And the married name of Bakker (later Messner): divorced wife of televangelist Jim Bakker, deposed queen of the PTL (Praise the Lord) ministry and the Heritage USA theme park ("a Christian Disneyland," in the words of the narrator, RuPaul Charles). Nonfiction filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato take up the tale in the mid-Eighties after the collapse of the empire; and despite the poem penned for the occasion by Tammy Faye -- "I try not to think of days gone by./ To do so only makes me cry" -- they proceed to map out the long road from International Falls, Mn., through Susie Muppet and Allie the Alligator, through Jessica Hahn and Jerry Falwell, through the inevitable made-for-TV movie (starring Kevin Spacey as Jim Bakker) and beyond. The approach, perhaps surprisingly if you haven't given the subject a thought in over a decade, or if you never knew in the first place of her status in the gay community, is one of apologia and campy approbation. And the end result is an eventful and tumultuous story (well documented although visually very uneven), highlighting a soap-operatic heroine, a retinue of servile supporting players, and, in the Rev. Falwell, a convincingly hissable villain. (2000) — Duncan Shepherd
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