The Legend of Lylah Clare

Robert Aldrich had a solid career which includes some extremely fine work such as "Kiss Me Deadly" and "The Big Knife" from his early period. He handled large action movies ("The Dirty Dozen") with the same craftsmanship as small .intimate pieces, ("The Killing of Sister George"). In both "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" and perhaps his most famous movie "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane", there is a definite camp touch which is carefully controlled in that it never derails the proceedings but only adds much to the general enjoyment of these films as a whole.

"The Legend of Lylah Clare" is a film that cannot be derailed, since from the very first frame it's clearly out of control. What proceeds is a very bumpy ride indeed. The question that remains is just how much of this was intentional. Can one consciously make actors perform so ludicrously, and if so, just what is the point ? It's seems totally unfeasible that a director with Aldrich's record should allow these poor actors to humiliate themselves in having to deliver the most preposterous dialog imaginable. Perhaps it's his hate letter to Hollywood. Aldrich who steered clear of the tyranny of Hollywood by establishing his own production company, paints a truly crass portrait of the movie industry. The point is that this is not an intelligent, witty or biting take on the industry, it's simply a grotesque movie which really has to be seen to be believed. Actors with vast experience such as Peter Finch and Ernest Borgnine are made to look like total amateurs in the business. And then there's Kim Novak. (One can only wonder what Tuesday Weld made of the role in the original television version.) Perhaps one should not be too surprised that this was her last American movie, and the signal of the beginning of the end of her somewhat shaky career.

Novak was apparently thrust into stardom far too fast. Her radiant screen presence may have been captivating but there was little real talent behind the looks. What she did exude was a vulnerability which seems to be founded on her justified lack of confidence as an actress. Columbia groomed her as a potential new Marilyn Monroe. But no matter what dark complexes were lurking beneath Monroe's screen presence, she always made us believe she was having a ball. That was her genius. Novak always seems uncomfortable and decidedly awkward. It's something that at times may have worked in her favor, but ultimately her lack of having what it really takes could not be disguised. Lylah Clare is a role that many a Hollywood actress of the time could really have sunk their teeth into. Novak simply does not have a clue what to do with it and director Aldrich leaves her stranded.

The awfulness of this movie becomes riveting in itself. You'll probably want to see it through to the end. One of the greatest worst movies of all time.

I'm sure that when Robert Aldrich thought of doing The Legend Of Lylah Clare he would be doing another one of those acid exposes of Hollywood like The Bad And The Beautiful or his own The Big Knife. I don't think Aldrich set out with the idea of making a bad movie.

But I guess if you're going to do a bad one, make it so stupefyingly bad that it acquires a reputation, a legend if you will. Borrowing in no small measure on the alleged symbiotic relationship of Marlene Dietrich and Josef Von Sternberg, The Legend Of Lylah Clare was so bad that neither Dietrich or Von Sternberg would bother to sue.

The arrogant and dictatorial Peter Finch years earlier had plucked the woman who became Lylah Clare whom he married and then who died on their wedding night most mysteriously. Now agent Milton Selzer who was Lylah Clare's agent comes to Finch with the idea of making a biographical film of the late star. As he purportedly knew her best, he's just the guy. And Selzer who wants to produce this film has a young starlet in Kim Novak who is the spitting image of the late movie legend.

After this work on the project starts with studio boss Ernest Borgnine overseeing the film. Novak starts becoming more and more like the late Lylah Clare as she immerses herself in the character. Pretty soon everyone treats her just like Lylah including Finch.

When he was making his film about Andy Kauffman, Jim Carrey told the press he felt the late comedian taking over his persona, but no one laughed at that because Carrey turned out a good film. The Legend Of Lylah Clare is a treatise of overacting. Everyone here knew this one was going to be a Thanksgiving special with all the trimmings and acted accordingly. They all must have had a really good time on the set, knowing how bad this was. And director Aldrich gave his cast free reign.

This one should be seen to see that even with a top director and a really good cast one can still turn out a stinker.

Well yes, it's compelling viewing in spite of, everything. So overwrought it's jarring and at the center of it all, Kim Novak. The swan of Picnic. James Stewart's obsession in Vertigo. She appears in The Legend Of Lylah Clare, but she's not really in it. Distant, cold, awkward. Pale, almost white lipstick. She has a death scene for goodness sake! It reminded me of that death that Goldie Hawn plays again and again in "Death Becomes Her", she watches it on TV as her arch rival, Meryl Streep, brilliantly plays an actress without talent - dies again and again strangled by Michael Caine. Meryl's Madeline Ashton even licks her lips before her death - Well, Kim Novak's Elsa Campbell/Lylah Clare doesn't lick her lips but almost.Peter Finch is the leading man. Peter Finch! Howard Beale in "Network" His dialogue here is not by Paddy Chayefsky, no, not by a long shot. Hysterically funny I must admit, specially because of the seriousness of the delivery. Then, surprise surprise a few genuine delights, Coral Browne plays a columnist with a wooden leg, Rosella Falk, a talkative lesbian and the glorious Valentina Cortese plays a costume designer. As I'm writing about it I feel an urge to see it again to make sure I didn't imagine the whole thing.

