The Lonely Lady.

Review #2150: The Lonely Lady.

Cast: 

Pia Zadora (Jerilee Randall), Lloyd Bochner (Walter Thornton), Bibi Besch (Veronica Randall), Joseph Cali (Vincent Dacosta), Anthony Holland (Guy Jackson), Jared Martin (George Ballantine), Ray Liotta (Joe Heron), Kerry Shale (Walt Thornton, Jr), Sandra Dickinson (Nancy Day), Lou Hirsch (Bernie), Ed Bishop (Doctor Baker), and Shane Rimmer (Adolph Fannon) Directed by Peter Sasdy (#1159 - Taste the Blood of Dracula)

Review: 

I didn't have this film initially in mind for Turkey Week 4, you know. I thought to myself, hey, what was the next film adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's works after Valley of the Dolls (1967). Well, The Love Machine (1971) did seem like an idea, but I found my way to something that might as well be part of it all. The Lonely Lady was a novel released to stores in 1976 by the hands of Harold Robbins. He dedicated the book to Susann (who had died in 1974). Robbins was notable as a writer in his own right, of course; born and raised in New York to Jewish emigrants, he served in the U.S. Navy for a time before going on to work a variety of jobs that even included Universal Pictures. He started writing in 1948 and basically wrote melodramas for the rest of his life, which would see various film adaptations that went from King Creole (released in 1958, after changing the title from the book) to The Adventurers (1970) to The Betsy (1978). He was the kind of racy book writer that lived a life so colorful that had people such as Stephen King say didn't want to end up like him as a "nightmare". Needless to say, Robbins led a strange life that probably would've made for its own film, even if he liked to fib about his upbringing; he died at the age of 81 in 1997. And then there's Pia Zadora. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey to a violinist and wardrobe supervisor, she actually was an actor from a young age, which included what else but Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964). She later married Meshulam Riklis, who wanted to push her as an actress, complete with financing from his company. This would culminate in Butterfly (1982), a film that saw her get critical savaging and a "Newcomer" Golden Globe. Fake-Out (1982) isn't even remembered as the follow-up, because, well, the next one was this film. It all aligns together because Riklis helped out the logjam that Universal Pictures had when it came to doing a film based on that Robbins book that had stalled for years despite having Susan Blakely in mind to star. The eventual screenplay credit went to John Kershaw and Shawn Randall with a story credit for Ellen Shepard. Peter Sasdy never directed another theatrical film after this failure, which had the dubious honor of having an ad campaign lead by John J.B. Wilson, the guy behind the Golden Raspberry Awards who "liked" what he saw (Zadora apparently said that receiving a nomination but not winning would've been something she "hated" - take one guess how that worked out). Robbins called the film crap but liked the fact he received $600,000 before it opened.

I should mention that Zadora called the film a turkey upon release. She had one more star role in her with the B-flick sci-fi musical Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984) and has since been more known for her musical career. It is kind of like watching a perverted cousin of The Oscar (1967), another film involving an awards ceremony setup (but that one had the actual Oscar statuette). It actually is a short film at 92 minutes, and if you avert your eyes as the ridiculous amount of sex scenes, it is even shorter, unless one really needed to see a guy shoot a pool ball at a naked woman on a table. I think the preening title song has the most life next to Zadora when it comes to such ridiculously lowkey acting around it all. Holland is probably the only "normal" person in the film, which includes plenty of perverts and lurid attempts at hard-hitting dialogue that has the impact of light cat scratching. Bochner and Cali might as well be mailing it in from downtown. Zadora may have been the target of criticism because, well, title character, but who could have helped this film? She really tries to show the trouble and toil that come with an industry that seems to value the body of a woman over a body of work and where it can lead someone to go down the road of shame. Of course, skin showing aside, there is nothing for anyone to grab on to because the dynamics of the film are skewed into lame soap opera with no sense of dignity or interest. For a "writer", you see exactly one line of dialogue that she suggests, which really can apply to dubious choices of any kind: "Why?". I can't tell what is most embarrassing in the opening sequence: Zadora supposed to be playing a high schooler among other near 30-somethings or, well, the garden hose moment. The fact that the particular sequence has Ray Liotta (a future member of being in even worse material than this) making his debut is probably a testament that if you can make it there, you can...escape to anywhere. The movie dives into the mud early, puts oil all over said mud and decides lighting a match would be better than the garden hose to top it off. Calling the film silly trash is actually a bigger joke than you think, because this is the kind of movie you show to someone who thought Valley of the Dolls lacked that cheesy factor. The closing sequence takes the cake for such empty dramatic heft that Zadora gamely tries to make stick, for better and certainly for worse. I especially like how she just leaves the ceremony to no one around, as if the film was about to hang itself in shame. The points that the film that stop one from going all "zero stars" is mostly on her shoulders, because the script and director failed her most of all. As a whole, it is a lurid and ridiculously terrible time to spend for all the reasons you would expect, but Zadora at least seems like she deserved better than the reviews of the time gave her. It isn't the worst of anything, but if you love some Hollywood trash, you have something to consider.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 10 stars.

Once more on Turkey Week, let's consider some religion. The Left Behind (2014) kind.

Saturn 3.

