The Lost Honor of Kathryn Beck

(aka Act of Passion and Last Act of Passion, Simon Langton, USA, 1984)

This now forgotten film – which unpromisingly presents itself as the Americanisation of Volker Schlöndorff’’s The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (1975) – is, in fact, among the most impressive telemovies of the 1980s, and even beyond.

Definitely look past the Star is Born-‘70s-style poster-graphic on IMDb these days, which presents stars Marlo Thomas and Kris Kristofferson in illuminated, discreetly naked embrace – her looking to the stars, him to the camera!

This is a compelling woman-as-victim parable, adapted by Loring Mandel – who also transposed John Le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl for George Roy Hill in ‘84 – from Heinrich Böll’s 1974 novel, the subtitle of which is How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead.

It concerns an innocent Everywoman (Thomas as Beck) subjected to harassment by an appallingly sensationalist mass media. Her crime? Romancing a terrorist (Kristofferson as Ben Cole)!

The film is a fascinating maelstrom of passion, anger and despair. Born and mostly based professionally in the UK, director Simon Langton stuck to the TV lane, and his work spans Dr Finlay’s Casebook in 1970 to Midsomer Murders in 2011, via various adaptations of literary classics (Tolstoy, Austen, Zola). A solid career!

© Adrian Martin January 1991 (updated October 2025)