Every once in a while Hollywood feels obligated to turn out cautionary tales to encourage young people in Iowa to stay at home instead of hopping a Greyhound to Los Angeles. People ignore them and keep on coming, but it's created a whole sub-genre of films. In a fairly short period of time we had this, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS.

The film starts very well: Kim Novak, wearing glasses, walks around Hollywood Boulevard early in the morning. She passes Mann's Chinese Theater, where THE DIRTY DOZEN (director Robert Aldrich's previous film) is playing. Kim plays Elsa, a reserved, somewhat bookish young woman, who resembles Lylah Clare, an actress who died in the late 1940's after marrying Lewis Zarkan, the director who shaped her screen persona and made her a superstar.

An agent has found Elsa and thinks she'd be perfect to play Lylah. Soon the movie spirals into silliness that's fun to watch but not very rewarding.

Elsa changes her last name from Brinkmann to Campbell and work begins to transform her personality so that she can play Lylah in a filmed biography. Imagine putting MY FAIR LADY and VERTIGO in a blender: you'll get some idea what the project is like.

Finally Elsa is ready for her debut to the Hollywood press, especially the much feared gossip columnist Molly Luther- a dynamite performance by Coral Brown, who played the lead in THE KILLING OF SISTER GEORGE for Aldrich the same year.

Elsa descends the stair at Zarken's mansion, her hair and wardrobe perfect. She confronts Molly, and instead of submitting to Molly's questioning she suddenly starts speaking in a guttural voice with a thick German accent and humiliates Molly.

Bear in mind that the film comes from over forty years ago, and gossip columnists did wield tremendous power. Much goes into the buildup for the confrontation, it takes place, and........really, nothing. The story lurches on as if it never happens.

There are good performances here. Novak is looser and more relaxed in front of the camera than I remember ever seeing her. Ernest Borgnine as a hearty vulgarian studio chief, Rossella Falk as a drug addicted lesbian with a peripheral connection to the story (she seems to function with Zarken like a sidekick to a villain on an episode of Batman), and, of course, Coral Brown all gleefully overact so much I wondered if MGM wrote checks to them or vice versa.

The chickens all come home to roost in a circus scene that comes out of absolutely nowhere. There was no reference to any big top films with Lylah, but it does put the characters in place in a setting that possibly reminded someone at MGM of Fellini: the same mistake would be visited upon Robert Altman at the same studio when he made BREWSTER MCCLOUD two years later.

This film seems more antique than many others from the same time period. THE GRADUATE, BONNIE AND CLYDE, YOU'RE A BIG BOY NOW and EASY RIDER feel so much looser, more organic, more like real life caught on film. This feels very much studio bound, and watching it you appreciate the scenes under the opening titles mentioned in the second paragraph for their naturalness.

Case in point: an important scene takes place at the Brown Derby restaurant. The place is packed. During the dialog scenes there's no background noise at all: no conversations, no sound of people moving, no clink of silverware and plate. No ambient noise at all. It's as if the characters had entered a soundproof recording studio and closed the door.

This film takes Robert Aldridge into a dimension he'd never touched on before. He'd made dramas like AUTUMN LEAVES and THE BIG KNIFE, action films like KISS ME DEADLY, TEN SECONDS TO HELL, THE FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX, and THE DIRTY DOZEN. THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE just doesn't fit in his filmography. Like Mark Robson's VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, this seems to totter toward Camp.

Aldridge is one of the great directors of time, so this is definitely worth watching. And it's certainly not unwatchable: in fact, it's like watching a school bus go over a cliff- it's hard to tear your eyes away. You just can't help wondering if this was what Aldridge really intended it to be.

Another piece of yesterday from Robert Aldrich, filthied-up through his askew, slightly campy/slightly serious vision. We never know where we sit with an Aldrich movie; he enjoys setting up a comfortable scenario before wickedly pulling the rug out from under his audience. He also exposes the weaknesses of Kim Novak as an actress, rather cruelly allowing the puckered blonde to look silly (at her expense) and without ever giving her a fair shot at a meaty scene. The opening moments are richly evocative, but they don't last long: Kim (in a mousy brown wig) hangs out in a dingy apartment in Hollywood, surrounded by movie magazines and celebrity biographies. Turns out she resembles a long-deceased movie queen named Lylah Clare and is quickly tapped to star in a picture of the actress' doomed life--to be directed by Lylah's widower husband! Bits of satire, supernatural elements, trendy lesbianism and symbolism muddy up this potboiler, which is almost always overwrought but never boring. Peter Finch and Coral Browne are worth watching, and Novak's mere presence is tantalizing (even if her acting is not). Frank De Vol's background score is lush, and the finale is interesting if a tiny bit inscrutable. It is Aldrich's stamp as a filmmaker to go over-the-top; here, he goes over-the-edge as well. **1/2 from ****