TCM ran this at 2 a.m. last night on their Underground series. It's a berserk moral fable about LSD and bratty stepchildren. Retired stage star Adriana Roman (Lana Turner) tangles with her stepdaughter, Lisa (Karin Mossberg) and Lisa's sleazy boyfriend, Johnny (George Chakiris), who comes up with the plan to dose Mommy. Chakiris is in full-blown career hell here, especially in his fadeout, lying crucifixion-style on the floor of a torn-up apartment with a pet ant in his pocket. Because the other posters have covered the plot twists ably, I'll skip around to...KARIN MOSSBERG, who lisps through the picture like she has a bon-bon stuck to her palate. When she confronts her father in the early scenes, he answers her thick Heinie accent in Paul Harvey midwestern. Truly wonderful. The real fun in watching this film is deciding how aware the cast was -- or far along they were, before they knew -- that they were stuck on a toilet raft that wasn't going to sell any tickets anywhere. Which brings us to Lana Turner, who didn't age well. Was she a boozehound -- or was it bad genes? Here, four years after her frumpy turn as Madame X, she's thinner, bonier, with the Lenin's Tomb look of late Mae West. She looks a lot like the 1969 Mae, although they had a 30-year age difference. Her acting is foggy and schoolgirlish. Best line of dialog comes about 5 minutes in, when Richard Egan approaches Lisa at her stepmom's wedding.
Egan: Lisa, did you study acting? Lisa:No.
That could be described as the one searing moment of truth in this expose of our times.
Egan: Lisa, did you study acting? Lisa:No.
That could be described as the one searing moment of truth in this expose of our times.