Tag Archives: Michael Murphy

1968 Films, Drama, Los Angeles, Psychological Drama, Psychological Thriller, Satire, Thriller

The Legend of Lylah Clare-1968

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The Legend of Lylah Clare-1968

Director Robert Aldrich

Starring Kim Novak, Peter Finch

Scott’s Review #1,554

Reviewed September 27, 2026

Grade: B

Kim Novak stars in a 1968 psychological thriller named The Legend of Lylah Clare, a film on the surface similar to her legendary turn in Hitchcock’s Vertigo ten years earlier.

Like Vertigo, she plays two characters, both shrouded in ghostly mystery, as one is dead. Other characters are obsessed with the dead one.

Lylah Clare isn’t as good as Vertigo, so the parallels are limited.

The film has positives and negatives that create an uneven viewer experience. The bizarre environment raises suspicions of story changes or behind-the-scenes conflict, as something feels a bit off.

I much preferred the first half to the second, as what starts as an intriguing, mysterious promise goes off the rails and leads to more confusion than satisfaction.

A renowned German actress who died years earlier, Lylah Clare (Novak) is the subject of a film developed by volatile movie producer Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine).

An agent, Bart Langner (Milton Selzer), finds Elsa Brinkmann (also Novak), a beautiful woman who looks just like Lylah, and sets about getting the movie off the ground.

Lylah’s ex-husband, Lewis Zarken (Peter Finch), directs the film and begins to fall in love with Elsa as he coaches her to act just like his late wife.

Director Robert Aldrich has a vast filmography, but Lylah Clare most resembles What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), mostly in terms of a gothic environment and the fear of being made irrelevant.

Zarken’s looming Los Angeles mansion is the backdrop for much of the film. Its illustrious yet stuffy veneer hides dark secrets revealed through flashbacks, and the set is a main highlight.

I was immediately drawn into the story and the ‘legend’ by hints of what’s to come. Enormous portraits of Lylah adorn the estate, the most prominent being a lavish one on the steep staircase in the living room.

Shown to have been attacked by a fan who gained access to the mansion, Lylah was able to make the man fall down the staircase to his death. Afraid of heights, Lylah then fell and died after looking down at the corpse.

Is this the truth? What is Zarken hiding? Does Lylah’s acting coach, Rossella, know secrets? Did the fan have secrets?

The past is shrouded in mystery, and multiple characters’ obsessions with Lylah are very tantalizing.

Additionally, Elsa seems obsessed with Lylah even before she is cast to play her. Are they the same, like in Vertigo?

A deliciously satisfying scene is delivered at a party meant to debut Elsa’s new look as Lylah. Mean journalist Molly Luther (Coral Browne) prods and insults Elsa until Lylah emerges to put the wicked witch in her place.

It’s the first public appearance of Lylah as Elsa, and she quickly pounces on her foe in shocking form.

These elements make The Legend of Lylah Clare so compelling in the first half.

Slowly, the film began to unravel.

As Elsa begins to belt out a perfect German accent and switch into Lylah mode, summoning her wardrobe staff, or refusing to emerge onto the set, it feels terribly uneven and out of character.

I love Novak, but I’m not sure I love her in these roles. Since the characters don’t feel right, it must have been hard for the actress to play them well.

I couldn’t help but wonder whether Elsa couldn’t get into Lylah, or whether Novak couldn’t do the same.

And the obvious dubbing of Lylah’s German accent is very weird.

Zarkan’s back-and-forth personalities are too much. He goes from madly in love and smitten with Lylah to berating her on the movie set, back and forth.

In the final chapter, he basically causes Elsa’s death by coaxing her to look down from a trapeze set for no reason.

The film is billed as a satire and is assumed to examine the shark-like Hollywood world. The number of hateful characters (Molly, Zarkan, Barney) reinforces this.

A seemingly added TV commercial for dog food interrupts the film itself, suggesting that Hollywood is literally a dog-eats-dog world.

The last scene of Rossella drunkenly sitting on the couch watching the commercial and loading a gun, assumed to be to shoot Zarkan, is murky at best.

While confusing, The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) has enough appeal to be a suggested watch.

1975 Films, Drama, Favorite Film of the Year, Musical, Satire, Summer, Top 10 Films, Top 100 Films, Top 25 Films, Top 250 Films, Top 50 Films

Nashville-1975

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Nashville-1975

Director Robert Altman

Starring Lily Tomlin, Keith Carradine, Ronee Blakley

Top 250 Films #3

Scott’s Review #47

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Reviewed June 19, 2014

Grade: A

Nashville (1975)  is a brilliant film.

