THE PRESIDENT'S WOMEN

Plodding onward, the near-talentless Singer (The Markoff Women, 1986; The Movie Set, 1984; Star Dreams, 1983) checks in with a drippy, convoluted story of a handsome young politician and his scheming mother. A scorecard is needed to keep the players straight, but what Singer is attempting goes something like this: Judith Tyler of the Boston Tylers marries rich old financier Dudley Stanton; before Dud kicks off, he gives her a gorgeous son, Rud, whom she immediately begins to groom for finer things. By 1970, he's a congressman, married to the lovely Abby Truesdale (a cousin of his) and has Judith watching every move. Judith also steals away an ex-Governor of Florida, Bill Sheridan, from his wife, Francesca (both Bill and Francesca are old Boston buddies) and uses his political connections to help set Rud's sights on the Presidency. Along with this, there's a very strange organized crime connection: Bill is shot and paralyzed for life by assassins who may also have killed Trace Boudin, another old Boston buddy who is connected to Judith, who may or may not be behind all of this. In any event, Rud finally becomes President in 1992, and Judith decides to call in her markers--she wants poor Bill to become Secretary of State. But Rud refuses, finally his own man, and Judith is left fuming and vowing revenge. A bit like listening to the babblings of an insane genealogist: all of Singer's characters, it seems, are either cousins or half-brothers and sisters, or related in some bizarre way (one, Carlotta, is both Judith's aunt and Bill Sheridan's sister-in-law), and they're always finding out who their true mothers and fathers are, and having close calls with incest. Exhausting.