The Burning Bed (1984) on Netflix
Francine Hughes marries Mickey Hughes as a teenager. His jealousy and anger come out as beatings, and his drinking makes them worse over the years. She looks for a way out.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb7.2/104,013 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes77%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1963, sixteen-year-old Francine Hughes meets Mickey Hughes, and they marry shortly afterward. Mickey is jealous and angry, and he beats Francine, often in front of his parents. His drinking deepens, the violence escalates, and the household grows to include their three children. Francine tries to leave him more than once, and each time he follows her and threatens her into coming back. She and her children come to the police station in Dansville, Michigan, and she turns herself in. Public defender Aryon Greydanus is appointed to represent her, and Francine, at first reluctant, recounts the story of her marriage.
Cast
- Dixie K. Wadeas Hazel Moran
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Burning Bed (1984)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During a scene in which Francine's husband locks her in a closet, Greenwald directed Fawcett to be locked in the closet for thirty minutes before filming began, and during the courtroom scenes Fawcett sat in the same hard-backed chair for up to four hours at a time.
- Within the first week following the film's television premiere, two crimes occurred in which the accused perpetrators claimed to have been inspired after watching it. In one, a man doused his estranged wife with gasoline inside their Milwaukee home less than an hour after viewing the film, and was later charged with second-degree murder.
- When the producers bought the rights they knew Farrah Fawcett was interested in playing the part: "We told her it would mean working with no makeup, going completely against her image, and she was willing."
- In response to the crimes, UCLA psychiatrist Louis J. West argued that the men would likely have committed them regardless of viewing the film, stating: "Millions of people saw it, and they didn't burn their spouses."
- It premiered with a household share of 36.2, ranking it the seventeenth highest rated movie to air on network television and NBC's highest rated television film at that time.
