The Name of the Game Is Kill!

The Name of the Game Is Kill! is a 1968 American

When the other three women return home, Lipa asks the mother if he can work in the family business in return for room and board. His offer is accepted. Lipa goes to Mickey and they too have a long conversation. Mickey tells him she has fallen in love with him, but he tells her his capacity for love was lost in the aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Mickey talks to Lipa about her father, and also mentions she had been involved with Julio Lamberto. Even though Lipa had previously told Mickey she was moving too fast in their relationship, they become lovers and decide to move to San Francisco.

When they tell the rest of the family their intentions, the mother wishes them luck. They plan to leave the next day. It is almost Halloween and it will soon be Nan's birthday, so they decide to have a party that night to celebrate everything. Early in the festivities Nan goes missing. But she is soon found, she and Diz were merely working together to scare Lipa and Mickey.

That night Lipa chats, separately, with the mother and Nan. In all, the four women tell very different stories of what happened to the father. They all say he was artistically accomplished, specializing in Venus Di Milo replicas. The women also mention their interactions with Julio Lamberto.

The next day Lipa and Mickey leave in the car, but have to return shortly after, as Diz had predicted they would, when Mickey realizes she does not have her money. When Mickey goes upstairs to look for it, Lipa is lured to a back room and knocked unconscious with a statue by Nan. She and Diz drag him to a furnace and open the grate and prepare to force his body in. Mickey and the mother arrive just in time to prevent it. As they struggle, Lipa regains consciousness. Nan, while calling out that Lipa must die, grasps at the mother's head and pulls. The mother is wearing a wig which Nan yanks off, and she is revealed, to the shock of all the sisters, to actually be their father.

Diz, overwhelmed, babbles that she told Nan to kill Lipa because he was going to cause the family to separate. Diz then says that she hated her mother and killed her years ago. The father supports her version, saying that his wife was a wicked woman with low morals. Nan confesses to having killed Julio Lamberto.

The father tells Mickey to go start her new life with Lipa in San Francisco. They drive off. The father returns to Diz and Nan and comforts then, and says they should have some tea. He removes three of the four pills he keeps in a locket around his neck, and drops one in each of the cups of tea he has prepared for them and for himself. While doing so he says, “It’s never too late to be a good father”.

Out on the highway Lipa asks Mickey what actually happened to her mother. The camera freezes on Mickey's face and her enigmatic, possibly sinister smile.

Cast

• Jack Lord as Symcha Lipa
• Susan Strasberg as Mickey Terry
• Collin Wilcox Paxton
  as Diz Terry
• Tisha Sterling as Nan Terry
• T.C. Jones as Mrs. Terry
• Mort Mills as Sheriff Fred Kendall
• Marc Desmond as The Doctor

References

Bibliography

• Lisanti, Tom Fantasy Femmes of Sixties Cinema: Interviews with 20 Actresses from Biker, Beach, and Elvis Movies. McFarland, 2001. ^{[ISBN missing]}

External links

• The Name of the Game Is Kill! at
  IMDb