Though it sometimes looks like a TV "Movie of the Week' deflected to big screen,
You'll Like My Mother
is all in all a neat little nailbiter with a strong cast. Pregnant army widow Francesca Kinsolving (Patty Duke), conditioned by her late husband to expect a warm welcome, visits her in-laws in snowbound Minnesota. Mother-in-law Rosemary Murphy is not only resentful of Patty's presence, she refuses to acknowledge fact that her son ever married. There are other surprises in store for Francesca, including a homicidal son-in-law Richard Thomas and a mentally-challenged sister-in-law Sian Barbara Allen. In addition, Francesca's mother-in-law harbors a "little" secret: she's not Patty's real mother-in-law at all, but a scheming aunt who wants to inherit family fortune and wants no inconvenient relatives blocking her path. Slowly and deliberately, terror builds upon terror, right up to the bone-chilling finale. Jo Heims adapted the script from a Naomi A. Hintze novel.