The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)

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(83 ratings)

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… More 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. A trash masterpiece, Legend of Lylah Claire works so hard at vilifying the Old Hollywood (there's even a vicious Hedda Hopper caricature) that it's a wonder the actors could keep a straight face. The film was based on a 1962 Dupont Show of the Week TV drama co-written by Wild in the Streets creator Robert Thom. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: R, 2 hr. 10 min.
Directed By: Robert Aldrich
Written By: Hugo Butler, Edward DeBlasio
Genres: Mystery & Suspense, Drama

In Theaters: Nov 15, 1968 Wide

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Featured Audience Ratings

jay n

Dreadful film with Kim giving a somnambulant performance. Some nice costumes and sets but a truly lousy script and terrible direction from Aldrich sink it.

Cast

            Kim Novak as Lylah Clare/Elsa Brinkman

            Peter Finch as Lewis Zarkan

            Ernest Borgnine as Barney Sheean

            Milton Selzer as Bart Langner

            Rossella Falk as Rossella

            Gabriele Tinti as Paolo

            Valentina Cortese as Countess Bozo Bedoni

            Jean Carroll as Becky Langner

            Michael Murphy as Mark Peter Sheean

            Lee Meriwether as Young Girl

            James Lanphier as 1st Legman

            Robert Ellenstein as Mike

            Nick Dennis as Nick

            Dave Willock as Cameraman

            Coral Browne as Molly Luther

            Peter Bravos as Butler

            Ellen Corby as Script Girl

            Michael Fox as Announcer

            Hal Maguire as 2nd Legman

            Tom Patty as Bedoni's Escort

            Queenie Smith as Hairdresser

            Sidney Skolsky as Himself

            Barbara Ann Warkmeister as Aerialists

            Danny Borzage as Clown

            George Kennedy as Matt Burke in ANNA CHRISTIE 1930

            Vernon Scott as Himself

            William Aldrich as Assistant M.C.
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