Top Ten Anniversary: Guilty Pleasure Movies

Top Ten Guilty Pleasure Movies

As I've noted more than once over the years, "Bad Movies We Love" are actually among my favorite kind! I absolutely recognize the artistry and quality behind a number of great films, but the unintentionally rotten ones are usually far more entertaining to me personally. Continuing with our ten-year anniversary series of Top Ten lists, I now give you - in alphabetical order - my guiltiest of guilty pleasures when it comes to the cinema! Let's roll 'em...!

BEYOND THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1979) -- The Poseidon Adventure (1972) won my heart and enthralled me for all time when I saw it on TV for the first time in 1975. Clearly, the impact was profound if you've ever taken notice of the name of this blog! It's belated (and wholly unnecessary) sequel was so indescribably hackneyed and rotten it sank like a stone at the box office before I had ever even known of its existence. Nevertheless, like a poor wounded animal, I cannot help but feel for it in spite of its pronounced awfulness. I love almost anything with people versus water and the all-star cast calls me hither, especially dewy Veronica Hamel and the elegant Shirley Knight, who offers the same sort of graciously detached regality that Faye Dunaway had in The Towering Inferno (1974.) Problem is, Shirl is locked in a total dud of a film with Jack Warden scarcely comparing to the hot Paul Newman of TTI! You can read a lot more about this movie by clicking on the title and perusing its tribute here.

COLOR OF NIGHT (1994) -- Though I rarely mention it, this is one of my very, very favorite terrible movies. It's gorgeous to look at, is brimming over with all sorts of phallic imagery, contains a fascinating supporting cast (including a hysterical bit from the aforementioned Shirley Knight!) and is so bizarrely bent from frame one that its awfulness is unlikely to ever be duplicated! Reviled by critics and basically ignored by audiences, it slammed the lid on eclectic director Richard Rush's career and came perilously close to derailing Bruce Willis'. Infamous for the moment when he gets naked except for his sneakers in a pool with (always barely-dressed) Jane March, exposing the head of his penis, that's only one of several times he and March engage in crazed sex scenes. (And depending on the framing, widescreen or cropped for TV, he has additional nudity as well.) The movie operates at a fever-pitch, despite its length, and has at its core a truly lunatic plot "twist" that is obvious from the first few moments the groundwork is laid.

DINAH EAST (1970) - Completely unknown to me until the excellent blog Dreams Are What Le Cinema Is For profiled it to perfection, I knew I had to have a copy of it and made it happen post haste. Imagine my reaction when I watched the DVD and every male star in the movie proceeded to get completely naked one after another...! It's like the filmmakers spent their $16.98 budget doing everything they could to please me! LOL We need more movies like this, not that anyone today could really grasp that unmistakable verisimilitude that could only come with an earnest desire to be great mixed with only enough money to cover one decent dinner for ten. The movie is aggressively bad, but every participant's heart is in the right place. I utterly adore it.

DIE! DIE! MY DARLING (1965) -- I have been a diehard fan of all "hag horror" films since the day my mother introduced me to What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) one afternoon on TV. It kicked off an absolute slew of imitators and wannabes. This one is so terrific because legendary (and legendarily outrageous) stage actress Tallulah Bankhead not only plays against type as a dour, dowdy religious fanatic, but also gives every waking moment of her screen time 110% even though she was frail, sickly and approaching death within a few years! Her target is a young, pert Stefanie Powers, but there are other great performers such as Peter Vaughn, Yootha Joyce and Donald Sutherland as a special needs handyman. It's campy to start with, but the hooty music score puts it over the top even further. Most of all, it's unforgettably vivid and fun to take in.

HURRY SUNDOWN (1967) -- Another notorious howler is this southern-fried drama of racial tension from taskmaster Otto Preminger, who loved pushing the cinematic envelope when it came to hot-button subject matter. A dream cast of actors is saddled with some of the most jaw-dropping dialogue and situations, not the least of which is Jane Fonda getting on her knees and trying to blow Michael Caine's saxophone between his legs. Again, everyone seems to be trying his or her best, and some of the performances are indeed earnest, but the overall effect is one of startled disbelief at what is unfolding before one's eyes.

LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER (1981) -- For people of a certain age (around in cable TV's primary hey-day), there are movies we saw over and over that now seem to have receded from view. This is one that I could never, ever forget. Once glimpse of Nicholas Clay soaping up and hand-washing his beefy body, completely naked, was all I needed to make sure I was in front of the set, with no other pesky people around, for the first half-hour at least every time this flick was on! It's considered a low-rung, exploitative adaptation of the famed D.H. Lawrence, but I couldn't care less. Sylvia Kristel cannot act, but she knew how to play sexy and there aren't enough words for Clay, who also made an impression in Evil Under the Sun and Excalibur (both 1981.)

LOST HORIZON (1973) -- This was one of those bucket-list movies I figured I'd never see, especially in its original length with the infamous fertility dance intact. Thankfully, sometimes the universe is kind to the patient. I had been listening to a soundtrack cassette (!) from the film, purchased for $0.50, when one day in 1998 AMC ran it even though the description was for the original 1937 rendition and I was able to tape it. Later came a DVD with all the squalor included! This is one HOT MESS of a musical, brimming with stars who have no business singing (or pretending to be) and despite top names in every category, a creative fiasco. Bad movies are great, but bad musicals are a scream!

MAME (1974) -- I saw the stage musical Mame before I ever got the "chance" to see the film adaptation and I loved it. Like Lost Horizon, even though there are highly accomplished people involved in most areas of the film, it is a resounding dud much of the time, mostly because its star, Lucille Ball, was a little too old and a lot too vocally challenged to pull off the demanding role (which screamed out for verve, flair and exuberance.) Even the always reliable Bea Arthur is partially hamstrung, though she does provide a few deliciously funny moments. There are many terrific character people doing their best along the way in support (though Jane Connell knew herself that she was far too aged to still play her part effectively.) The lively songs are beaten up and defaced yet, even with Lucy, the title number is an eye-popper. 

THE CARETAKERS (1963) -- Progressive mental health is the subject of this disjointed drama which is punctuated by strreeennnuous overacting by several people, including Polly Bergen (who likes to tear her clothes apart) and Janis Paige (who makes the word manic seem sedate in comparison!) Then there are other performances more than a bit staid, such as from Robert Stack and the disinclined Diane McBain. However, on hand to make this dreary picture unforgettable is the silver-haired, dragon-like head of nurses played by Miss Joan Crawford. She (and her right-hand woman Constance Ford) are a hoot as severe overseers who don't believe in newfangled ways. One highlight is watching Crawford conduct a self-defense judo course to her new hires! Ahh... the likes of this (and her) will never be seen again...

WHERE LOVE HAS GONE (1964) -- A lurid soap opera (adapted from a novel inspired by Lana Turner and the death of her lover at the hands of her teenage daughter) is given incredibly glossy and tame treatment. But that's the way we like things! I don't want kitchen sink drama. I want a grand staircase, bouffant hair and gowns by Edith Head. Throw in, too, a velvety Jack Jones sung theme song over the opening credits. Some folks have snickered that Bette Davis (as Susan Hayward's mother) resembled George Washington, but I love her silvery, uptown look. You can keep yer Apple Annie...!

My list of favorite guilty pleasures goes far, far beyond ten! Some that aren't mentioned here are omitted simply because the film in question turns up for some reason in another Top Ten list. But these ten represented a pretty good cross-section of where my dubious taste in movies lies! Ha ha!

BONUS PICS!

A (very) rare happy moment for Diahann Carroll, Jane Fonda and Faye Dunaway while on location for Hurry Sundown. The shoot was plagued by ill will from many local townspeople in the various southern cities in which it was shot and Preminger reportedly often took several of the less-powerful actors and crew to task, sometimes viciously.

A dazzling shot of Miss Joan about to set foot on the set for her judo instruction scene in The Caretakers. 5'3" she may have been, but she towered on screen!

The End!

