Product Description

A sizzling star-studded tale of sex and power in the glittering world of the auto industry. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 02/03/2004 Starring: Sir Laurence Olivier Robert Duvall Run time: 125 minutes Rating: R

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23253 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 1999-03-30
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 125 minutes

Amazon.com
Adapted from a Harold Robbins potboiler, The Betsy offers power struggles, incest, adultery, gold digging, and car racing. Laurence Olivier plays a ruthless but fallible auto tycoon with a tortured family history including a weakling son (Paul Rudd), a daughter-in-law he loves too much (Katharine Ross), a resentful grandson (Robert Duvall), and a devoted great-granddaughter (Kathleen Beller) to whom he bequeaths most of his fortune. In the midst of all these family squabbles is racing enthusiast Angelo Perino (a very young Tommy Lee Jones) whom the old man hires to build a revolutionary, ecologically advanced car which will be called The Betsy after his great-granddaughter. Angelo builds The Betsy (the car), seduces Betsy (the great-granddaughter), and even has a fling with Duvall's mistress, played by the haughty Lesley-Anne Down. In order to boil down Robbins's plot-heavy novel to 125 minutes, some of the connecting tissue has been lost. But Olivier is a grand old ham and Jones shows early on why he was destined to be a star. Lavishly produced, The Betsy has been formatted for the small screen, which doesn't allow us to fully enjoy the elaborate sets. But it's a chewy two hours of pulp, nonetheless. --Richard Natale

Customer Reviews

I liked it quite a bit
I always liked it. My son said it was flawed. That was so many years ago. I liked the story and I liked the actors. It kept me entertained flaws or no flaws. Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duval are standouts. They got John Barry to write the music so it can't be all bad. My days are numbered. This was one of the first DVDs that my son bought. He just found it in that pile of rubble he keeps in his room. I asked him for years to play it for me. Now I am too tired and it doesn't seem all that important. He put it in the player but the images seem to have lost the magic. The first time I saw it there was magic. I remember that it had a good story. The kind of story I like to see when I go to the movies. Well Tommy Lee and Duvall are still plugging away. Maybe there is magic in the world after all.

First Rate Trash Wallow
There are moments in "The Betsy" where you think you're watching something as profound as "The Godfather" before you pinch yourself and realize you are watching what is essentially schlock. Entertaining, well-crafted schlock but schlock nonetheless. It's Harold Robbins for goodness sake. Credit director Daniel Petrie and his scriptwriters for fashioning a film that is almost respectable. A first-rate cast is assembled to give the film some gravity led by Laurence Olivier as a scion of an auto empire who is as ruthless in the boardroom as he is in his personal relationships. A young Tommy Lee Jones impresses as an ambitious auto racer. Absolutely luminous are Lesley Anne Down as a gold-digging Brit and Kathleen Beller as Olivier's granddaughter. I've never read a Harold Robbins book the film feels like one of those page turners you read on a lazy summer day.

Tommy Lee Jones at his sexiest!!!
One of my favorite trashy, guilty pleasures movies. This is the story of a dysfunctional family, prominent in the auto manufactuing business. It is great fun to watch Robert Duvall and Sir Lawrence Olivier try to one-up each other, with Tommy Lee Jones as a sort of good guy, with an agenda of his own.