Crazy Love
A shocking documentary about how love is blind
The story of Linda Riss and Burt Pugach, which is explored with their cooperation in Crazy Love, a brilliant 2007 documentary by Dan Klores and Fisher Stevens, is one of obsession, rage, betrayal, horrific domestic violence, pragmatism, togetherness, the realities of sexism and—dysfunctional yet enduring—love. These two New Yorkers met in the 1950s and dated, and, when it became apparent that Pugach, a lawyer, wasn’t going to marry Riss and she started seeing other men, he had her brutally attacked. The incident became tabloid fodder, Pugach was sent to jail on a 14-year sentence and Riss, disfigured and blind, was simply left to grow old alone. Only that wasn’t the end of the tale: upon his release from jail, Pugach offered to marry Riss and, her prospects now diminished at age 37, she agreed. They remained together for decades, until filmmaker Dan Klores caught up with their strange and sobering lives in Crazy Love in 2007. The film, a Best Documentary winner from critics’ groups and the Independent Spirit Awards, is now streaming free (above) to members of PROVOKR.
