The Lonely Lady

Even when I saw this movie at a teenager, I wondered just how ironic it was that Pia Zadora starred in a movie about an artist who slept her way to the top. As beautiful and sexy as Ms. Zadora is, even she couldn't keep this sorry-ass excuse of a movie from tanking. Not even her photoshoot for Penthouse, in which "The Lonely Lady" was promoted "back in the day," could keep this movie from tanking. The only thing that could have saved this movie? A completely different script. Give this one a miss.

As soon as you hear the theme song for this movie, sung by Larry Graham, you know you're in for a trashfest. The tune is very reminiscent of 60's camp-trash movie themes for "Where Love Has Gone" (sung by Jack Jones) & "Harlow" (sung by Bobby Vinton) among others. It gives this movie a very dated feel, even in 1983. What exactly was up with that hair-don't & hideous dress they gave the "teenage" Pia to wear?? She looked like a disheveled Pippy Longstocking. It's amazing what they crammed into one hour & 32 minutes: Rape with hose nozzle, dysfunctional mother, May/December romance, impotence (Pia couldn't doodle with her older hubby's dead noodle), nudity, lesbianism, abortion, bad 80's fashions, overwrought breakdown scene followed by nut house, rags-to-riches clichés (heroine finally writes an "award" winning screenplay), etc. etc. etc. Pia Zadora (a better singer than actress) did the best she could with this script. The amazing thing about this movie is that it's made by people who are supposed to know what they're talking about firsthand. Watch this movie if you like trashy stories about show biz.

Immediately after renting and watching this movie several years ago, a friend and I decided that it defined the absolute zero on the movie scale. There was nothing about the movie that could have been done worse than it was. To this day we still rate movies, even very bad ones, by how much better than "The Lonely Lady" they are.

A long time ago I saw an interview with Eleanor Perry, who wrote the screenplays for, among other things, "Last Summer" and "Diary of a Mad Housewife," and she related that she had been asked to write a screenplay for the Harold Robbins' book "The Lonely Lady." She said that she sent in a treatment and it was rejected because they didn't think she understood the difficulties of a female screenwriter in Hollywood. She then said "I think they got someone else to write it." The interview was filmed before the movie was released. She died in 1981, and I bet the first thing she did on arrival in heaven was personally thank God for saving her from involvement in the result.

This early Pia Zadora vehicle followed a familiar Harold Robbins formula: ambitious main character wallows in decadence while pursuing the path to the top of some randomly chosen but glamorous world, in this case the movie industry. But despite being so formulaic as to be completely predictable, this movie manages at the same time to be completely unbelievable. Zadora (to call her inexperienced as an actress is to be charitable) never convinces as a screenwriter. One would expect a movie about movie-making to have some insights into its own industry and creative process. But the script gives her none of the qualities which make writers interesting movie characters: observance, skill with words, a love-hate relationship with one's own creative abilities. Her character is as empty as a donut hole. And this is just a taste of the incompetence on display here. The cinematography is so murky that it is sometimes hard to see what is happening. And the scenes never really hang together, so everything seems like a succession of random moments at bad Hollywood parties. Avoid.

Don't ask me why but I saw this turkey ON OPENING DAY at the Picwood Theater (r.i.p.) in West L.A. when it came out. The auditorium was packed, full of bad-movie patrons, all expecting the worst. And the worst they got! Barely five minutes went by before bales of hysterical laughter were forced out of each and every audience member. Even my feminist girlfriend at the time, (who came, expecting to see a serious film about a struggling female screenwriter) had to bust up a few times. I don't know what the producer/director were thinking. It's hard to determine whether or not this meant to be awful. Regardless, this gets my highest recommendation -- invite about ten friends over with a pony keg -- you won't be disappointed!!!!