The Legend of Lylah Clare(1968). Director: Robert Aldrich. Cast: Kim Novak, Peter Finch and Coral Browne.
Being a huge Kim Novak fan, I was really looking forward to watching the film, Legend of Lylah Clare on TCM. The story begins with Elsa Brinkmann, an unknown actress from Chicago, is hired by talent agent Bart Langner to star in a film biography of the Hollywood star, Lylah Clare. After meeting the young actress, Lewis Zarkan, Lylah's director-husband, who had not been working in films since his wife fell to her death on their wedding night, can not believe Elsa's resemblance to Lylah. Zarkan agrees to direct the film. Although, at first Elsa is uncomfortable with Zarkan wanting her to the duplicate Lylah. Soon, Elsa finds herself drawn into recreating Lylah's personality and even possess her fear of heights.
Even though, Kim Novak was beautiful in this movie. I thought the movie, Legend of Lylah Clare, was kind of.. what can I say... weird.
Dawn, I'm in complete agreement with you -- this is one weird movie. I was looking forward to it, love Kim Novak, love Peter Finch. What a disappointment! Novack sounded like a baritone transvestite, and Finch's character was just not well written. It's pretty hard to make Kim Novak not look very good, but her hairstyle and makeup didn't flatter her at all. Very confusing and ultimately not worth the time needed to watch it. Well, some pretty strange movies came out of the 60's, plenty of good ones, and plenty of just oddities!
ReplyDeleteBeck, Ohmygosh!!! I agree... Novack, did have a very deep voice. I almost thought her voice was dubbed in by someone else.. and I wanted to slap Finch's character, who was over the top creepy...
ReplyDeleteI saw this film several years back. It is truly camp -- Aldrich basically over indulged his style from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane & Hush, Hush Sweet Chalotte. The movie had potential but honestly most of peter Finch's work does not hold up to me, he was often too much(even his Oscar winning performance in Network is dated for me.) Kim Novak -- not a big fan, so this did nothing to win me over. I agree with Becky, the 1960's tried push the envelope and some great films resulted but some oddities emerged too. Again, Like the movie "The Oscar" I think a different cast might have pulled this one off -- maybe I have to do blog on my casting ideas?
ReplyDeleteGilby, Yes, please do blog on your casting ideas for the film, The Legend of Lylah Clare. I would love to read it. I'm so glad that this was not my first Kim Novak film. Verrry Scarrry..
ReplyDelete