TV Reviews : ABC’s ‘Gertz Story’ Warns About AIDS

Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan recently announced that many people are not getting the AIDS message: The disease is spreading fastest among heterosexuals and teens.

Obviously, there’s room for another TV movie about AIDS, particularly one targeting those very groups. We get one Sunday in ABC’s “Something to Live For: The Alison Gertz Story” (9 p.m. on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42), in which Molly Ringwald plays true-life AIDS educator Gertz.

Despite many bouts with life-threatening, AIDS-related illnesses, Gertz has devoted herself to getting the word out to teen-agers: If AIDS can happen to her--a white, heterosexual, non-drug-using, unpromiscuous, upscale young woman--it can happen to anyone.

The anatomy of the disease, Gertz’s nightmare hospital stays, her depression and the reaction of parents, friends and a lover are seen in flashbacks as Gertz tells high-schoolers her story.

The film’s strength is Ringwald’s mature, often luminous presence; its weakness is Deborah Joy Le Vine’s respectful but one-dimensional script, directed by Tom McLoughlin, in which the rest of the actors, even Lee Grant and Martin Landau as Gertz’s parents, function merely as satellites.

The most effective scene depicts Gertz’s shock and humiliation when she sees her boyfriend (Perry King), in a panic, scouring his mouth and body with soap and steaming hot water after he has had sex with her (using two condoms) for the last time.

Gertz’s fighting spirit comes through, however, and so does her cautionary message to young people. Sadly, the real Gertz, we learn, is too ill to continue her crusade for AIDS awareness.