S12.E41 ∙ Against All Odds

Frank Belson didn't ask too many questions about the past of his new wife Lisa St. Claire, even after she suddenly and mysteriously disappeared one night. He brings in Spenser to help locate her, who begins to piece together her complete life story while submerged in the Latino shadow world of the town of Proctor.

Madira is a mysterious story of a cursed lady who commits 7 murders in search of her love, that ends up getting nothing.

Vanessa is a cosmetics consultant who is forced to care for her troubled and mentally challenged sister after their mother's death. Her hustler boyfriend, Olivier, seems unreliable and Vanessa soon abandons him for Uno, a liberal and caring substitute. But Uno isn't exactly as he seems. Set during the reign of Joseph Estrada in the Philippines, the film offers up a society in hellish microcosm.

On 25th April, 2011 a horrific and tragic incident occurred which remained unsolved. Till the date no explanation or evidence found to be satisfying to suggest what exactly happened on that day. This film is a record of those events.

In order to save her grandfather's mansion, Rama agrees to marry a much older male, Madanlal, who decides to sell some artifacts to prospective wealthy buyers, including Mr. and Mrs. Rai. The sale is hampered by heavy rains and the entry of a traveling painter-singer, Awara, as well as four bandits, including Baldev Singh, who is wanted by the police for the brutal murder of his wife.

"Life, Love, Death" was made before the abolition of capital punishment in France. Its central message is the inhumanity of the guillotine. The film, which is shot somewhat in a cinema verite style, divides roughly into three acts. In Act One, there is a series of murders of prostitutes in Paris. An obviously deeply disturbed man is hiring these prostitutes and then strangling them. Suspicion falls on François (Amidou), a married man with a child. The police put him under surveillance. (Viewers will recognize the inspector in charge of the team as Marcel Bozzuffi, who would play Popeye Doyle's nemesis in The French Connection a couple of years later.) Ironically, François is experiencing spiritual healing and renewal through the power of love---not with his wife, of course, this being a French film, but through an affair with a beautiful young woman he has met (not a prostitute). But just as this is happening and François seems to have lost the need to commit violent crimes, he is arrested. Act Two is the arraignment, trial and exposition of François's life and history. His recent transformation, of course, makes no impression on the court, and he is sentenced to death by guillotine. Act Three is a documentary-style record of François's last days in prison and his execution. The last scene in the film is an image of the guillotine's blade beginning its descent; it slows and freezes and there is a fade to black, as a voiceover issues a passionate plea for abolition of the guillotine.