The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)

Sometimes, you see a film so splendidly, memorably, unforgettably awful that you begin to wonder why it’s not more well-known. Then you remember the hell you had to go through just to get a chance to see it, and you say, “Oh, that’s why.” The Legend Of Lylah Clare is one such film.

Notorious for being one of the first “dramatic” feature films greeted with outright laughter upon its prémiere, MGM has taken great pains to bury The Legend Of Lylah Clare. It’s never been released on DVD, laserdisc or even videotape. It turns up from time to time on TV, but that’s about it.

Director Robert Aldrich had an odd career. Mainly known for “men’s pictures” such as The Dirty Dozen, he attempted his first “women’s picture” in 1956 with the forgettable Joan Crawford vehicle Autumn Leaves. He eventually hit his stride in 1962 with the legendary Whatever Happened To Baby Jane. Casting famous leading ladies of the past in a Grand Guignol horror situation was a stroke of genius, and became much imitated. It also served to provide a spark to both Bette Davis’ and Joan Crawford’s careers, though they would spend the balance of same struggling to live this particular film down. Lightning struck twice for Aldrich with Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte a couple of years later, one of the first Hollywood features to feature outright gore.

1968 was supposed to be a banner year for Aldrich. Flushed with the success of The Dirty Dozen, he formed his own production company, Aldrich and Associates. The result consisted of merely two films: The Killing of Sister George and The Legend of Lylah Clare.

Both of the films are full-on Aldrich at his most unfettered. Neither was much of a success. Well, the controversial “lesbian” storyline in The Killing of Sister George brought in an audience of the perversely curious, but interest fell off rapidly. But really, as The Killing Of Sister George was at least “artistically” successful, The Legend Of Lylah Clare stands alone. It’s a film that shows flashes of brilliance, but is for the most part ineptly rendered in the worst way. You can tell what Aldrich was going for much of the movie, but the lapses in plausibility in the screenplay, the heavy derivation of other sources and the overripe dialogue really make this hard to take seriously.

Film star Lylah Clare is dead, but her legend lives on. Movie-producer Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine) hires Elsa Brinkmann (Kim Novak), the living image of the late Lylah, to star in a film based on Ms. Clare's life. Barney hires director Lewis Zarkan (Peter Finch), Lylah's former husband, to transform the talentless Elsa into a facsimile of the deceased screen queen. Elsa not only learns to imitate Lylah but, at crucial junctures, becomes the dead woman. While restaging the accident that killed Lylah, the obsessed Zarkan deliberately drives Elsa to her doom -- and in so doing reveals his complicity in the death of his wife. The film ends with Lylah's onetime housekeeper (Rosella Falk), gun in hand, lying in wait for Zarkan to return home while her TV blasts forth a grotesque (and possibly symbolic) dog-food commercial.

Say what you will about the rest of the film, the ending is not only apt, but also one of the greatest endings to any film, ever. And it’s just so totally Robert Aldrich. That one scene speaks volumes about the whole film, probably even about Aldrich.