Tabloid

The new Errol Morris movie draws its title from the fact that its main subject—a former beauty queen named Joyce McKinney—was at the heart of a tabloid sensation in England in the 1970s. The British tabloids played her story as the case of the “Manacled Mormon.” The Mormon in question was a plump missionary named Kirk Anderson, with whom McKinney had romantic relations in the U.S. until his sudden departure for England. McKinney followed him to England, spirited him away to a cottage in Devonshire, and chained him to a bed for three days of sex—or so the papers said. Morris does a documentary-style investigation of at least some of that, including interviews with two of the journalists who originally broke the story and the American pilot who helped her with her transatlantic quest. Morris does dig up some juicy details about McKinney’s life, before and after her 15 minutes of tabloid fame, but he’s not particularly concerned with making a case, pro or con. Instead, he builds a breezy, charmingly convoluted portrait of the woman, a portrait in which her own variously dubious accounts and rebuttals play a large and fascinating role. Pageant Theatre. Rated R. Pageant Theatre. Rated R