The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

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.

Disclosure: I only watched about one third of the movie; I couldn't stomach any more. Now, while I was hoping for a camp classic, what I discovered was to me just a sadistic, amateurish attempt to...I don't know what exactly...maybe to capture the spirit of "Vertigo" or a Svengali-type story? Rather than camp, however, what I got from it was a oppressive and depressing sense of mean-spiritedness, the dictatorial director at one point calling the Kim Novak character a "cow." Charming.And then the accent that Kim Novak was required to lip-sync to; yikes. Not only grating but hard to understand. And then the slowness of some scenes. I found myself yelling at the screen to "move it along, already!"In case you're wondering what I might consider camp, I'd suggest "The Big Cube." It's also from the 1960s, behind its time like "Lylah Clare" is (as opposed to ahead of it), and starring old-time glamour gal Lana Turner. That casting in itself provides for gallons of camp.

What could Mr Aldrich do with a script that was a concoction of Ms Jean Harlow, Ms Marilyn Monroe et al? On the other hand, you could see "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte" as a follow up to "Sunset Boulevard". Mr Aldrich had always been an actors' admirer. In the commercials Barbara Davis and Anna Lee are watching in "What ever happened to Baby Jane" viewers are offered food for dogs. In "The Legend of Lylah Clare" the TV program is sponsored by an improbable food for dogs whose brand in "Bark Well".I think Mr Aldrich considered actors and stars as the "Bark Well" of the old industry. Éven when today Hollywood mainstream insists in offering faces and bodies and what not, nobody believes in the usual idiocies manufactured by the press."The Legend of Lylah Clare" is, perhaps, a dud but the "Bark Well" are not to blame. abel posadas

This movie surprised me a whole lot. It is about a movie production about a former Superstar actress named Lylah Clare both the role as Lylah and the actress portraying her is played by the stunning Kim Novak.The film has a complicated structure that is hard to follow sometimes. The ending is especially good and I will not give it away but it will probably surprise most of you. Kim Novak looks better than ever in some scenes and she shows that she can act. However, she is more or less portraying the same role that she played for the rest of her career. You may wonder how much she really acted? Sometimes it feels like she played herself in her movies.