With each subsequent viewing, it creeps higher and higher on my list of favorite movies of all time.

The style is unique (largely improvised) and epitomizes the film’s creative freedom in the 1970s.

Director Robert Altman lets his actors express themselves, even allowing them to write their own songs; the overlapping dialogue creates a natural feel as the viewer watches the cast of twenty-four principals intersect over five days at a political rally/country music festival.

It is pure Robert Altman at his finest.

Nashville is a satire of the political arena of the early 1970s, particularly the Vietnam conflict and its politicians.

The film certainly questions and challenges the government with an ironic patriotic setting (Nashville).

The country music industry was in uproar upon the film’s initial release. It is a layered film that invites discussion and appreciation, with every character cared for.

I cannot adequately describe the multitude of nuances in each scene that are noticed over time.

Each character, even those with limited screen time, is vital to the story, as are the political elements —the questions of war, policies, and so on.

The chaotic bits and individual storylines come together at the end, and many background events are exciting to watch and note throughout each viewing.

With each viewing, the audience notices more and more. I certainly do.

Lily Tomlin, for example, plays Linnea, a haggard mother of deaf children with a supportive husband, a woman who, on the surface, is heroic, yet a complex character.

Bored with her life, she falls in love with a young musician despite the guilt and repercussions.

The musician in question is Tom Frank, played by Keith Carradine. Handsome and self-absorbed, he arrives in Nashville to dump his bandmates in hopes of a solo career and beds many willing females.

He also lashes out at a soldier at the airport, saying, “Kill anyone lately?”

Despite his unlikable character, Carradine delivers one of the film’s most beautiful performances when he sings “I’m Easy”.

Several of the female characters assume he is singing the song for them, but who is he truly singing it for — if anyone?

Another character to analyze is Barbara Jean, played by Ronee Blakley. A frail yet very successful country singer, she is in and out of hospitals, fretting that her replacement will steal her thunder.

Her insecurities rise to the surface.

Insecurity is a common theme among the characters. Many of them are unsure, afraid, or lack confidence in their musical talent, relationships, or themselves.

These are only three examples of the twenty-four richly layered characters- some ambitious, some falling apart, others meandering through life.

Many songs throughout were written and performed by the actors themselves.

Nashville (1975) is storytelling and filmmaking at its best. A creation by Altman that is deservedly admired, revered, and heralded as a significant influence.

Film schools study it as they should.

Oscar Nominations: 1 win-Best Picture, Best Director-Robert Altman, Best Supporting Actress-Ronee Blakley, Lily Tomlin, Best Original Song-“I’m Easy” (won)

Golden Globe Nominations: 1 win-Best Picture-Drama, Best Director-Robert Altman, Best Supporting Actor-Henry Gibson, Best Supporting Actress-Ronee Blakley, Geraldine Chaplin, Barbara Harris, Lily Tomlin, Best Screenplay, Best Original Song-“I’m Easy” (won), New Star of the Year-Actress-Ronee Blakley, Lily Tomlin

1999 Films, Drama, Favorite Film of the Year, Independent, Independent Drama, Los Angeles, Top 100 Films, Top 250 Films

Magnolia-1999

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Magnolia-1999

Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring John C. Reilly, Julianne Moore, Melora Walters

Top 250 Films #67

Scott’s Review #777

Reviewed June 21, 2018

Grade: A

Paul Thomas Anderson is one of my favorite modern directors. In my opinion, his best film is Boogie Nights (1997), but he has also created other dark offerings, such as Phantom Thread (2017) and Inherent Vice (2014).

Arguably, his most distinctive effort might be Magnolia (1999), a cerebral film that explores themes of forgiveness and the meaning of life.

An ambitious effort, featuring a stellar ensemble cast, makes the film a fantastic experience.

Set in the San Fernando Valley (a mountainous area of Los Angeles), the film resembles David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2001) in its setting and oddness, as well as its unusual dialogue and offbeat characters.

A narrator explains three situations of extreme coincidence and surmises that chance may not be the only responsible party. Anderson then weaves an intricate tale involving numerous characters, intersecting lives, and a riveting climax on a rainy California day (an oddity in itself!).

The plot begins when we meet Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly), a police officer who is called to investigate a disturbance.

After finding a woman’s body in an apartment closet, events turn bizarre as a children’s game show host (Philip Baker Hall), his estranged daughter (Melora Walters), the show’s former producer, Earl (Jason Robards), who is dying from cancer, his drug-addicted wife Linda (Julianne Moore), Earl’s male caretaker (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a former game show champion (William H. Macy), and finally, an intense motivational speaker (Tom Cruise).

