Theatre Thursdays- Reversal of Fortune

My movie of the week this week is Reversal of Fortune. The amazing story of Claus and Sunny von Bulow. For those of you that don't know their story Sunny von Bulow was born, Martha Crawford. An extremely wealthy Heiress, Socialite and Philanthropist who inherited a reported $100 million following the death of her father a wealthy utilities magnate. On July 20, 1957 she married the Prince Auersburg of Austria they went on to have two children but they later divorced in 1965. On June 6, 1966 Sunny married Claus von Bulow.  In 1980, Sonny was found on her bathroom floor in a coma with extremely high levels, up to a reading of 215, of insulin in her blood. With their mother declared as in a permanent vegetative state Sunny's children turned their attention to their mother's husband. Annie and Alexander grew increasingly more suspicious of their stepfather and eventually turned their concerns into the police saying that they suspected that Claus may have injected their mother with the near fatal dose of insulin. When the police investigating Mr. von Bulow they found a wealth of evidence against him. First, there was the fact that Sunny had been in a temporary coma before and Sunny's maid testified that she was shocked at his lack of emotion. She claimed that she wanted to call an ambulance but Claus said no and wouldn't let her. On top of that it was discovered that Claus had a mistress that had just a few weeks before told Claus that she would not carry on with the relationship unless Claus divorced Sunny, had he done so he would have lost access to Sunny's fortune and been left with no money at all. The last piece of crucial evidence was the infamous black bag, containing several prescription drugs and a syringe containing traces of Insulin. All this combined eventually led to an initial Guilty verdict and sentence of 30 years in prison. However, Claus appealed the case with the help of Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. Alan broke his students off into different groups according to each piece of evidence used against Claus, the black bag group, the syringe group and so on and so forth. Through this they discovered that there were more than a few holes in the prosecutions first case against Claus and with that they had their appeal. "Reversal of Fortune" centers mainly around the appeal trial

and provides a glimpse into what we KNOW happened on the day Sunny was found. It is spectacular and devastating  and beautiful and I strongly encourage you to watch it, it stars two incredible actors, Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons who won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Claus von Bulow. It is one of  my favorite movies, did I mention it has Jeremy Irons in it? Yeah, it has Jeremy Irons in it, and you should watch it... because it has Jeremy Irons in it!!!!!