If you feel comfortable watching these films, it is probably because of the cozy familiarity of scenes shot on locations here on our picturesque isle and made by some of the local rascals who inhabit it. In this movie, the exterior scenes were shot on the North Shore of Nassau County and the interiors and their neighborhoods in East Hampton, where the producer and director Frank Perry lived for many years.

Compromising Positions was made in 1985 and stars Susan Sarandon. It is partly a light, titillating, funny kind of op-ed piece on male chauvinism, pornography, ethics and vulnerable housewives. It is also a somewhat black comedy. "Compromising positions" are primarily those that a number of Long Island women in the film find themselves in while in the dentist's chair of the top peridontist Dr. Bruce Fleckstein (Joe Mantegna), who is a low-down womanizer. He flashes a huge pinky ring and continues to coo and woo them in his reclining chair, seducing women into brushing their teeth and flossing frequently, while hygienically revising and cleaning up the meaning of the term 'oral sex.' I am sure he would have eventually had stirrups installed on his warm steel chair, but someone plunges a scalpel into his neck and this plunges Susan Sarandon into a murder mystery. The investigation reveals that Dr. Fleckstein had gotten many of his patients to go to a motel room where he recorded their precious moments with a Polaroid, in the fashion of Larry Flint's Hustler magazine.

Ms. Sarandon, as one of the less gullible patients, gets the chance to practice investigative reporting so she can go where the police detective, smoothly played by Raul Julia, can't. She goes to the hearts of the implicated women. Mary Beth Hurt, Joan Allen, Annie DeSalvo and Peg Tuccio play some of them. Judith Ivey plays Ms. Sarandon's best friend, who did not need any of the dentist's services and has the best dialogue written by long-time East Ender, Susan Isaacs, from her novel of the same name. Production design was completed by Peter Larkin and the cinematography was designed by Barry Sonnenfeld, two Hampton locals who can be seen smiling at the camera. Everyone did very tidy work in this movie, which is almost antiseptic, as if it was rinsed with Listerine. So, you'll have a bright smile too.

Guy Jean de Fraumeni is the producer/writer/director of award-winning European and American feature films. He has been a judge at Major Film and TV award competitions, including the Oscars, the Emmys and various film festivals. He is assisted by Sarah Halsey.