One must envy Oediphus for having the nerve of taking his eyes out, to me the act in itself just sounds painful enough, and it's unimaginable. For those who aren't versed in the classics, forget Oediphus, and let us go back to not long ago: I envy the British man who ripped his eyes out, apparently possessed while attending a mass in Rome. I envy him more than the literary character not only because he's real but because while doing it he said to the doctors he didn't felt a thing while doing it. No pain at all! Why am I being grotesque while criticizing this movie? Well, simply because "The Lonely Lady" is one of those things that makes you wanna commit those acts. The atrocity your eyes are put to see are so shocking that one has two options: to go blind and vow to never watch a movie again or erase your memory because all of those terrible moments stays with you for a long while. But since the company who provides the memory erasing device from Michel Gondry's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" doesn't exist (YET but one day will), your eye must be put to death.
Let us be frank, I'm responsible for committing such crime to myself, guilty as charged. Often listed one of the worst stinkers ever made, I just felt the need to see it with my own eyes how bad this could get, reserving some hope this might a bad good film or maybe not that bad as they say. It turned out be to a sickening, gut-wrenching and almost pointless experience. I say almost because I learned a few things from it: 1) I don't have the strength nor the health to watch those kind of films. It's life threatening and from now on I'll try to avoid at all costs when I sense a movie is going terrible. I'll allow myself more and more walkouts. 2) to trust a little more when a whole bunch pans something, go forward it with them, join them. They're right! Why bothering wasting time with garbage? You're being warned as I was, just don't go one step beyond like I did. You'll feel better afterwards. My advice: read all the reviews written in here about this thing, you'll find some funny material of the highest quality.
The average easy reading book written by Harold Robbins was translated to the screen as a corny, almost soap-operish flick ruined from practically scene one. To the director, writer and producer of this it must have been quite a luck that Robbins was suffering from aphasia at the time of the release of this, otherwise I think he would sue those people, ask for his name to be risked from the credits and would disown this with passion. Weird soundtrack, insanely bad script and lousy acting by almost the entire cast (poor Ray Liotta in one of his earliest roles, and here's an infamous one as the main character's rapist). What's this all about? The adventures and misfortunes of Jerilee Randall (Pia Zadora) trying to establish herself as a serious screenwriter, fighting against Hollywood's misogynist conventions, learning that the only way to get to the top in the entertainment business and being a successful person is to be ON top of a bunch of cruel, hedonist yet powerful man (and some women!). It's almost like if this was a silly biographical account of someone relatively famous who had to go through the same experiences the main character had to.
Won't go further in details on why this fails because this is almost common knowledge for those of us who know about films out there. From the one line written by Jerilee changing a whole film written by her husband (WHY?) to the hilarious montage sequence with her breakdown smashing objects, not a single moment was good in this junk. We can almost forgive the acting problems but we can't forgive how negative the script is towards women and their representations of being needy, naive and with limited talents, and we certainly cannot forgive the infamous hosing rape scene which was, in the lack of a better word and reaction, laughable. This isn't a funny issue in life but somehow everything (terrible music combined with the awful editing and lousy acting) contributed to such laughable reaction (in my defense, never during the scene but a little afterwards to quickly disappear with shock when of Jerilee's mother reaction to the event - the doctor quoting "She was attacked" to which she replied "But not raped!").
The only redeeming quality of this is the final scene. Yes, they made something good out of that which was better than was in the book. I almost felt something for the character in that moment. She wins the Oscar, after going through hell trying to sell her script, and in the acceptance speech she gives the movie's best bad line and gets booed of the stage. In Robbins novel, it's the same thing except...she strips naked painted in gold as the Oscar and addresses herself against the men in Hollywood. Can you imagine this scene filmed? They would probably erase the mentions of this film as if never existed in history. Too bad it exists and can be found out there. Thankfully, not that easily. 1/10
Let us be frank, I'm responsible for committing such crime to myself, guilty as charged. Often listed one of the worst stinkers ever made, I just felt the need to see it with my own eyes how bad this could get, reserving some hope this might a bad good film or maybe not that bad as they say. It turned out be to a sickening, gut-wrenching and almost pointless experience. I say almost because I learned a few things from it: 1) I don't have the strength nor the health to watch those kind of films. It's life threatening and from now on I'll try to avoid at all costs when I sense a movie is going terrible. I'll allow myself more and more walkouts. 2) to trust a little more when a whole bunch pans something, go forward it with them, join them. They're right! Why bothering wasting time with garbage? You're being warned as I was, just don't go one step beyond like I did. You'll feel better afterwards. My advice: read all the reviews written in here about this thing, you'll find some funny material of the highest quality.
The average easy reading book written by Harold Robbins was translated to the screen as a corny, almost soap-operish flick ruined from practically scene one. To the director, writer and producer of this it must have been quite a luck that Robbins was suffering from aphasia at the time of the release of this, otherwise I think he would sue those people, ask for his name to be risked from the credits and would disown this with passion. Weird soundtrack, insanely bad script and lousy acting by almost the entire cast (poor Ray Liotta in one of his earliest roles, and here's an infamous one as the main character's rapist). What's this all about? The adventures and misfortunes of Jerilee Randall (Pia Zadora) trying to establish herself as a serious screenwriter, fighting against Hollywood's misogynist conventions, learning that the only way to get to the top in the entertainment business and being a successful person is to be ON top of a bunch of cruel, hedonist yet powerful man (and some women!). It's almost like if this was a silly biographical account of someone relatively famous who had to go through the same experiences the main character had to.
Won't go further in details on why this fails because this is almost common knowledge for those of us who know about films out there. From the one line written by Jerilee changing a whole film written by her husband (WHY?) to the hilarious montage sequence with her breakdown smashing objects, not a single moment was good in this junk. We can almost forgive the acting problems but we can't forgive how negative the script is towards women and their representations of being needy, naive and with limited talents, and we certainly cannot forgive the infamous hosing rape scene which was, in the lack of a better word and reaction, laughable. This isn't a funny issue in life but somehow everything (terrible music combined with the awful editing and lousy acting) contributed to such laughable reaction (in my defense, never during the scene but a little afterwards to quickly disappear with shock when of Jerilee's mother reaction to the event - the doctor quoting "She was attacked" to which she replied "But not raped!").
The only redeeming quality of this is the final scene. Yes, they made something good out of that which was better than was in the book. I almost felt something for the character in that moment. She wins the Oscar, after going through hell trying to sell her script, and in the acceptance speech she gives the movie's best bad line and gets booed of the stage. In Robbins novel, it's the same thing except...she strips naked painted in gold as the Oscar and addresses herself against the men in Hollywood. Can you imagine this scene filmed? They would probably erase the mentions of this film as if never existed in history. Too bad it exists and can be found out there. Thankfully, not that easily. 1/10