TV Reviews : ‘Cry for Help’: Powerful Depiction of True-Life Tragedy

Many a TV movie has examined abusive husbands and battered wives, but seldom with as much ferocity as in “A Cry for Help: The Tracey Thurman Story” (at 9 tonight on Channels 4, 36 and 39).

This one goes beyond the usual psychological issues and violent incidents to examine the police response to such crimes. The real Thurman sued the police in her hometown of Torrington, Conn., charging that they hadn’t sufficiently protected her from her estranged spouse, whose 1983 attack left her partially paralyzed. The federal court decision in Thurman’s favor triggered a nationwide trend toward pro-arrest policies in domestic violence cases.

Her story is particularly timely in Los Angeles, where Maria Navarro was slain last month after she warned authorities, in a fruitless 911 emergency call, that her husband was on his way to kill her.

Beth Sullivan’s script is not a thing of beauty. It includes a stiff flashback-within-a-flashback, and it skips too lightly over the period preceding the Thurmans’ nuptials; considering that Buck Thurman had already begun the abuse, we need a better explanation of why his victim chose to marry him. Later, the police testimony is given extremely short shrift.

However, Sullivan has written several very deft scenes, such as one in which Tracey overreacts to the sight of her young son holding a paring knife. And even though the scene in which Buck stabs Tracey is awkwardly previewed at the beginning of the film, the complete version is still a not-for-the-squeamish barn burner when it finally hits the screen. Robert Markowitz’s staging of this scene is harrowingly effective.

So are Nancy McKeon and Dale Midkiff as the ill-fated couple. These are performances of documentary-like veracity and power.