The Disappearance of Aimee

A bigger budget and an expanded narrative might have made "The Disappearance of Aimee" a dandy theatrical mystery. In 1926, Protestant female minister--and popular radio evangelist--Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared from the waters off a Southern California beach and remained missing for just over a month. She later turned up in Douglas, Arizona telling a wild story about being kidnapped for a $500,000 ransom. Because two men drowned in the ocean while searching for McPherson's body, an unstoppable prosecutor called her before the court, believing she was actually dallying with a married man. Faye Dunaway's lead performance is good, not great; she has a lengthy monologue in her hospital room which could be called a mini tour de force, yet her religious exaltations before her adoring believers are rote, and her relationship with her hovering mother (portrayed by Bette Davis) is sketchily drawn. This TV production, once considered eventful programming, now looks puny in scope, with an uncertain direction and variable performances. We often don't know how to take the characters, and the editing is so shapeless that the flashbacks, in particular, fail to make much of an imprint.