Why Would I Lie?

This played for maybe a week on a showcase run in my area and I vaguely remember being the on only one in the theater when I saw it back in 1980...maybe 1979, I can't imagine it was 1980, like the IMDb says... Anyway, the little kid in the movie is Gabriel Macht, who was quite good, as I remember and is now an adult actor...he was excellent recently in A Love Song For Bobby Long, with John Travolta. How weird is it to see an actor you knew as a child suddenly, like 30? Lisa Eichorn was also excellent in this, and it never plays on TV or cable anymore, so let's hope that it will turn up as a budget DVD at some point. Even the people who sell never-released films as bootlegs don't have this one, and they've looked for it! Weird, huh?

A great story shot in Spokane, WA about a family member who cannot help but stretch the truth just to make it more entertaining. Join that to a mother looking for her lost son makes for a touching drama coupled with a romantic comedy.

I taped this off HBO years ago and still watch it now and then.

Cletus Hayworth (Treat Williams) is a compulsive liar. As a social worker, he has to find a foster home for Jeorge (Gabriel Macht). He discovers that the boy had been taken away from his real mother under questionable circumstances. He goes searching for the birth mother.

This isn't actually funny. I think it's supposed to be funny. I wonder if a comedian could make Cletus' lying something funny. Treat Williams is not a comedian. More than anything, he's playing it as a mental illness. He's a dramatic actor and this becomes a darker character study. It struggles to get there and it can't get the comedy. It's stuck. On a side note, it is odd to see Gabriel Macht as a kid. He's unrecognizable. He actually has the only funny moment. This could have worked if Cletus and the kid become the constant pair on a road trip.

Treat Williams plays a guy who gets hit in the head with a rock during a protest and develops this urge to make things more interesting in life. When anyone thinks his story is a bit too unusual, he says "Why would I lie about a thing like that?" As I remember, a girl (Lisa Eichorn) and her son enter his life and his lies are believed and cause confusion and problems for others. After almost losing those who have become important in his life, he finally learns his lesson.

I had this movie on tape and loaned it to someone and, of course, never got it back. No big deal for most movies, but this one never made it to re-runs, commercial tape, or DVD. Why, I don't know. I remember it as better than many, if not most, in this genre.

I loved this movie when I saw it in the movie theater, I've never seen it since then either on TV or on video, and I would love to have a copy of it! Please contact me if you have one.

Thanks, ARNIE PERLSTEIN