Lizzie Borden: Hash & Rehash

Everyone remembers the morbid children's rhyme about Lizzie Borden who dispatched her stepmother and her miserly father with a number of ax blows to each's skull (not the 40 and 41 of the poem, but 11 and 19, which were still more than enough to cause instant mortality). Acquitted by a jury in 1892 (a proper Victorian woman would not do a hatchet job on her folks), the legend and myth of Lizzie Borden rages on, and this simple documentary (interviewees sit in a chair and talk to the camera) presents a number of different viewpoints, speculations, and interesting asides--Gertrude Stein, for instance, was a Lizzie fan. Had The American Experience done this, we would have seen a coherent narrative with illuminating commentary. As it is, this is a hodgepodge with strands of history, feminist thought, and forensics that never quite come together into a woven whole. An optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)