A washed up director (Peter Finch) takes a naive young girl (Kim Novak) and attempts to turn her into the image of the legendary screen goddess Lylah Clare (also Novak), who died under mysterious circumstances. Impressed, a studio head (Ernest Borgnine) gives the go ahead for the director to film the Lylah Clare story with his new star. Disaster follows. Based on the 1963 teleplay by Robert Thom (WILD INT HE STREETS) and directed by Robert Aldrich (APACHE). This isn't director Aldrich's first attempt at showing the dark side of Hollywood. Previous entries included THE BIG KNIFE and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? but this is the most insane. It's Aldrich's view of the "dog eat dog" mentality of Hollywood but judging from the film's last shot, he took it literally! Did anyone actually know what they were doing? It's the kind of movie that looks like it was conceived in a feverish hallucination. Still, it's the type of fascinating mess that's often more compelling than better constructed "tasteful" movies. And any movie that contains dialog like, "Tell them Lylah is coming once she gets her harness on!" is not easily dismissed. Novak tries and she's not bad though someone thought it was a good idea to dub her Lylah with a deep Teutonic voice (reputedly Hildegard Knef) that makes her sound like Regan in THE EXORCIST! Still, whatever it is, it's not boring! With Ernest Borgnine, Rossella Falk, Valentina Cortese, George Kennedy, Michael Murphy, Gabriele Tinti, Ellen Corby, Lee Meriwether, Milton Selzer, Jean Carroll and Coral Browne as a bitchy Hollywood columnist.
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