Quite a bevy of talented actors!

As the plot progresses mysteriously, the connections among the characters are revealed, and their peculiar motivations begin to take shape.

For example, Linda, who married Earl for his money, seems to have an epiphany and demands her lawyer change Earl’s will. Later, a character may have a connection to Earl and Linda, but is it all as it seems?

In Magnolia, the film is so wonderfully strange that it leaves the audience guessing for most of its running time.

Bizarre scenes are commonplace throughout the film. My favorite one is a marvelously creative scene. Suddenly, frogs begin to fall out of nowhere from the Los Angeles sky, with numerous consequences for the characters.

The incident causes a ripple effect, of sorts, as many of the characters’ fates are determined. Though one may not be able to make heads or tails of this scene or take complete logic from it, it’s enthralling all the same.

Magnolia has an overall quirky tone- sometimes upbeat, sometimes melancholy- that I adore. Films that are tough to figure out and feature an interesting musical score are so rich in flavor.

Aimee Mann is responsible for composing many of the songs on the musical soundtrack, so much so that she received a title credit on the soundtrack itself. Mann infuses her music with moody, diverse richness and ambient essentials.

Many actors make frequent appearances in Paul Thomas Anderson’s films. Magnolia alone seems almost like a Boogie Nights reunion with Moore, Walters, Macy, Baker Hall, and Philip Seymour-Hoffman, to name just a handful.

The amazing aspect is that all of the aforementioned actors play vastly different, and arguably even more complex roles than they did in Boogie Nights.

Similar to Quentin Tarantino’s actors appearing in many of his films, this must be a creative treat for them.

There is no doubt that Magnolia (1999) is a complex, dream-like film. Open to interpretation and reflection, I find it a brilliant movie that I would like to revisit and dive into further with each viewing, hopefully for a better understanding and even deeper appreciation.

Oscar Nominations: Best Supporting Actor-Tom Cruise, Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Best Original Song-“Save Me”

1982 Films, Australian, Drama, Political Drama, Romantic Drama

The Year of Living Dangerously-1982

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The Year of Living Dangerously-1982

Director Peter Weir

Starring Mel Gibson, Sigourney Weaver

Scott’s Review #1,266

Reviewed June 16, 2022

Grade: B+

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) is a solid political drama with enough intrigue, romance, and superior cinematography by Russell Boyd to recommend it.

It’s not an American film but an Australian one, which gives it an authentic flavor even though events are primarily set in Indonesia.

If Mad Max (1979) didn’t make Mel Gibson a full-fledged pinup star, The Year of Living Dangerously certainly did because it made him a romantic ladies’ man in addition to a rugged action star. He has a ton of good looks and charisma at this point in his career and arguably has never looked better.

One could say (okay, I flat-out will) that Gibson is upstaged, unintentionally so, by stage actress Linda Hunt, who gets the role of her life as a highly intelligent Chinese-Australian man with dwarfism who is key to the entire plot.

Hunt won the Academy Award for flipping gender norms on their head and making the film more progressive and memorable than it deserves. Her performance is timeless and rich in character flavor.

If not for Hunt and Gibson as the standouts, the film would be lost in the shuffle among the myriad similar political dramas that emerged in the 1980s.

Missing (1982), starring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek, and Victory (1981), starring Sylvester Stallone, are the films that remind me of The Year of Living Dangerously.

Blow Out (1981) and No Way Out (1987) are two of the best political drama films of the decade, and are assuredly influenced by All the President’s Men (1976), one of the best in the genre.

There are so many others that The Year of Living Dangerously feels forgotten and too similar to a standard formula to stand out. It also suffers at times from being either a romantic drama or a political thriller, and it struggles to mesh the two in a satisfying way.

After journalist Guy Hamilton (Gibson) arrives in Jakarta, Indonesia, he forms a friendship with dwarf photographer Billy Kwan (Hunt), through whom he meets British diplomat Jill Bryant (Sigourney Weaver).

Bryant falls in love with Hamilton and gives him key information about an impending Communist uprising. As the city becomes more dangerous, Hamilton stays to pursue the story. However, he faces more threats as he gets closer to the government, putting him and others passionate about the political turmoil in great peril.

The romance between Guy and Jill is not bad, but Weaver has had so many better roles than this one that it feels throwaway. She’s a smart lady who falls madly in love with Guy so easily that the formulaic context is obvious.

The movie poster makes the pair look like Rhett and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind (1939), unintentionally providing humor and ambiguity about what the film is going for.

It does best when it sticks to the political message.

