Reel 1762

Joe McGinniss's meticulous best seller about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case receives an absorbing dramatization in this two-part 1984 TV-movie. In the middle of the night of Feb. 17, 1970, the pregnant wife and two young daughters of the respected Green Beret physician were brutally killed in the family's apartment at Fort Bragg, N.C. Three months later, the Army charged MacDonald with the homicides, but the final verdict in the case was not to come for nine years. The first part of "Fatal Vision" traces MacDonald's case up through the initial Army hearings. He maintains that four crazed hippies burst into his apartment, rendered him unconscious and, in the manner of the Charles Manson murders, butchered his family. The crime is re-created through MacDonald's eyes, in such a way as to verify his story. But discrepancies arise that raise grave doubts in the mind of one of his staunchest defenders, his father-in-law Freddy Kassab (Karl Malden). MacDonald: Gary Cole, Mildred Kassab, Eva Marie Saint, Segal, Barry Newman, Colette MacDonald, Wendy Schaal, Ivory, Scott Paulin, Grebner, Barry Corbin. (2 hrs.)

Injustices in Jeffrey MacDonald, M.D. case (Fatal Vision).

Joe McGinniss's meticulous best seller about the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case receives an absorbing dramatization in this two-part 1984 TV-movie. In the middle of the night of Feb. 17, 1970 the pregnant wife and two young daughters of the respected Green Beret physician were brutally killed in the family's apartment at Fort Bragg, N.C. Three months later, the Army charged MacDonald with the homicides but the final verdict in the case was not to come for nine years. The first part of Fatal Vision traces MacDonald's case up through the initial Army hearings. He maintains that four crazed hippies burst into his apartment, rendered him unconscious and in the manner of the Charles Manson murders, butchered his family. The crime is re-created through MacDonald's eyes in such a way as to verify his story. But discrepancies arise that raise grave doubts in the mind of one of his staunchest defenders, his father-in-law Fred Oy Kassab (Karl Malden). MacDonald Gary Cole Mildred Kassin Eva Marie Saint Sagan Barry Newman Colette MacDonald Wendy Schaal Ivory Scott Paulin Greener Barry Corbin (2 hrs.)

Injustices in Jeffrey MacDonald, M.D. case (Fatal Vision).