The writers of this far-out thriller must have seen "Hair" on Broadway and became obsessed with the song "L.S.D.", mixing it it with "A Spoonful of Sugar" from "Mary Poppins" for one of the rollicking rides down the string of late 60's freak-out fests that dominating the not so silver screen. Somebody must have thought that if Rosalind Russell can turn into a drag queen in "Oh, Dad, Poor Dad" and Joan Crawford could swing an axe in "Straight Jacket", why not turn Lana Turner on whether she wants to be or not? Mossberg considers Turner "the wicked stepmother" so when papa Dan O'Herlihy is believed to have drowned at sea, she is convinced by boyfriend George Chakaris to drive step-mommy crazy so she can get her inheritance. Chakaris, a medical student expelled for making L.S.D. in his college laboratory, was also responsible for the overdose of a rival who ended up being killed while high on the extra powerful mickey slipped into his beer. As his plot against Turner goes further in emotion, Chakaris becomes more and more evil, while Mossberg (playing a nice girl in spite of her misguided hatred against Turner) begins to see the error of her ways.
Whether or not this was made as a message against the use of L.S.D. doesn't change the fact that this is pretty much an extremely bad movie, an unpleasant tale of unjustified vengeance and the torture that an innocent woman goes through because of an obviously spoiled stepdaughter, sort of a reverse "Cinderella". Turner, who plays a theater actress, is seen onstage in several sequences in theaters and on stages that certainly are as far Off Broadway as theaters can be, with the always dependable and likable Richard Egan as the playwright obviously in love with her.
Having had one final hurrah on screen in the Ross Hunter "Madame X", Turner sank to an all-time low with this and the flop TV soap "The Survivors", giving a sense of desperation in a career that seemed to thrive on scandal and melodramatics. She also is given some of the worst hairstyles of the era, but fortunately would have one last hurrah over a decade later when she returned to T.V., looking very glamorous with her two season recurring role on "Falcon Crest". "The Big Cube" has to be even worse than her 1974 monster mama drama "Persecution", fortunately forgotten because unlike this, it didn't get a mainstream release. The film reaches a horrid climax with a stoned Chakaris popping L.S.D. (scattered all over the floor) as if it were strewn cheese balls. O'Herlihy is a brief touch of class as Turner's husband, and in the few scenes he has with Mossberg simply chews her to pieces. The L.S.D. sequences remind me of something out of a Laugh-In set or moments of animation in "Yellow Submarine" and "Pink Floyd, the Wall".
Whether or not this was made as a message against the use of L.S.D. doesn't change the fact that this is pretty much an extremely bad movie, an unpleasant tale of unjustified vengeance and the torture that an innocent woman goes through because of an obviously spoiled stepdaughter, sort of a reverse "Cinderella". Turner, who plays a theater actress, is seen onstage in several sequences in theaters and on stages that certainly are as far Off Broadway as theaters can be, with the always dependable and likable Richard Egan as the playwright obviously in love with her.
Having had one final hurrah on screen in the Ross Hunter "Madame X", Turner sank to an all-time low with this and the flop TV soap "The Survivors", giving a sense of desperation in a career that seemed to thrive on scandal and melodramatics. She also is given some of the worst hairstyles of the era, but fortunately would have one last hurrah over a decade later when she returned to T.V., looking very glamorous with her two season recurring role on "Falcon Crest". "The Big Cube" has to be even worse than her 1974 monster mama drama "Persecution", fortunately forgotten because unlike this, it didn't get a mainstream release. The film reaches a horrid climax with a stoned Chakaris popping L.S.D. (scattered all over the floor) as if it were strewn cheese balls. O'Herlihy is a brief touch of class as Turner's husband, and in the few scenes he has with Mossberg simply chews her to pieces. The L.S.D. sequences remind me of something out of a Laugh-In set or moments of animation in "Yellow Submarine" and "Pink Floyd, the Wall".