MovieChat Forums > Absence of Malice (1981) Discussion > Absence of Malice vs. Lou Grant

Absence of Malice vs. Lou Grant

posted 9 years ago by tenderlovingtony
2 replies | jump to latest

I only saw this movie for the first time today. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075528/ Lou Grant is still my favorite TV series of all time. (Background on Lou Grant: http://epguides.lougrant.tv)

Absence of Malice is a disappointment considering it came out when Lou Grant was on the air (1977-1982). The Megan character lacks the professionalism, savvy, and know-how of her analogue from Lou Grant,, reporter Billie Newman (Linda Kelsey). The editor is too world-worn, passive, and unconcerned to be mistaken for Lou Grant (Edward Asner). Megan here is blundering through her stories, not taking care to avoid being used by the prosecutor or damaging the people she writes about.

Take the case of the Catholic girl. Megan didn't even try to avoid identifying her. At the very least, the paper didn't need to use her name. The lede could have been, "A Miami woman claims that she was in Atlanta with Michael Cavanaugh on the days during which union leader Fozzi disappeared. The woman claims that Cavaunaugh accompanied her to have an abortion at an abortion clinic."

On Lou Grant, the reporter and one or more editors would have agonized over how to do this. But Meg and her editor didn't even discuss leaving out the name.

Leaving LG aside, the film still leaves me wanting other newspaper movies. I had anticipated watching AoM for a long time, but it was a tremendous disappointment.

[–] cleverfox 8 years ago

Oh, man, sorry it didn't entertain you. As someone pushing 60, I, too, enjoyed LG but never made the connection, as you did, with this film.

Oh, and Sally Fields' character is described as a "wet behind the ears naive new reporter" so Fields' presentation of the character was right on.

I thought Newman nailed the Character as described and he would go on to do another of my favorite movies - The Verdict.

[–] filmklassik 8 years ago

MALICE and GRANT have antithetical themes.

The theme addressed in ABSENCE OF MALICE is this: "The Fourth Estate gets it wrong sometimes, and when it does, people get hurt."

Whereas the theme of LOU GRANT is, "The Press may not be perfect, God knows, but overall, on balance, it's pretty darn great!"

Opposing points of view.

So of course the reporting and editorial decisions on display in MALICE are going to be more self-serving, reckless and irresponsible than those on display in GRANT.