Genre: | Drama Thriller |
Teleplay: | James M. Miller |
Director: | Gordon Hessler |
Starring: | Amanda Blake Tisha Sterling |
Theme Music Composer: | Ernest Gold |
Country: | United States |
Language: | English |
Executive Producer: | Charles W. Fries |
Producer: | Gerald Isenberg |
Location: | Gulls Way Estate - 26800 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu, California |
Cinematography: | Jacques R. Marquette |
Editor: | John A Martinelli |
Runtime: | 74 minutes |
Company: | Metromedia Productions |
Network: | ABC |
Betrayal is a 1974 ABC Movie of the Week directed by Gordon Hessler and starring Amanda Blake and Tisha Sterling, adapted from the novel Only Couples Need Apply by Doris Miles Disney. It first aired on December 3, 1974.
Helen Mercer, a wealthy elderly widow, hires a young woman, Gretchen Addison, as her secretary. Mercer, nicknamed "Deadeye" after having shot her criminal handyman, is lonely, and her ad for a secretary is as much about companionship as business. Little does she suspect, though, that the woman and her boyfriend Jay are criminals on the run after a killing, who target elderly women to extort them. The partners plan to make Mercer their next victim, killing her and stealing her money. Addison, however, grows to admire Mercer, and decides she needs to change her ways.
Journalist David Deal wrote in 2005 that the film was "mild in the terror department but the fears it depicts are very real nonetheless."[1]