Love Machine

600 characters is alittle much for cheese like this. This just popped on YT and Im happy to report I had fun watching. Sets, costumes, casting are all above tv movie calibur but the inside tv exec struggle is laughably lame. Dion Warwick sings a time setting imitation Hal David tune that puts one right in the groove.

Glossy, well intentioned trash can be fun. Theres a bit of homophobia here that is remembered as part of the time, if not unforgivable. Sexually agressive women too. Its very Jackie Susanne and feels like Beyond The Valley of the Dolls without being aware of the joke. I prefer lame melodrama to lame MCU.

**SPOILERS** Unintentionally funny 1970's type "Adult Drama" that has funny man Shecky Green, Christie Lane, being so hilarious in a dramatic part where his serious acting comes across funnier then any comedy bit he ever did in Vegas or Atlantic City.

Local Six PM TV newscaster Robin Stone, John Philip Law, has caught the eye of not only CIB network boss Greg Austin ,Robert Ryan, but also his pretty and possessive young wife Judith, Dyan Cannon. Knocking the ladies that he encounters off their feet Robin is the kind of guy who works real fast then quickly checks out without leaving any rings.

Greg putting his newscast on prime time has Robin quickly rises to the top of the CIB network forcing out his former boss, and now partner, top network honcho Danton Miller, Jackie Cooper, and leaving him a man with a job but without any work. Consolidating his power Robin starts to have an affair with Greg's wife Judith that goes on until Greg ends up with a massive stroke, because of the stress of running CIB not the affair which he knew nothing about. With Judith now running CIB and at the same time shearing a bed with Robin as well he on top of the media and entertainment world as a TV personality. What Judith doesn't realize is that her lover now plans to take the CIB network over as president.

Robin would have gotten away with his actions that drove his first lover in the movie Amanda, Jodi Wexler,to down a bottle of sleeping pills and then never waking up again if Robin used his head instead of his emotions he could have avoided the terrible things that later happened to him in the second half of the movie. Like all the Robin Stone type he could never get enough, and never be satisfied, with what he already has and that turns out to be his downfall in the movie "The Love Machine". Breaking careers and hearts on his way to the top Robin starts to get too big for his own good. It's later that Robins boss, the now recovered Greg Austin, has a clause in his contract that can put the Robin Stone steamroller to an end: a morals clause.

Robin for the first time in the movie showed his human side when he got the news that Amanda killed herself on the TV news. Hurt and depressed he roams the streets of NYC at night trying to find himself and the humanity that he lost in his no holds bar climb to the top of the TV news and entertainment heap only to get himself involved with a hooker, Melonie Waller. After changing his mind about doing business with the hooker in her hotel room Robin is humiliated and insulted by her calling him a fa**ot. This sets Robin off to where he beats the living cr**p out of her leaving the hooker for dead as he took off in the dead of night.

Afraid of what this would do to his career, if it's found out by the police and the public, Robin runs to Jerry Nelson, David Hemmings, Amanda's make-up artist who discovered her and made Amanda a star. It's this new found friendship with Jerry that leads to Robin's demise at the end of the film with a battle royal between Jerry and Robin and Jerry's boyfriend Alfie, Clinton Gresn. The three all chase Judith all over and around an empty mansion, with Jerry getting his head cracked open, to retrieve a "Slave Bracelet" that Jerry made out to Robin but in the end gave to Alfie. It was Judith who accidentally found the bracelet thinking that both Jerry and Robin were male lovers.

It turned out that Robin's attempt to get help from Jerry, after the hooker incident, lead to him being suspected of having an affair with Jerry by an outraged Judith, who earlier caught Robin naked in a shower with two young women! Now Judith knows that the carousing and womanizing and, in her mind, bi-sexual Robin can't be trusted. Hurt and vindictive for him tow-timing her Judth wan't to destroy him and his career in show, or the TV news, business.

Funny in a sleazy sort of way the movie "The Love Machine" was released with a lot of fanfare and publicity back in 1971 but flopped in the box office because it wasn't all that effective in the sleaze department, that it was advertised to be. At the same time the movie was so riotous and funny without even trying that it was hyped up for the wrong reasons for getting the public interested in seeing it. It should have been advertised by it's makers as an adult comedy.