Review #1194: Saturn 3.

Cast: 
Farrah Fawcett (Alex), Kirk Douglas (Adam), Harvey Keitel (Captain Benson; voiced by Roy Dotrice), and Ed Bishop (Harding) Directed by Stanley Donen (#137 - Bedazzled (1967), #227 - Singin' in the Rain, #346 - On the Town, and #1029 - Charade)

Review: 
Whether a film is good or not, even the terrible ones can have an interesting story to tell about how it came to be. John Barry was a production designer for hit films in the 1970s such as A Clockwork Orange (1971), Star Wars (1977), and Superman (1978). He had expressed an interest in making a film of his own, and he approached Stanley Donan with an idea that would be presented as a Gothic sci-fi thriller. Although Donan was not interested in directing the feature due to not having much interest in science fiction, he encouraged Barry to develop an outline, which he developed into a draft that he showed to Donan. He felt that the idea could work for Barry's directorial debut, albeit with a need for help with developing the screenplay. Martin Amis (writer of novels such as Dead Babies but who had no prior experience with screenplays) was enlisted to develop a draft, which was presented by Donan to Lord Lew Grade (producer of shows such as Thunderbirds and The Prisoner) in 1978 for consideration. While having the script in his possession on an airplane trip, Grade happened to be seated next to Fawcett and her representative; he showed her the script (under the working title The Helper), and she expressed interest, which led to her making a deal with Grade to be in the project. After signing Douglas and Keitel, the film had their prime trio and began production in late January 1979. Donen described the film at one point as “...both sensuous and sensual, full of chills, fright and horror. It’s science fiction, but not ‘comic strip’ SF....It’s something of a Frankenstein story, and meant to frighten audiences in a very unusual way.” Colin Chilvers dealt with the construction of the robot, which cost over $1 million to make, while Stuart Craig was charged with production design, such as the interior of the Titan research station - it should be noted that the Saturn 3 set took over four months to build while running a distance of 280 feet for a film with a final budget of $10 million, with production overruns from Raise the Titanic (ITC Entertainment's other big production at the time) resulting in cutbacks for this film.

As much I do not like to emphasize age when it comes to a film, it certainly is a bit odd to see Fawcett and Douglas as a couple, in part because of the 30 year age difference between the two. Originally the idea was to have Sean Connery cast in the role of the older male lead, but plans fell through for that, leading to Douglas being cast. Douglas had strife with Barry, whose time as director proved short. Two weeks into production, he left the production, with Donan stepping in as director. Donan stated that Barry's departure was due to Barry's lack of experience on a film set in dealing with actors and staging scenes (as said by Donan, while calling him a "terrific talent"). It should be noted that the film has a run-time of 88 minutes; at least fifteen minutes were cut out of the movie (reportedly due to Grade's objection to them), with one notable scene being cut out involving a dream sequence of Adam killing Benson after the two try some sort of space pill. It should be mentioned that there also existed a television cut of the film that was 96 minutes long that included extensions and additions while toning done some of the film's violence. The final little nugget of weirdness came when Keitel refused to post-synch his dialogue, leading to a re-dubbing of his character by Roy Doctrice. Imagine making a film relying on three main characters and having one of them not even use their own voice the whole time - it sure is a strange thing.

With all of that background, it is no wonder that this did not turn out to be a great film. It is a tremendous exercise in ridiculousness for the science fiction genre, having a hodgepodge of cliches that make the movie seem like a strange blend of numerous movies, such as Alien (1979), Forbidden Planet (1956), but also Demon Seed (1977) while being worse than all three. It is a strange little movie, having no real sense of tension or wonder while having one of the stranger love pursuits - this time with a nutty creep and his lumbering Frankenstein robot (powered by baby brains). It is pretty evident that this script must have gone through numerous revisions, which reminds me of the Infinite monkey theorem (a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type any given text) and if it was like that, but with script doctors. How can anyone make dialogue such as "Your body is very beautiful. I'd like to use it" or scenes such as Douglas (wearing no clothes) choking out Keitel work without making someone cringe (or giggle)? Fawcett seems to come out of it with the least lost, in part because her warmth and charm works just fine that fits the horror type okay. Douglas is simply not the right guy for the part, but at least he is hammy enough to enjoy in his attempts to have chemistry with Fawcett. Keitel (or more specifically, Doctrice) is creepy, but he isn't too particularly interesting to go along with, not having enough menace to really make this seem worthy of chills. By the time the film tries to pull a shocker for a climax (at least I assume its supposed to be surprising), the film already has run out of air. At least the robot seems interesting, but it seems as if they really wanted to make something different involving this robot as some sort of innocent Frankenstein's monster type, but really it is not much more than a killer robot that inhabits passion for Fawcett. The effects are decent, and the sprawling set is interesting - but it can't elevate the movie and its material to anything captivating. What we have here is a movie that is occasionally weird to point and look at while perhaps having a laugh, but what we don't have is something that is actually any good. It is a middle-of-the-road kind of film that can't be trashed as all-around terrible (despite some efforts on the part of the film) nor one that merits much of a following. It could be worth it as a curiosity for someone looking for a ridiculous failure piece - or some groans.

Next Review - Raise the Titanic.
 
Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.