No "Love" Lost...

Before one can delve into the camp wonders of today’s featured movie, Where Love Has Gone, a little back-story is in order so that the through-line of insanity, the kind that can only occur in Hollywood, is able to be properly followed.

First we have Miss Lana Turner, turning in an Academy Award nominated performance in Peyton Place, as the distressed mother of a child who is starting to form her own opinions and break free of the stifling restraint that she’s been held under since birth. Lana’s big moment occurred on the witness stand where she decried that her daughter tried to tell her her problems, but she wouldn’t listen.

The night of the awards ceremony, April 4th, 1958, Turner opted to take her teenage daughter Cheryl (and her own mother) to the event, leaving her moderately estranged lover Johnny Stompanato out in the cold. Having already been given what-for by Sean Connery during the filming of her latest movie Another Time, Another Place over in England, he was in the process of being eliminated from her life, though she was still drawn to the handsome (and reportedly well-endowed) hunk. By the time she realized that her swarthy lover was also a gangster, he’d already insinuated himself fully into her life!

Not long after, enraged over being passed over as her escort to the Oscars, Stompanato fought wildly with Turner in a house that she and her daughter had just moved into. Young Cheryl, fearful for her mother’s safety, went to the kitchen to get a knife and threaten (or scare) him. However, upon Turner's opening of the bedroom door and his lunging towards it, he was stabbed and fell to the ground dead.

Rarely (in recent years, anyway) had such a scandal rocked the film capital as this one. Speculation ran rampant. Had Cheryl stabbed Johnny out of jealousy? Had Lana actually stabbed Johnny and let Cheryl take the fall because courts would be more lenient on her than on the star herself? Did he walk into the knife as they reported or had he been deliberately stabbed? It was a major gossip fest and a horrifying chapter in Turner’s life.

In the climactic court hearing, she gave fretful, hysterical testimony (with cynics suggesting she was giving the performance of a lifetime!) and the ruling against Cheryl was deemed justifiable homicide. Cheryl, by the way, had already (according to her) lived through an ex-stepfather’s molestation and later came out as a lesbian, albeit a seemingly very comfortable and content one, so her life definitely had drama to match any one or two of her mother’s films!

Turner was understandably worried about her career and, in a genius move orchestrated by Ross Hunter, took the leading role in an opulent, no holds barred remake of the women’s film Imitation of Life, with a story that partly concerned a famous actress’s issues with her daughter. The film was a blockbuster hit, earning Universal Studios (and Lana) millions.

Cut to a couple of years later when novelist Harold Robbins published a book, Where Love Has Gone, in which a young girl is incarcerated for filleting her rich sculptress mother’s sleazy boyfriend and no one seems able to get the truth of what happened out of her. Turner was appalled that Robbins would exploit her situation in this thinly veiled way and a Cold War developed between them.

The sensational novel was picked up by Paramount for the film version and this kicked off a whole other drama. Two strong ladies were chosen to headline the picture and there would be sparks flying practically from the start.

As the celebrated sculptress, Oscar-winner Susan Hayward was cast. In the supporting, but still very key, role of her domineering mother, Two-time Oscar-winner and cinema legend Bette Davis was chosen. Rounding out the cast were Mike Conners as Hayward’s ex-husband and the father of the accused teen, Joey Heatherton as the chisel-wielding daughter, Jane Greer as a frank, but concerned, social worker and Star Trek’s DeForest Kelly as Hayward’s agent and sometimes lover.

One of Davis’s own favorite films of hers was Dark Victory, the story of a young socialite who is dying of a brain tumor. (She famously fought a battle, and lost, over whether or not music would be played under her ascent up the stairs to her demise saying, “Only one person is going up those stairs, Max Steiner or me!”) Hayward had just done a remake of the film called Stolen Hours and this did not sit well with Miss Davis, though the remake certainly made less than a fraction of the ripple the original had.

