Directed and produced by Dan Klores

Starring Burt Pugach and Linda Pugach

92 min.

It is not a pretty picture: Close-up interviews, newspaper clippings and fuzzy TV newscasts are director Dan Klores’ main modes of visual expression.

Normally repugnant, these “techniques” are cinematic beauty marks compared to the pair of toxic good-for-nothings whose gripping romance this documentary chronicles.

At a time when the average American was making $4,000 a year, lawyer Burt Pugach’s (pronounced “Poo-gosh”) was pulling down 80 grand. His practice afforded Burt a nightclub, luxury automobiles and even his own private airplane to pilot.

While the money continued to roll in, Pugach was strictly small potatoes. He chased ambulances by day and the closest his nightclub came to star power was The Jolson Story’s Keefe Brasselle and the forgettable DeMarco Sisters.

In spite of all this (and a face that instantly brings Arnold Stang to mind), this cat was 1957’s bachelor of the year. Knowing what a great catch he was, the already married Pugach used his money and power to proposition every broad that passed his way.

On Rosh Hashanah, 1957, Burt, good Jew that he was, was breaking God’s law by tooling around in his Caddy, when he eyed Linda Riss standing outside of Kilmer Park in the Bronx. From that moment, he knew that he had to possess her.

Linda was a tease, but she wasn’t easy, and Burt had to work overtime to impress her. Burt could be a charmer. Every time they entered his club together, the band was instructed to strike up the Jack Lawrence standard “Linda.”

He doctored divorce papers and even recruited Brasselle to convince Linda that Burt was free to wed. But six months later, Linda called off the relationship after her mother did some legwork and discovered the paperwork for the Alabama divorce to be fraudulent.

Linda was beautiful, a Yiddishe Sophia Loren. Today, her face is covered by an enormous pair of butterfly-shaped, rhinestone dark glasses. What Miami Beach junk shop united Linda with such chalushes eyewear? Lina Wertmuller goofs on them!

God was quick to zap me with a guilt fix for snickering. The reason behind Linda’s enormous shades imbues the film with its pulpy, compulsively watchable tabloid sensibility.

Linda moved on, and in June of 1959 announced her engagement to an old beau. Burt quickly copped an “if I can’t have her no one will” attitude. In the spring of 1959, before she wed, Burt hired a black thug and two of his goons to pose as messengers sent to deliver a lye-filled mayonnaise jar to Linda’s face.

Up to this point, Burt and Linda had been shown in separate interviews, and a queasy thought began gnawing at my brain: Please don’t tell me that we are actually going to see these two pathetic creatures united in the same shot.

In 1974, after serving 13 years in prison for maiming and assault in the second degree, Burt once again proposed to Linda, and the couple wed.

Jews don’t behave this way (do they?), particularly when it comes to multiplex airings of dirty laundry. Years ago, while a guest on “Larry King Live,” Marlon Brando unleashed a string of racial epithets aimed at pointing out the various stereotypes at work in Hollywood films. Brando concluded his tirade by noting that the presumably Jewish-run industry seldom included contemptuous images of The Chosen in their films.

A media firestorm followed, but what Brando said was basically true. With the exception of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Goodbye, Columbus, Casino, Capturing the Friedmans and Jud Süß, there aren’t many movies that depict Jews in a negative light.

Not that I’m calling for a new wave in celluloid anti-Semitism; if anything seeing Crazy Love was a very uncomfortable viewing experience, and I appreciate the film’s brutal honesty. It was like watching one of my family’s Passover dinners filmed through X-ray specs.

Director Dan Klores does a tremendous job structuring his material. This is one true-life documentary that doubles as a taut suspense thriller. Each subsequent insight and character shading keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering just how far this story will go.

Eschewing editorial comment, Klores wisely decides to leave the passing of judgment to his audience. His is a film without one likable character. Even initially appealing interviewees eventually hang themselves. Immediately after the assault, Burt turned to one of his friends for counsel. Without flinching, his lifelong chum looked into the camera and candidly repeated his advice: “Kill the other two niggers.”

Today, Burt plays Rock Hudson to Linda’s Jane Wyman. It’s difficult to conclude which one’s magnificent obsession is more staggeringly pathetic – that of the criminal or his victim desiring nothing more than to marry well and live comfortably.

Rating: 4 stars

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien

Starring: Everyone from 11 and 12 minus Julia Roberts, plus Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin

122 min. in CinemaScope

Unscrupulous casino owner/franchise newcomer Willie Bank (Al Pacino) double-crosses returning character Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould). Reuben strokes out and 12 of his pals come to his defense and concoct a scheme to break the Bank.

See how little it takes to start and sustain a big-budget summer blockbuster?

The boys still look great and their costumes are to die for – that is, when you can see them. Soderbergh, doing double-duty as director of photography, lowers the key light and shoots for film noir. Thematically, nothing else in the film backs up that decision.

There weren’t many, but the few Technicolor noir that do exist always prove fascinating hybrids. In this case, the oversaturated colors will leave you searching the couch (don’t pay to see this) for the color button on your remote.

And speaking of drenched hues, wait till you see Al Pacino. It looks as though he tipped the tanning booth attendant a little extra to set the control knob at “circus peanut orange.” He’s a shoo-in to play Pokey in the upcoming big screen version of Gumby: The Musical.

Everyone shows up to do their required shtick. Don Cheadle, affecting his trademark Jamaican accent, operates a Jules Verne-like subterranean drill conveniently located next to Bank’s casino. Scotty Cann is the muscle, Carl Reiner the cuddly octogenarian, Shaobo Qin compacts, and so on.

Nothing makes sense, but after the screening several attendees reminded me that’s the point. Weren’t these cash cows made so the director could take the stack of money and wager it on smaller, more personal projects?

Is one Ocean worth the Bubble it makes?

Rating: BOMB

The turnout for the North Park Theatre’s winter film series was so overwhelming that all parties involved were eager to do it again.

Where else in San Diego are you going to get a shot at seeing classic films projected on a huge screen in a 720-seat, single-auditorium theater?

I’ll be on hand each week to introduce the films along with the Cinema Society’s Andy Friedenberg and Lyric Opera’s Leon Natker. Just like the old days, each screening will kick off with vintage shorts and cartoons.

General admission is $9 or you can buy a series pass for $75. With the exception of A Place in the Sun, each film screens Thursday nights at 7 p.m. with an encore Sunday matinee at 2 p.m.

June 14 and 17: Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn and James Stewart star in George Cukor’s romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story (1940).

June 21 and 26: Joan Crawford stars in Michael Curtiz’s film noir Mildred Pierce (1945).

June 28 and July. 1: James Stewart plays opposite Jean Arthur in Frank Capra’s classic flag-waver Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1936).

July 5 and 8: Errol Flynn welcomes you to Sherwood in Michael Curtiz’s epic swashbuckler The Adventures of Robin Hood.

July 12 and 15: Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell play two girls from Little Rock in Howard Hawks’ Technicolor musical Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953).

July 19 and 22: Legendary screen duo Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn wage a courtroom battle of the sexes in George Cukor’s Adam’s Rib (1949).

July 26 and 29: Robert Mitchum stars in part one of a mini-dunk Shelly Winters festival, Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter (1955).

Aug. 2 and 5: A Mae West/W.C. Fields double feature, She Done Him Wrong (1933) and It’s a Gift (1934).

Aug. 8 (Wednesday) and 12 (Sunday): Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift star in part two of our mini-dunk Shelly Winters festival, George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun (1951).

Aug. 16 and 19: John Wane moves ’em out in Howard Hawks’ Western masterwork, Red River (1948).