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.

Movie based on Jacqueline Susann's best-selling novel. It's about Robin Stone (John Phillip Law) a ruthless TV anchorman who claws his way to the top. It details his love life concentrating on Amanda (Jodi Wexler) and Judith (Dyan Cannon). It also shows his total inability to commit to anyone and instead sleeps with any woman he can get.

The novel is no work of art (it's not even good literature) but it's a quick, silly, trashy read. However, compared to this movie, it seems like a masterpiece of fiction! This is a textbook example of how NOT to do a movie adaptation. First they condense the novel terribly. In the book Stone's inability to commit is dealt with and it's revealed why. Here it's brought up...and ignored. Characters from the book are either totally left out or changed completely. One of them (Maggie) pops up for two pointless scenes and then disappears completely! Also there's a truly revolting scene in which a woman is brutally beaten. It's in the book--but there IS a reason totally left out of the movie. And the book dealt with three women--not two. Don't even get me started on the homophobia. The movie is almost worth sitting through for a no holds barred fight at the end between Law, Cannon and David Hemmings.

Adaptation aside the acting is pretty terrible. Law is just horrendous as Stone--VERY wooden and boring--you seriously wonder why all these women are after him. To be fair to Law another actor was cast but had a very bad accident before shooting began and Law stepped in at the last minute. Wexler is terrible as Amanda; Maureen Arthur is truly astoundingly bad as Ethel Evans; Shecky Greene is unbearable as Christie Lane. Only three performances stand out: David Hemmings (having a GREAT time) camps it up as a gay photographer; Cannon is actually very good and Robert Ryan is just great. Also Dionne Warwick sings the catchy opening song ("He's Moving On"). Also Jacqueline Susann has a cameo as a newscaster.

It IS bad but I watched the whole thing and it is (in a silly sort of way) a lot of fun. I'm giving it a 3.

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!

The network TV news business as a sleazy cesspool, with John Phillip Law as the titular news-anchor who sleeps his way to the top. Nice idea to have Dionne Warwicke do the song vocals for this movie-adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's bestseller (a la "Valley Of The Dolls")...though it's really too bad this sudser doesn't have Patty Duke's Neely O'Hara to spike the story. "The Love Machine" is unrelievedly dull. Even the final brawl (with an Academy Award as a fight prop!) can't save it. Dyan Cannon seems embalmed in her heavy pancake make-up and cumbersome fall (although her tiny, suntanned figure is a beauty to behold), Law is a handsome block of wood, while David Hemmings is embarrassing in gay-mode as a flamboyant photographer. And where is Robin Stone walking to at the end? Is he trekking out to the waterfront to pick up some sailors? After Cannon has deflated his masculinity, it would be a safe bet. In that case, "Love Machine--The Final Episode" might have been a more interesting flick. Certainly better than this yawn-inducing snooze-opera. *1/2 from ****

When they made this movie they tried to duplicate the success of "Valley of The Dolls" by including a fight scene, mod fashions, & a theme song sung by Dionne Warwick, but it flopped big time. Dyan Cannon is miscast as the bosses wife. Her character was supposed to be an "older woman". John Phillip Law is stiff & boring as the leading man. Jacqueline Susann (author of the book) wanted Charlton Heston, after she saw his backside in "Planet of The Apes", but he declined (good thing for him). Shecky Greene is very irritating as a fat, stand-up comic schlub. This is a watered-down version of the book, but not as entertaining as the movie version of "Valley of The Dolls". They just kept getting worse & worse, "Once Is Not Enough" (another Susann novel) was filmed after this & it's far less entertaining than "The Love Machine" (if you could imagine that).