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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1980s
    Movies - 1980s Movies - W 2 Mins Read

    Without A Trace (1983)

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    Kate Nelligan plays Susan Selky, the mother of a six-year-old boy who disappears without a trace on a short journey to school one summer morning.

    The police, led by Al Menetti (Judd Hirsch), are very sympathetic even if at first they (wrongly) suspect her estranged husband (David Dukes).

    A lady with second sight (Kathleen Widdoes) seems to provide hope (her ‘visions’ much later prove to be uncannily accurate) and the media dress up her case in their own way to attract public attention. Theories are advanced and discarded but, inevitably, as the weeks pass, interest dies down.

    Even the mother’s best friend (Stockard Channing) tells her she needs therapy – seemingly the American answer to everything – when the case seems broken but she cannot accept that her son is dead.

    The subsequent drama is too strung-out, especially in the closing stages when director Stanley Jaffe’s treatment of the story robs it of much of its inherent tension. Still, Kate Nelligan just about holds it together even at this sticky stage, intelligently conveying a literate woman holding hard to her sanity and only giving way to self-pity when it matters least.

    The film is loosely based on the case of 11-year-old Etan Patz, who disappeared in New York on 25 May 1979 while walking two blocks to catch his school bus. As of June 2012, Patz, who was declared legally dead in 2001, has not been found.

    Susan Selky
    Kate Nelligan
    Al Menetti
    Judd Hirsch
    Graham Selky
    David Dukes
    Jocelyn Norris
    Stockard Channing
    Margaret Mayo
    Jacqueline Brookes
    Philippe
    Keith McDermott
    Ms Hauser
    Kathleen Widdoes
    Alex Selky
    Danny Corkill
    Pat Menetti
    Cheryl Giannini
    Eugene Menetti
    David Simon
    Vivienne Grant
    Joan McMonagle
    Malvina Robbins
    Louise Stubbs
    Naomi Blum
    Deborah Carlson
    Sachs
    Charles Brown

    Director
    Stanley R. Jaffe

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