An American Dream

War hero Stephen Richard Rojack (Stuart Whitman) is a call-in TV show host. He's on a rampage against mob boss Ganucci. He's separated from his violent drunk wife. She comes at him with a bottle and he almost chokes her. She falls off the balcony to her death. Only the sexy maid Ruta is in the apartment and he is taken in by the police. It just so happens that Uncle Ganucci's car run over the wife after her fall. Rojack's former lover Cherry McMahon (Janet Leigh) happens to be in the car also.

I'm mostly interested in this for being a Norman Mailer novel. It starts with an interesting premise until the story conveniently has Ganucci's car run over the body. It's a bad contrivance that takes me out of the movie. This could have been a tense crime drama. Instead, it's stuck in melodrama. Even the acting is stuck. There is a lack of action after the incident. Even the ledge scenes lack the intensity of normal vertigo. There are loads of turns but non of it is compelling. It's hard to care about Rojack's life or his dilemma.