Leah Pinsent in Shades of Love: The Emerald Tear (1988)

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Love stories, handsome guys, pretty girls, plus a dash of nudity: a winning formula for movies that should sell anywhere, any time, play forever and who knows… maybe a couple of the young naked beauties will make it big and then distribution will be worth a lot more later, right!?

16 Shades of Love: movies were churned out betting on the above formula, combined with the presumed appeal of the dime store romance novel type script, low costs/high production values, tax credit financial assistance, cheap locations in Canada (Toronto or Montreal) with young, attractive, capable and inexpensive talent trying to make the crossover from the catwalk or stage into THE MOVIES! Investors picked up tax credits from the Canadian government, cable and local TV stations could get in on the action and meet Canadian production/content rules and who knows, the final product might even make some money playing on cable movie channels and through video rentals around the world?

I can’t categorically say avoid them all: of the 7 or 8 flix I’ve seen, all but one script was mind numbing schlock… no audience could possibly be this dumb and still be able to operate a TV set! Typically there is usually only about one or two minutes of nudity in the average 90 minute show. This series (and all the other “action crime flicks” where they meet briefly in a strip bar to talk with the salt shaker in the foreground, in focus and the tit shaker in the background, out of focus) is the best reason to check out a trial subscription to Mr. Skin, where for fewer dollars than your average video rental, all the crap is eliminated and you get all the good stuff from thousands of movies, without wasting your life in the process!

The Emerald Tear stars the veteran New York actor, Ed Marinaro, (National Lampoon's Favorite Deadly Sins, Hillstreet Blues and Sisters and dozens of TV movies) and the very young Leah Pinsent (Rough Air: Danger On Flight 534, Waking the Dead, Spill and Bay Boy) Here’s the first problem… Ed was about 40 (he doesn’t look a day over 39 and a half!) and Leah was only 19 (and doesn’t look a day over 16!) when the movie went into production. She sports a hair style just like Clayton of the industrial band Cell Dwellers and dresses like a 1940’s Walter Winchel, complete with a tan trench coat, black suit, white shirt, tie and... a fedora which barely settles down over her hair-glue hair do.

What’s it about? She’s been fired from a small nepotism practicing newspaper and tries on her own to get to the vital, earth shaking truth about who really bought the necklace known as “The Emerald Tear”. Was it a foreign sheik or the local reclusive millionaire played by Marinaro? In short, (too late?) they fuck with each other’s minds, then they fuck with each other’s bodies, have problems, resolve them and get married.

Hello, hello… are you still awake or did you gouge out your eyes with beer caps or commit suicide with the channel changer while reading this?

If Leah were not part of one of Canada’s premiere families of stage and screen (Dad is actor/writer Gordon Pinsent: The Shipping News, Power Play, and Who has Seen the Wind and mom is actress Charmion King: Wind at My Back, Shadow Dancing, and Anne of Green Gables) this little mind sore would have healed and disappeared long ago.

Nudity Report: Leah Pinsent looks good nude and should have stayed that way from the beginning to the end of the movie. However, the nudity lasts only about 60 seconds and is found about an hour and ten minutes into this tax (and taxing) write off.

Critics: No recognizable reviewers have done a treatment on this flick. I rated it according to Leah’s bra size: Spuzum: 30b/100.

IMDB Summary: One vote, a female gave it a 5 out of 10.

Box Office: It didn’t matter from day one what happened to this piece... all the Canadian content credits permitted stations who showed it to play US and foreign movies which make money. It was also guaranteed play time on First Choice/Super Channel in Canada, HBO in the US and a future of a couple of decades of endless numbers of Canadian TV stations fulfilling content requirements with this as a late night movie. If you must, watch for it on stations like: IFC, Bravo, Showcase and romance oriented cable stations.

Versions: VHS found only in eclectic video stores in Canada (and maybe in the odd yurt in remotest Mongolia.)


Written by: Spuzum