In 1959, about the same time that Doris Day
defended her honor from Rock Hudson’s
assault in “Pillow Talk,” an extraordinarily
pretty Bronx girl named Linda Riss fought off
a married lawyer. Burt Pugach was thirty-two,
Linda ten years younger. He wasn’t much to
look at, and his honesty, both personal and
professional, was intermittent at best, but he
had some money. When she fell in love with a
handsome young man, Burt hired three thugs
to throw acid in her face so that the suitor
would no longer want her.
This barbaric act, which left Linda nearly
sightless, wound up binding Burt and Linda
together for life. Dan Klores’s documentary is a
real-world story, as redolent of time and place
as a song by Dion and the Belmonts, in which
possessiveness, stupidity, loyalty, and need are
joined together in bewildering combinations.
It’s as if some disreputable and unending
liaison out of the Greek myths arose on the
streets of the East Bronx to be celebrated not
with epic poetry but with front-page headlines
in the tabloids.
Klores takes the media-archeological
approach—lots of still photographs, home
movies, stock footage, and current-day
interviews. One may be horrified or amused by
this couple, but one is also mightily impressed
by their talent for survival.
David Denby,
New Yorker Magazine
