IF I DIDN'T CARERunning Time 95 minutesWritten and directed by Benjamin and Orson CummingsStarring Bill Sage, Roy Scheider
Finally, don’t pass up a nifty little film noir called If I Didn’t Care. While the Ink Spots croon their way through the title tune, the explosion of a high-powered rifle shatters the peace of a summer on Long Island and sets the tone for a tight, surprising little thriller that strongly captures the bogus appeal of life in the Hamptons. Bill Sage, the handsome and versatile actor best known as the charismatic pedophile coach in Mysterious Skin, plays a trophy husband whose failure to father an heir leads to infidelity, and whose marital harassment leads to murder. Call it Desperate Househusbands. All this guy knows how to do is talk deals, walk his dog and turn every head on the beach while his wife shows houses in converted potato fields.
The only way for this stud to pave the way to money and independence is to eighty-six his wife—with the help of his ambitious girlfriend. After the dingbat shoots the wrong person, arousing the suspicions of snoopy detective Roy Scheider, the only way to remove the danger of exposure is to eighty-six the girlfriend. It all starts to work out, but on his way to dispose of the body, the hapless husband totals the Range Rover by hitting a deer. The rest is one of those Alfred Hitchcock Hour episodes that leaves you with the taste of Angostura bitters, wanting more. Blithely written and carefully directed by the talented Cummings brothers, Benjamin and Orson, and filmed entirely on location in Manhattan and the Hamptons, If I Didn’t Care is full of fresh surprises and never wastes your time. It is also amazingly true to the underlying homicidal boredom of the Hamptons, where superficial people with too much money and too much free time on their hands don’t know what to do with themselves, so they all end up selling real estate.