Also Davis, who fancied herself a bit of a writer, especially when it came to beefing up her own roles or rewriting dialogue, took pen in hand to the script and began making changes to it. Though the script was not strong to begin with and some of her changes might have strengthened it, she finally went a little too far and Hayward pulled out her trump card. She had final script approval and insisted that the script be shot as it was originally issued! Thus, the ladies reverted back to a script that is peppered with many hooty lines throughout.

It remains to be seen whether Davis would have had the wherewithal to remove any of Heatherton’s exclamations of “Daddy!” Not only does she emit the word almost twenty times though the course of the picture, but also the way she says it is whiny and grating enough to send waves of pain down the spine of the listener. She does, however, have a surprising edge to her and enjoys a couple of decent scenes, usually when opposite the caring authority figures played by Greer and Anne Seymour.

As Heatherton’s lawyer, George MacReady gets a real zinger when referring to the deceased plaything, “He wasn't any good at double entry bookkeeping, but he was great at double entry housekeeping.” Later, when Davis blasts Hayward for her nyphomaniacal ways with indiscriminate partners, Hayward protests, “When you’re dying of thirst, you’ll drink from a mudhole.”

A significant part of the film is told in flashback. As the principle characters drift back 15 to 20 years in their lives, every hairstyle stays the same, all the clothes are still Edith Head designs from 1964 and virtually nothing is done to suggest a prior era!

Susan goes about her sculpting in hilarious headscarves, only able to provide decent output when she’s receiving plenty of sexual input. Once Connors begins hitting the bottle after Davis’s machinations, Hayward starts molding more than clay with the male models she works with.

It’s possible that Davis may have been miffed at playing the mother (bewigged in a sort of oddly becoming George Washington-esque coiffure) of someone only ten years her junior, though she looked as if the expanse was greater thanks to a life of cigarettes and assorted beverages. She claims that the white wig was necessary because otherwise, she looked too young to be Susie’s mom. Female costars were always a crapshoot with her, though. Some were embraced and nurtured, such as Mary Astor and Olivia de Havilland, while others were reviled and detested, such as Miriam Hopkins and Joan Crawford.

Hayward was not exactly a shrinking violet herself, having been born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Typically, after each scene was put in the can, she would retreat to her dressing room, giving Davis (and most of the others) the cold shoulder. Davis maintained that acting with Hayward was like acting to a “blank wall” and that she got nothing in return emotionally from her.

Needless to say, however, whenever the story called for these two to lock horns, little or no acting was needed! The enmity that is displayed in their confrontation scenes is palpable and the voices are raised with ease. Susan even gets to take a fireplace poker and shred the hell out of an imposing portrait of Davis at one point.

According to author Whitney Stine, who had collaborated with Davis on her (semi-auto) biography, the minute the film had wrapped, Davis tossed her wig at Hayward and said, “Fuck you, Susie!” However, Davis wasn’t through with her troubles yet. The makers decided that another scene should be added in which her character goes out of her mind and Davis (rightly so) fought against this, stating that she would have played her character differently all along had she known that that would be the character’s final outcome. Amazingly enough, she came out on top of this battle, thank goodness. Hayward did manage later to deal Davis another punch to the gut when she slipped into the just-fired Judy Garland's role of Helen Lawson in Valley of the Dolls. Davis had campaigned for it, all but begging to do it for free!

The film’s luxuriant theme song (sung by Jack Jones), playing against nighttime shots of San Francisco, was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar, but won neither. Jack would later perform the famous theme song for The Love Boat, crystallizing him into the 1970s pop culture.

The movie was a pretty big hit with audiences, though many critics carved into it with the same relish that Hayward had when she slashed up Bette’s painting. Available at present only on out of print VHS, it screams out for a DVD release.

Things came full circle only five years later when Harold Robbins sold ABC television a treatment for the lavish primetime soap opera The Survivors. Despite her pronounced loathing of the man, the price must have been right because Lana Turner starred in the very troubled program. Boasting the highest budget in the history of television to that time (with the sets alone costing four times more than the norm), the opulent show was a complete fiasco and a financial money pit that never got fully off the ground. However, as has been demonstrated time and again, when the money’s there, even the most hated enemies can find a way to work together!