The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Absolutely the worst movie.

A lot of fun.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

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.

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.

"The Legend of Lylah Clare", directed by Robert Aldrich, demonstrates that even with a director it's possible to be a vulgar exhibitionist. Over the top acting is on prominent display in Aldrich's "The Big Knife", Autumn Leaves", "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane", "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" and "The Grissom Gang". Based on a 1963 teleplay that starred Tuesday Weld, "The Legend of Lylah Clare" was released the same years as one of Aldrich's best films: "The Killing of Sister George". "The Legend of Lylah Clare" is over 2 hours long, and it's laborious, but it's a camp classic executed with apparently serious intentions making the results all the more jaw dropping. As his masterpiece Kiss Me, Deadly demonstrated, Aldrich is adept at using the wide-screen and he provides some arresting compositions here. DeVol's music is wonderfully inappropriate, cha! cha! cha!...and the bizarre ending is memorable, a comment perhaps on commercialism and the dog-eat-dog world of Hollywood. As she did in "Vertigo", beautiful Kim Novak plays a dual role, and as Lylah she suffers from vertigo. Novak somehow manages to give an amusing performance, but as Lylah, she actually looks a little gross in some shots, and I have to agree with the poster who noted her resemblance to Dusty Springfield. As columnist Molly Luther, Coral Browne walks away with the acting honors, though the not-to-missed cat fight she and Novak have seems to have no consequence or follow through. As the Svegali director who refuses to learn from the past, Peter Finch appears dazed, and for decadence Hollywood style, he lives with a druggie European lesbian whose Italian-accented Englsh is often incomprehensible. They live in a mansion with a wide staircase that is in serious need of a banister, a handrail or perhaps a diving board. The "girl" who falls off the staircase is former Miss America Lee Meriwether who played "Catwoman" in the movie "Batman"(1966). The flashbacks on that infamous staircase do not so much contradict one another, as another poster indicated, but each successive version is altered to reveal the truth of what really happened on Lylah's wedding night. The script is a mixture of Vertigo, Baby Jane, Sunset Boulevard, and The Bad and the Beautiful. The supporting cast is inexplicable, the obvious dubbing of Novak is distracting and animation in the flashbacks are ludicrous. MGM attempted to market it as camp. A film like this is difficult to rate on a 1-10 scale because it's so elaborately misconceived that it has to be experienced. Difficult to find, let's hope someone releases it on DVD complete with the back story and the trailer.

THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE looks initially like some sort of camp classic. Don't expect a companion piece to VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, however. Kim Novak plays a mousy aspiring actress picked to portray Lylah Clare, a Marlene Dietrich/Greta Garbo-type screen goddess from Hollywood's golden era who died tragically 30 years before, in a screen version of her life. Under the tutelage of Peter Finch, Lylah's director and husband, Novak is transformed physically and psychologically into the screen star. Along the way, we're treated to three different versions of Lylah's death(kitschy flashbacks in watery black and white framed with lurid red borders, with Novak's close-up in the corner of the screen), a great bitch-out scene between Novak as Lylah and a crippled gossip-columnist hag based on Louella Parsons, a lesbian drama coach, and Novak spouting dubbed, throaty, German-accented dialogue. The make-up job on Novak to make her look like Lylah really doesn't reflect 1930s movie glamour; with her teased and bleached bob, frosted pink lips, and inch-thick eyeliner, she looks more like Dusty Springfield than Jean Harlow. Despite all this, the film isn't some out-of-control camp fest. Really. No scenery chomping, bad dubbed singing sequences, emotional breakdowns, down-and-dirty catfights, or the like. The only fault with a performance might be with Novak during her fits when she impersonates Lylah, throwing her head back to laugh maniacally in that throaty, faux-Garbo accent. Still, its the only real fault in an otherwise competent film. Aldrich is hardly subtle with his digs at the Hollywood system and corruption, but they come out during the course of his characters' conversations and aren't sensationalized. Too many good performances and sympathetic characters to keep it from being an all-out guilty pleasure, but still engaging