Death at Love House

Joel and Donna Gregory (Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson) move into the huge mansion of late silent film star, Lorna Love. Researching a book about her, the Gregory's are quite taken with the old place, complete with a shrine containing a perfectly preserved Lorna Love!

Upon perusing her library, Joel discovers some tomes concerning witchcraft. Enter Mr. Conan Carroll (John Carradine), who attempts to shed some light on Lorna's... dark side. Let's just say that this could be Carradine's shortest role, ever! Diabolical chicanery unfolds. Will Joel and Donna survive long enough to write their book?

DEATH AT LOVE HOUSE is another made-for-TV horror / suspense film from the wondrous 1970's. The fiendish fun begins almost immediately, blending both supernatural and occult elements. No, there's not a large body count, or shambling ghouls, but there is a nice, haunting atmosphere of mystery. Wagner and Jackson are great, as are the cameo appearances by Dorothy Lamour and Joan Blondell!...

I'm only giving this 5 stars because of the old-timers who appeared in this cheesy TV movie: Sylvia Sidney, Joan Blondell, John Carradine, and Dorothy Lamour.

Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson play a married couple researching a book on a silent old film star, Lorna Love, and her affair with Wagner's father.

This is a little like The Shining in that the spirit of the house takes over Wagner like five minutes after their arrival.

The actress playing Lorna Love, Marianna Hill, looked like something out of Charlie's Angels, not a '20s film star. After hearing for the entire film how irresistible she was, I still didn't get it.

Campy TV movie.

Aaron Spelling attempted to dabble in horror with this flick, concerning two married journalists doing research on a long-dead Hollywood star. Lorna Love was the top star of her time, and it seems that she employed more than charm and talent to get to the top, namely, witchcraft, and seems to be employing it from beyond the grave on the husband(Robert Wagner), who is the son of Lorna's former love. Will Lorna prevail? Or will the wife(Kate Jackson)save her husband? It's a surprise. It's a decent film, but if Dan Curtis HAD been doing this, it might have been much, much better.

Cheezy but kinda fun, this low-budget TV movie is set mostly in and around a 36-room Hollywood mansion, dark and sinister, wherein long ago lived a silent movie goddess named Lorna Love, but who now is entombed in a glass "shrine" on the mansion's grounds. Into this creepy world comes husband and wife writers researching Lorna Love for a book. The plot is simple and straightforward, but very campy. Subtle clues in the dialogue and visuals point to the twist at the end.

Color cinematography is terrible. The images, grainy to begin with, seem blurred or out of focus, which conveys the impression that the producers used cheap film stock. Or maybe the transfer to DVD made the visuals look bad. Sound quality is even worse. For insertion of TV commercials, each plot sequence fades to black, which makes the plot choppy. And background music is your typical nondescript, off-the-shelf elevator music.

Probably the best element is the casting of several older actresses including animated Joan Blondell, and wonderful Sylvia Sidney, whose gruff voice and thick red lipstick give her a unique, one-of-a-kind image. As husband and wife, Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson have minimal chemistry together. Jackson tries hard, maybe a little too hard. Wagner seems bored.

This film looks and feels very 1970s. The story's underlying premise isn't bad at all. Indeed, pick any fairly young deceased Hollywood celebrity. With major changes in the film's plot, geared to realism, might we envision the film's premise about Lorna Love being applied to that deceased person?

"Joel Gregory" (Robert Wagner) and his wife "Donna" (Kate Jackson) are writing a book on a former movie star by the name of "Lorna Love" (Marianna Hill) who captivated audiences with her sex appeal before dying in the prime of her life. To help them with this project they are given permission to stay in Lorna's former mansion to collect more information pertaining to their research. What they soon discover is that Lorna spent a great deal of money to hire a specialist in the occult who could give her immortality along with her lover--who just happens to have been the father of Joel. Soon mysterious things begin to happen to both Joel and Donna which not only threatens their marriage but also their sanity and their lives. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a fairly entertaining mystery film which was greatly limited by the made-for-television format. Additionally, while it had some suspense here and there, it seemed somewhat subdued in nature as well. All in all though, I suppose it was an okay movie and I have rated it accordingly. Average.