The second in Jacqueline Susann's triad of saucy, salacious, showbiz-based novels adapted into movies, this one will delight fans of tacky, trashy film, but may disappoint those who enjoyed the book. Law (in at the 11th hour for a severely injured Brian Kelly) plays an ambitious, sexually-manipulative TV news anchor who catches the eye of a network executive's wife. The wife (Cannon) encourages her husband (Ryan) to hire him on in a higher capacity and before long, he is running the network while the exec is recovering from a massive coronary! He dumps his model girlfriend (Wexler) and takes Cannon to bed. Though Law and Cannon share a couple of blissful unions, Law also canoodles with an endless parade of models, groupies, hookers and anything else in a skirt. It has something to do with an unexplored subplot (fleshed out in the book) of his fear of being alone at night. Apart from the sexual shenanigans (which are suggestive, but not really very explicit), the film also focuses on Law's battles at the network. He tangles with long-term VP Cooper, sets up schlocky comedian Greene with his own series and somehow manages to evade sleeping with office tramp Arthur. It all comes to a head when Ryan begins to recover and wants to take back his reign, but gets considerable resistance from Law. So Ryan considers a smear campaign involving a gay actor (Greyn) and a gay photographer (Hemmings) that Law has been associated with in the past, as friends. The film ends on an ambiguous (to say the least!) note as if the company ran out of film stock. Law is attractive, but uncharismatic and stiff. It's easy to see the physical attraction for him, but impossible to figure out the emotional one. Wexler is extremely weak in her role, though she has several eye-opening appearances in various "high-fashion" get-ups. Ryan adds a tinge of credibility to the film with his firm presence and Cooper is excellent as the threatened second banana. Cannon is severely miscast in her role, but overcomes it rather well. Her ample physical charms are often put to good use (though a few of her ensembles are downright monstrosities that either swallow her up or make her look exceedingly uncomfortable - Check out the green corseted number with the black turtleneck top!) Greene is appropriately low-brow as a sort of in-the-flesh Fred Flintstone who has no class and knows it. Arthur takes her sexpot secretary from "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and ratchets it up even further, sensually. Hemmings gets in a few catty licks tempered with some down-to-earth moments with a character that is almost completely stereotypical. For a film that was produced by Susann's own husband, the product certainly is a let-down from the book. It seems to remove nearly all of the juiciest aspects of the novel and has an overriding sterile quality (the one exception being a raucous, laughably-overwrought fight scene at the end.) The storyline has been hacked down, but it doesn't feel as if it was completely thought out. Attempts to tie in the "ankh" from the book go nowhere at all and when it's finished it all seems so pointless unless its existence as a snapshot of horrendously bad 70's fashion has historical value. That doesn't mean it isn't fun on a campy level, but it's nowhere near the deliriousness of "Valley of the Dolls".

Even though this film was nothing special as such, I am drawn to comment on at least one factor that ruled in its favour - that of the lead female performer in the film, Dyan Cannon. In spite of the film's ridiculous storyline and what she goes through here, hers was the best acting job in the film, making the unbelievable seem more plausible. Her raucous scene with the gay photographer David Hemmings has to be seen to be believed. Good work, Dyan.

Well, where to start? I stumbled across this one in 1993 and just hit "record" on the VCR out of habit, more than anything else. "Citizen Kane" it sure isn't...but if you've had a bad day and are in the mood for crashing out in front of something not too intellectually stimulating, then I tentatively suggest this might just be your "thing".

We have the lot here - great title track, more stereotypes than you could shake a stick at, unconscious comedy, the bitchiest fight scene of all time and more, more, more! David Hemmings plays the diametric opposite of his role in the 60s classic "Blow Up" - still a photographer, still hormonally stimulated but not "quite" the same.

John Philip Law is easy to slam as an actor who makes a log appear unwooden but that wouldn;t be fair seeing as how he had about 5 minutes notice before accepting the role.

Wexler as "Amanda"? Suffice to say it was her one and ONLY film role! The real star of this movie, though, is Ethel Evans who plays a, shall we say secretary (?), with the morals of an alley cat and an ambition to match. The way she manages to reconcile her present life with that of a future with her comedian husband-to-be is actually quite touching in an earthy, gritty, what-is-to-be-will-be way.

I actually love this movie when I'm in the mood for it.......and wouldn't touch it with the proverbial bargepole when I'm not.

Kudos to the cast for keeping a (relatively) straight face when filming.

A "classic" in the Edward D Wood school of cinematic endeavours!