Word: lylah
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Particularly in those films which Hollywood has produced to help fortify its own mystique. Some of the most exuberant and entertaining movies of the past two decades-Stanley Donen's Singing in the Rain, Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard and Robert Aldrich's Legend of Lylah Clare -have been about Hollywood and the strange brand of people who make it tick. The latter two of these pictures are being offered by the Currier House Film Society this week, and, if you love American movies and are in some way obsessed by the factory that made them, you simply cannot miss...
Indeed this may be one of your only chances to see Lylah Clare, even though this picture dates back only to 1968. Robert Aldrich (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte) financed this film from the profits of his immensely successful Dirty Dozen, probably because no studio would put up the money; MGM finally distributed the movie-but Lylah died a quick critical and box-office death, thereby insuring its banishment to quadruple bill drive-ins during leap years. It's a shame, for this saga of Hollywood is one of the most personal and intriguing American...
...consider: Mazursky has directed the picture in the best Hollywood comedy tradition. A superficial tradition, yes-but not without its own special kind of wit and pleasantries. Like Robert Aldrich (in such kitsch as The Legend of Lylah Clare ). Mazursky has learned how to give vulgarity a good name...
...Awards--thankfully lacking the moral righteousness of last year's, and making up for a general dearth of humor by being more-or-less accurate for a change. Our tuxedoed crusaders have played it safe by avoiding controversial art (Faces) or excellent but vulnerable Americana (Skidoo, The Legend of Lylah Clare), and have instead gone after sacred cows--The Lion In Winter, rosemary's Boby, Star!, Barbarella-- truly wretched films in need of a little deflating. For this we thank them, although somehow the point of a Movie Worsts issue tends to get lost when we find ourselves passively agreeing...
...legend of Lylah Clare was met by complete critical indifference and/or scorn and generally written off as a disaster. Well, film critics don't know anything about anything, as everyone knows, and Robert Aldrich has (perhaps inadvertently) put together a sensational picture. Lest potential Aldrich cultists get their hopes up unduly, his recent Killing of Sister George turned out truly mediocre, the same restless cutting that compels in Lylah Clare working against him in Sister George. Aldrich is a heavy-handed man, and Lylah Clare deals in heavy-handed mysticism, heavy-handed acting stylization, heavy-handed melodrama, heavy-handed tragedy...