The Lonely Lady

How bad is it? Well, I lived in central Pennsylvania during Hurricane Agnes in 1970, the Great Blizzard of 1993, and was in northern Vermont for the Ice Storm of 1998. Someday, my grandkids will ask, "Grandpa, what was it like?" and I will say, "Well, it was bad. But not as bad as watching 'The Lonely Lady!'"

I worry that someday the world will see a major nuclear war. And if it does, the survivors will say while digging out, "That was horrible. But come to think of it, it wasn't as horrible as 'The Lonely Lady!'"

Please folks, if you want to see an '80s flick with lots of skin, see "Summer Lovers." Do NOT see this film unless watching a dwarfish leading lady getting raped and spouting unendurable dialog to a bargain basement cast is your idea of an enjoyable movie experience.

Don't ask me why but I saw this turkey ON OPENING DAY at the Picwood Theater (r.i.p.) in West L.A. when it came out. The auditorium was packed, full of bad-movie patrons, all expecting the worst. And the worst they got! Barely five minutes went by before bales of hysterical laughter were forced out of each and every audience member. Even my feminist girlfriend at the time, (who came, expecting to see a serious film about a struggling female screenwriter) had to bust up a few times. I don't know what the producer/director were thinking. It's hard to determine whether or not this meant to be awful. Regardless, this gets my highest recommendation -- invite about ten friends over with a pony keg -- you won't be disappointed!!!!

I haven't been able to decide if this movie is so bad it's good, or, to quote Enid Coleslaw, "so bad it's gone past good and back to bad again." No matter, it forced me look much the same way a pile of weird coloured vomit might, and it offers up a number of scenes that you won't forget even if you want to. There's a sneering young Ray Liotta telling a pigtailed Pia that her creative writing trophy looks like a penis. A bit later, there's Ray again, molesting Pia, not with the appropriately shaped trophy but a garden hose. There's a firm chinned Pia telling her domineering Mom that she wants to go to bed with Ray's geezer father, Walter. There's the actress in the graveyard scene yowling the best line ever written by Pia or anyone else: "WWWWHHHYYYYYYY!" There's that garden hose again, as Walter waves it Pia's face and roars "Is this more to your liking!?" There's Pia and her date so turned on by closeups of each other masticating salad that they start tearing each other's clothes off. There's Pia showering but forgetting to remove her dress. Perhaps best of all, there's Pia's typewriter, but instead of keys there are the miniature talking heads of those who have tormented her the most (afterwards, I was afraid to open my laptop). And finally there's Pia at "The Awards" exposing Hollywood for the cesspool it is, spitting out the second best line ever, "I guess I'm not the only one who has ever had to **** her way to the top." I see I have already spent more time commenting on "The Lonely Lady" than I have on far better pictures, so I'll quit. Be forewarned, though, that once you start watching you probably won't be able to take your eyes off the screen until two hours of your life have vanished forever.

Even when I saw this movie at a teenager, I wondered just how ironic it was that Pia Zadora starred in a movie about an artist who slept her way to the top. As beautiful and sexy as Ms. Zadora is, even she couldn't keep this sorry-ass excuse of a movie from tanking. Not even her photoshoot for Penthouse, in which "The Lonely Lady" was promoted "back in the day," could keep this movie from tanking. The only thing that could have saved this movie? A completely different script. Give this one a miss.

This early Pia Zadora vehicle followed a familiar Harold Robbins formula: ambitious main character wallows in decadence while pursuing the path to the top of some randomly chosen but glamorous world, in this case the movie industry. But despite being so formulaic as to be completely predictable, this movie manages at the same time to be completely unbelievable. Zadora (to call her inexperienced as an actress is to be charitable) never convinces as a screenwriter. One would expect a movie about movie-making to have some insights into its own industry and creative process. But the script gives her none of the qualities which make writers interesting movie characters: observance, skill with words, a love-hate relationship with one's own creative abilities. Her character is as empty as a donut hole. And this is just a taste of the incompetence on display here. The cinematography is so murky that it is sometimes hard to see what is happening. And the scenes never really hang together, so everything seems like a succession of random moments at bad Hollywood parties. Avoid.