Atrocious film from producer Joseph E. Levine, here ripping the lid off the Hollywood can but getting nothing out of it except hot air. Ruthless, snarling Stephen Boyd scratches his way up from seamy strip joints (as manager for the non-blushing Jill St. John) to the top of the H-wood heap as the world's most constipated actor. Laughable backstage melodrama is high camp, but how can one laugh without feeling sorry for all the embarrassed personalities on the screen--none more so than Tony Bennett, looking like a basset hound in a tuxedo. The fifth-rate screenplay is full of now-legendary fruit-loop lines, boiling over with 'significance', while the surroundings (once considered plush) now look tatty. Elke Sommer (as a sketch artist for Edith Head!) is the one cast member who doesn't bulldoze her way through the picture. Otherwise, it ain't for the squeamish! *1/2 from ****
Review of The Oscar
