White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd

1991

Action / Drama

4
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 80% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 5.9/10 10 238 238

movie star

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Plot summary

When '30s film star Thelma Todd dies mysteriously, her relationship with New York mobster Lucky Luciano is investigated.

Director

Paul Wendkos Photo
Paul Wendkos

Top cast

Scott Paulin Photo
Scott Paulin as Louis Marsden
Maryedith Burrell Photo
Maryedith Burrell as Patsy Kelly
Lois Smith Photo
Lois Smith as Alice Todd
Frances E. Nealy Photo
Frances E. Nealy as Mae Whitehead
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
870.91 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
PG
Subtitles us  
29.97 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds ...
1.58 GB
1920*1072
English 2.0
PG
Subtitles us  
29.97 fps
1 hr 34 min
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by Michael_Elliott

Sloppy Telling of the Todd Case

White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd (1991) ** (out of 4)Extremely sloppy story taken from the "non-fiction" book 'Hot Toddy' by Andy Edmonds. The film starts off on December 16, 1935 in the early morning hours when the body of Thelma Todd (Loni Anderson) was discovered slumped over in her car. The doctor calls it a suicide but an investigator for the D.A. sees that nothing is adding up so he conducts interviews with some of the people in her life including director Roland West, former husband Pat DiCicco and her mother. It turns out that all three of them are afraid of someone and that person turns out to be Todd's most recent boyfriend Lucky Luciano (Robert Davi). Having just finished reading the book that this film is based on it goes without saying that there are a lot of liberties done with the story. The book itself added bits and pieces that no one could possibly know and this film re-arranged facts so much that unless you know some of the history behind the case then it's likely you're going to be lost by the events shown. The story of Todd's death is one of the greatest mysteries of Hollywood yet this film doesn't cover many aspects of it. There's an entire suicide plot. There's West murdering her. There's DiCicco murdering her. Then you have the possibility of an accidental death. There are so many plot devices to this story that it's impossible to pack all of them into a 94-minute running time and the screenplay here is so poor and all over the place that I can't help but think most people are going to be confused. The book made the claim that Luciano had Todd killed after she refused to allow gambling in her restaurant. That's fine but this theory has a few weak points and none of them are covered here. Even worse is that the entire mystery about her death is pretty much overlooked and the events here are presented as the "truth" when many of the truths that come up here are highly unlikely and since Todd is dead and Luciano never talked they're also impossible to prove. The other problem is Anderson who was way too old to be playing Todd and not for a second did I believe her in the part. She couldn't play the happy-go-lucky nature of Todd and there's no question that Todd was terrified of this gangster yet Anderson can never get this across. Most of the supporting performances are either poor or just outrageously opposite of the people they're playing including Maryedith Burrell who plays Thelma Todd (ZaSu Pitts is overlooked in the film). Davi actually does a good job as Luciano. If you're interested in the death of Thelma Todd then it's best to know that the truth will never be known. The book is certainly more entertaining and gets to more of the story behind the events and in the end this film just seemed rushed as if it didn't even know the story it was trying to tell.
Reviewed by vjoe

Thelma Todd story as mystery movie

White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd is basically faithful to the Andy Edmonds biography on which it is based, but ads fictional details such as private eye investigating the case and an imprisoned gangster who tells him some of the details of the case. Roland West is portrayed as quite a bit youg than he really was, and Pat di Cicco is portrayed as quite a bit older than he really was. Somehow, Zasu Pitts is left out of the story altogether, Patsy Kelly is here portrayed as being Thelma's screen partner all along ( actually Thelma Todd was first teamed with Zasu Pitts ) but Loni Anderson did a good job of portraying Thelma Todd and altogether it made and entertaining mystery movie for television.
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