Lady Revanche

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.

Immediately after renting and watching this movie several years ago, a friend and I decided that it defined the absolute zero on the movie scale. There was nothing about the movie that could have been done worse than it was. To this day we still rate movies, even very bad ones, by how much better than "The Lonely Lady" they are.

A long time ago I saw an interview with Eleanor Perry, who wrote the screenplays for, among other things, "Last Summer" and "Diary of a Mad Housewife," and she related that she had been asked to write a screenplay for the Harold Robbins' book "The Lonely Lady." She said that she sent in a treatment and it was rejected because they didn't think she understood the difficulties of a female screenwriter in Hollywood. She then said "I think they got someone else to write it." The interview was filmed before the movie was released. She died in 1981, and I bet the first thing she did on arrival in heaven was personally thank God for saving her from involvement in the result.

The depth of the creative bankruptcy in this film is most evidence in the final scene. The writers gave Pia Zadora's character a reasonably interesting name, Jerilee. (That's as close as I'll come to complimenting this picture). Then, when the nominees at the Oscars are being read, another screenwriter is named Jerilee, too. Bafflingly stupid.

This is one of the few movies so bad that it would even be passed over by nude-scene-hunting horny teenagers. Everything about is bad. There is not a single redeeming quality, not one scene that works, not a single character that isn't a benign, idiotic one-dimensional drip.

I can't call this the worst film ever made but it's close. However, the single worst scene in a movie I have ever seen is Pia Zadora's nervous breakdown.

Quite simply a waste of vital resources. 1/2* out of ****.

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.

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!!!!