The Ties That Blind

If you were to cross paths with Burt and Linda Pugach, they’d probably strike you as a fairly typical elderly couple from the Bronx: they putter around the house, they go to the same restaurant for breakfast every Saturday, they kvetch about neighbours, and they bicker with each other the whole time in a tone that makes it impossible to tell where irritation ends and affection begins.

Spend a little time with them, however, and you’ll notice that Linda’s dark glasses and her wig aren’t just a fashion statement; she’s actually blind and bald. Hang out with them at their house, and maybe they’ll tell you the story of how Linda got that way—God knows they’ve shared it with practically every tabloid reporter and daytime TV talk show host in the country.

You see, back in 1959, Burt was a prosperous lawyer (albeit a fairly shady one). He’d been courting Linda for a while, escorting her to the nightclub he owned, showering her with gifts and taking her on rides in his private plane. But when it became apparent that Burt was never going to divorce his wife, Linda broke off the relationship and soon was engaged to a new man. After a few months of fruitlessly stalking her and threatening her, Burt decided that if he couldn’t have Linda, then no one could—and he hired a couple of thugs to throw lye in her face. Burt was sent to prison, while Linda, blinded and disfigured, tried to adjust to her new life. An admirable goal... except in Linda’s case, “adjust to her new life” wound up meaning “marrying the man who blinded her when he finally got out of jail 13 years later.”

I can’t think of another movie that made me shout with disbelief more times than Crazy Love—just when you think your opinion of Burt couldn’t get any lower, he finds a way to sink to a new level of moral vacuousness. (This is a guy whose best buddy defends his relationship with him by shrugging and saying, “Even Hitler had friends!”) I’m not a psychiatrist, so I don’t know if Burt is a sociopath, a psychopath or just an asshole, but you can at least console yourself with the thought that he seems to have received the perfect karmic reward for his actions: he now gets to spend every waking hour with Linda. And as one of the couple’s friends remarks, it’s hard to tell whether that’s a joy or a punishment. Think of them as a sordid, squabbling, real-life version of the Joker and Harley Quinn.

It’s Linda who emerges from the film as the more compelling and frightening figure of the two. After all, the film strongly suggests that she took Burt back not because she still loved him but because she needed financial security, and also had come to believe that Burt was the only man who was now even capable of loving her. In a sick way, she also seems to relish the media attention that her marriage stirred up, no matter how lurid the headlines might have been or how prurient Geraldo’s and Sally Jessy’s questions became. You can’t help but wonder: if she’d never met Burt, would she have stayed the nice, shy Jewish girl she was in 1959? Are all of us just one crazy relationship away from transforming into a lovestruck freak ourselves? And could you argue that maybe every marriage is a milder version of the Pugaches—that couple stay together for more unhealthy reasons than healthy ones.

Directors Dan Klores and Fisher Stevens don’t delve too deeply into the Pugaches’ psychology—and who can blame them for keeping their distance from that snakepit? They’re content simply to share this bizarre story and let it speak for itself (aided by plenty of slickly edited home movies, talking-head interviews and vintage music cues). Crazy Love left me disturbed, dumbfounded and praying that if I ever meet a girl who loves me as much as Burt Pugach loves Linda, she’ll stay the hell away from me.