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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zable" data-source="post: 75298" data-attributes="member: 47">What comes to mind is an Anglo-Italian production pre-dating Falcon Crest. A movie, which down the totem pole co-starred one Stephanie Beacham.One English version title: Super Bitch, recut/edited from either the original Italian thriller or the first English version released for the UK market. (American edition is called Mafia Junction.  That IMDb intro for it is stupid and misleading. The whole story as given in SB was about an undercover cop gone rogue, playing one side against another in police-initiated drug wars but working only for himself. The guys led in this movie. IMO, elderly mad Mama the Turk – Helen Hayes -- was the alpha female, and there was nothing sexual about her role. There was only 1 man each of the other 2 featured women bared their bods for, and in Ms Beacham's case, her character, Joanne, wasn’t out to manipulate her lover. She was having a simple affair and careful to see that sex and business didn't mix. We don’t actually see her undress with off-hours clients in 2 other instances of sexual romps. Not in SB.) I wouldn’t call Super Bitch a soap, but I can see why someone might assume that it is, when you recall  it has Ms Beacham, who is so associated with The Colbys & Dynasty. Besides, some things in Joanne’s story found their way into TC.Joanne dressed in a rabbit suit got into a sexual romp with a high ranking British civil servant in an reddish/red & gold (? can't recall) room before another male joined them in a sting operation.The civil servant was then blackmailed into assisting in an international drug smuggling operation to help outwit Customs. He & Joanne went to an auction to buy an expensive statue to be sent over to the US.  The auction was rigged, with planted bidders steeply pushing up the price of the statue. …On TC, Zack used an agent to bid for him at auction in New York, which created a bidding war, pushing the price of the painting Sabella wanted beyond her budget.On SB, Morell, a drug supplier, also ran a legitimate business where Joanne mainly worked in the administration. Morell owned a pearl-handled gun kept in a drawer. It became significant later in the story, going from drawer to pocket to out of pocket and changing hands. Similar to the sequence of events on Zack’s yacht the night Sabella was shot, when he took his handgun out of a drawer. ....Joanne knew Morell's gun well enough to recognize it. So did Sabella know which was Jason's favourite shotgun.(Like Charlton Heston in real life, Ettore Manni, the actor who played Morell, had been an avid gun collector. Mr Manni too had acted as Mark Antony; opposite Sophia Loren’s Cleopatra.)  ….On TC, Bliss was Rabbit, and Monica & Neal were often in rooms with red.All this was on TC before FC wrote in teary Dan Fixx saying what he did.But what emphasizes the similarity of things between the SB and FC 'soaps', apart from the opening triumvirate of rogue cop, drugs & sex?[SPOILER]Well, in SB, the last person to (secretly) hold Morell’s gun was Joanne. She tearfully explained to her rogue cop lover Cliff why the man he’d framed (and had gotten killed as a result) had meant a great deal to her.She poured out her grief and pain, her anger over feeling like she’d betrayed and had been betrayed; pointing out that she hadn’t known Cliff was a cop, and would never have gotten involved with him had she known.Cliff – who’d cared enough to rescue her when she was being held hostage by Mama’s crazy family of vicious killers but hadn't cared enough to find out Joanne’s last name – was insensitive to the depths of her grief. He was dismissive of Morell, the man who'd made him his business partner in return for protection from the warring drug distributors. We know where her absolute loyalty lies (but not why) when Joanne kills Cliff with the drug supplier's gun. Before that a mask came over her at one point. To me, it was that she'd made a decision. Her actions were deliberate, despite the roiling emotions. ....Kinda like Emma, later in FC S9.From her name typed on the arrest warrant, [/SPOILER] we finally learn that Joanne’s last name is Morell. It’s implicit in the movie in a couple of places that the drug supplier wasn’t her father.So there you have it, the 2nd triumvirate of tears/grief/anger over what’s become of a spouse; a gun going off & death.  Dan went to jail. We don’t know if Joanne did in the SB version.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?