arfdawg-1 The Plot. A wife unhappy in her marriage begins an affair with an art student, unaware that her husband, a race driver, is also having an affair.Yikes. Crazy Karen Black stars in what appears to be a TV movie but it's not. It's just directed that way. Cheaply.Black still had a good body when this was made. She must have been a firecracker in bed during her prime.Alas, Black's enormous jugs do not a movie make and soon you will be bored out of your mind. This happens about 19 minutes in.

Red-Barracuda A woman lives in an unsatisfying marriage to a car dealer. She catches him cheating on her which leads to her embarking on an illicit liaison of her own. She finds this essentially dissatisfying and decides to separate from her husband but in doing so finds life tough outside the safety net of their relationship, made worse by her missing her young son.Separate Ways is a slightly unusual release from Crown International Pictures. It doesn't fit the description of one of their typical genre offerings. It might feature some nudity but it is of a very half-hearted variety and in the main this is a quite a thoughtful drama in many ways. Seemingly it sat on the shelf for two years before a distributor was found to release it but this is no indication that the product is low quality, as in my opinion this is a pretty good domestic drama. It has a few interesting observations about relationships and dependencies. It benefits also from featuring Karen Black in the lead role, she is a much better calibre of actor than Crown International usually are fortunate to have any involvement with and her presence here definitely improves the film. I have found that its often the least typical Crown offerings that often are among their best and this one is no different to that rule of thumb.

Leofwine_draca SEPARATE WAYS feels like a TV movie version of the kind of film that KRAMER VS KRAMER was - i.e., a slow-moving drama about a marriage in trouble. The plot involves Karen Black, who plays an unhappy housewife who begins an affair with a much younger man. Problems arise as it transpires that her husband is also having an affair, and sparks fly when the truth is uncovered.This was put out by the notorious Crown International Pictures, so you might be forgiven for expecting this to be full of sleaze and depravity, but it's no such thing. In fact, even the sex and nudity is kept to a bare minimum. It's more of a dialogue-heavy drama, although sadly for me the material isn't really something that grips my attention. While it's nice to see Black in a straight role for a change, she was much more interesting in genre fare like TRILOGY OF TERROR, although a bunch of old-time actors like William Windom and even Sybil Danning do show their faces.

Wizard-8 One of the strangest chapters in the history of Crown International Pictures was when they picked up the independently produced SEPARATE WAYS, a movie that had actually been completed in 1979 and sat in limbo for a while as the producers looked for a distributor. It was a strange choice for C.I.P. because while the movie is rated "R" and involves infidelity, it's not a sleazefest. It is actually a sober look at both partners in a troubled marriage. The movie is well acted by Karen Black and Tony Lo Bianco, and you can sense the filmmakers were really trying to make a compelling drama, but it doesn't quite work. It feels kind of dry, kind of like what a made-for-TV movie of the era would play out if it had "R" rated elements. It's not a terrible movie, just kind of flat. A word of warning if you plan to rent or buy the movie - while the movie has been given an official DVD release, the DVD company just copied an ex-rental video cassette instead of finding the movie's negative and making a copy directly from it.