. Meanwhile, Billie Jean gets a series of rides from several look-alikes. She goes to an abandoned carnival where she reunites with Binx and Lloyd. Ringwald follows a lead that takes him to their hideout. While they remain hidden, Ringwald shouts out an offer to repair Binx's motorbike and drop the charges if the runaways turn themselves in. Sometime later, Billie Jean telephones the lieutenant and accepts the offer, agreeing to meet at a beach side "Billie Jean Day" event. Ringwald awaits her arrival, and is alarmed that someone has called in snipers. At the exchange, Binx disguises himself as Billie Jean, holding a toy gun to Lloyd's back, while Billie Jean hides in the crowd, wearing a wig. Billie Jean sees a brand new scooter, and confirms that the deal is legitimate. Hubie recognizes Binx, and when Binx waves his gun towards Hubie to quiet him, the snipers shoot Billie Jean's impersonator in the shoulder. Mayhem ensues. Billie Jean slips away unnoticed as she chases after the ambulance carrying her brother. When Billie Jean sees Pyatt selling souvenirs with her image on them, she removes her wig and confronts him. A crowd of onlookers and TV camera crews gather, and Pyatt agrees to give her the money. However, she realizes that Lloyd's father, not Pyatt, paid for the new scooter awaiting her brother, and refuses to accept the offer. Billie Jean insults him and reveals in front of the crowd that he tried to sexually assault her. She kicks him and throws the money in his face. A torch is knocked over and burns his display booth, but no one comes to his aid, and the fire spreads throughout the event. Sometime later, Billie Jean and Binx arrive in wintry, snow-covered Vermont. Binx (with his arm in a sling and recovering from his gunshot wound) claims that the weather is too cold as they continue to hitchhike. Binx sees a snowmobile parked nearby at the rest stop they are at and gets an idea.... implying that he and Billie Jean plan to steal it. Fade out.