The film is laden with foreign mystique and intrigue largely due to the exotic locale of Indonesia (the film was shot in the Philippines, which is a good double).

The plot is absorbing for what it is, and the peril the journalists face is exciting. This parleys well with the real-life situation the film is based on. In 1965, Indonesia was a hotbed of corruption and danger, and director Peter Weir managed to pull these sequences together well.

The main flaw is that Weir doesn’t seem to know if he is crafting a political thriller or a romantic drama.

Back to the astounding Linda Hunt, the best scene of the film occurs when her character dies in Guy’s arms.

Forget Weaver, the emotional core of the film belongs to Gibson and Hunt, who have tremendous chemistry. The ambiguity of Billy, mostly because we know the gender of Hunt, is delicious.

In the end, the conclusion is mostly a happy one, albeit predictable, and the storyline feels unsatisfying.

A nice effort and relevant in 1982, The Year of Living Dangerously has energy and polish. It just feels too familiar and similar to other genre films to stand out, save for Linda Hunt and Mel Gibson.

Oscar Nominations: 1 win-Best Supporting Actress-Linda Hunt (won)

1972 Films, Comedy, Romantic Comedy, Screwball Comedy

What’s Up, Doc? -1972

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What’s Up, Doc? -1972

Director Peter Bogdanovich

Starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal 

Scott’s Review #1,162

Reviewed July 20, 2021

Grade: B+

Careful trepidation is advised for filmmakers venturing into humorous or slapstick comedy waters, especially if they are better known for dramatic films.

Since we’re talking 1970s cinema here, there is only one Mel Brooks, and plenty of films with physical humor and gags fail miserably.

What’s Up, Doc? (1972) isn’t one of them, and it’s a refreshing success.

Brooks’s influence is easy to see throughout the film, and it is no surprise. Before doing any post-film research, I was immediately reminded of the popular television sitcom Get Smart, which ran from 1965 to 1970.

Buck Henry, a frequent Brooks collaborator, co-created Get Smart and wrote the screenplay for What’s Up, Doc?

The antics and comedic moments scream Brooks. If one is unfamiliar, it is like watching a Mel Brooks film.

Director Peter Bogdanovich, best known for the 1971 masterpiece The Last Picture Show, changes course, opting for comedy with screwball situations and physical comedy that feel completely different from his previous work.

Speaking of Brooks, Madeline Kahn, a mainstay of his films, appears as a particularly neurotic character named Eunice Burns. It is her first film role.

I must say I was thoroughly impressed by What’s Up, Doc?, which oddly pairs two Hollywood superstars of the time, Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal.

One might be surprised to think of the duo as romantic partners, and the chemistry comes and goes throughout the film, but the antics and quick dialogue are joyous and timed perfectly between the actors.

What’s Up, Doc? intends to pay homage to comedy films of the 1930s and 1940s, especially popular Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny cartoons, hence the title, but the reference doesn’t appear until the final scene.

This made me wonder why they chose the title.

The premise goes something like this. Doctor Howard Bannister (O’Neal) arrives in San Francisco to compete for a research grant in music. He is accompanied by his overbearing wife, Eunice (Khan).

Already nervous and on edge because of Eunice, he meets a strange yet charming woman named Judy Maxwell, played by Streisand, at the drugstore.

They are drawn to each other but aren’t sure why. She both annoys and fascinates him.

In a subplot, a woman has her jewels stolen, and a government whistleblower arrives with his stolen top-secret papers. Ironically, all the players have identical red plaid bags and stay in neighboring hotel rooms, adding to the confusion and hilarity.

My favorite moments are the screwball scenes.

Especially memorable are the hilarious sequences in and around the hotel guest rooms, as a constant in-and-out of parallel rooms unfolds. Each character has a particular motivation as they sneak around the hallways and rooms.

It is delightful fun.

When I realized Streisand and O’Neal were the romantic leads, I was skeptical at first, but their chemistry is good. They are not the sort of couple that he and Ali MacGraw were in Love Story (1970), and certainly have no heavy drama to play, but they play comedy off of each other well.

The film makes a joke about the film Love Story.

Unfamiliar to me, I am glad I took the chance and watched What’s Up, Doc? (1972).

The film provides laughs, entertainment, and good chemistry among the cast, who know how to deliver rapturous humor with perfect timing.

Rated G, the film is family-friendly, with no double entendre or other offensive moments—just good, old-fashioned humor. I would argue that the film influenced the 1970s as much as it paid homage to earlier comedy films.

I would see it again.

Golden Globe Nominations: New Star of the Year-Actress-Madeline Khan