Main Cast: Kim Novak, Peter Finch, Ernest Borgnine, Milton Selzer, Rossella Falk
Release Year: 1968
Country: US
Run Time: 130 minutes
Plot
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, All Movie Guide
Gabriele Tinti - Paolo; Valentina Cortese - Countess Bozo Bedoni; Jean Carroll - Becky Langner; Michael Murphy - Mark Peter Sheean; Lee Meriwether - Young Girl; James Lanphier - 1st Legman; Robert Ellenstein - Mike; Nick Dennis - Nick; Dave Willock - Cameraman; Coral Browne - Molly Luther; Peter Bravos - Butler; Ellen Corby - Script Girl; Michael Fox - Announcer; Hal Maguire - 2nd Legman; Tom Patty - Bedoni's Escort; Queenie Smith - Hairdresser; Sidney Skolsky - Himself; Barbara Ann Warkmeister - Aerialists; Danny Borzage - Clown; George Kennedy - Matt Burke in ANNA CHRISTIE, 1930; Vernon Scott - Himself; William Aldrich - Assistant M.C.
Credit
George W. Davis - Art Director, William Glasgow - Art Director, Renie - Costume Designer, Clifford C. Coleman - First Assistant Director, Robert Aldrich - Director, Michael Luciano - Editor, Frank De Vol - Composer (Music Score), Sibylle Siegfreid - Composer (Music Score), Robert J. Schiffer - Makeup, William J. Tuttle - Makeup, Jan Scott - Production Designer, Joseph Biroc - Cinematographer, George Tobin - Production Manager, Robert Aldrich - Producer, Keogh Gleason - Set Designer, Henry W. Grace - Set Designer, Franklin E. Milton - Sound/Sound Designer, John Indrisano - Stunts, Jean Rouverol - Screenwriter, Hugo Butler - Screenwriter, Robert Thom - Play Author, Edward DeBlasio - Play Author
