The Legend of Lylah Clare
With Kim Novak, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine.
US, 1968, 35mm, color, 130 min.
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Print source: British Film Institute
A “black mahogany gothic horror right on the edge of being too much,” in the words of lead actor Peter Finch, The Legend of Lylah Clare was the eccentric and overheated follow-up to Aldrich’s biggest financial success, The Dirty Dozen,and it tanked just about as magnificently as its predecessor flourished. Rearranging ingredients from Vertigo and The Bad and the Beautiful, this inside-Hollywood exposé kicks off when Finch’s Erich von Stroheim-like megalomaniac, a once-illustrious director now calcifying in wealth, is urged to direct a new picture sensationalizing the life of recently deceased screen goddess Lylah Clare, who also happens to have been his wife. Reality and illusion merge when upstart actress Elsa Brinkmann (Kim Novak), a dead ringer for Clare, signs onto the production, whereby the film morphs into an erotically charged ghost story as well as a ragged dissection of the male ego and the myriad ways in which art can materialize from disturbing psychological warfare. A final surrealist punch line—too inspired to give away—is the ultimate one-finger salute by Aldrich to an industry of parasitic narcissists and the spectators who passively consume their leavings.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Four Star Playhouse: The Squeeze, The Witness and The Hard Way
The Southerner
