La divina

After watching Kim Stanley give an absolutely great performance in "Seance On A Wet Afternoon", I wondered if that was a one time great performance! I recently watched "The Goddess", and I got my answer: another great performance by Kim Stanley, and so I now conclude that Kim Stanley was a great actress, and, by the way, in looks and acting style, she reminded me of another great actress: Geraldine Page! In this movie, she portrayed a Marilyn Monroe type woman who sought stardom in Hollywood, but paid a heavy price for it! The supporting cast was good! I rather liked Steven Hill's excellent performance as her first husband; likewise, Lloyd Bridges excellent performance as her second husband! Also worth mentioning was Betty Lou Holland's excellent performance as her mother! An interesting movie worth watching for Kim Stanley's great performance!

Kim Stanley was the great interpreter of William Inge at the time he was the most successful playwright in America. On Broadway she played Millie, the younger sister, in his "Picnic" and Cheri in "Bus Stop" -- ironically, the role played in the movie by Monroe, the model for "The Goddess." Cast in "The Goddess", Stanley is clearly too old for the part, and not cinematically 'beautiful' enough. What she does bring to the role is an astonishing talent based on flawless technique and an emotional sensitivity that both made her career and destroyed it. I ran across the movie by accident when I was about 12 years old, and Stanley's performance has continued to haunt me for 36 years. The making of "The Goddess" was so emotionally agonizing that Stanley essentially fled from the movie business. How brilliant she would have been in dozens of roles that won acclaim for lesser talents. Many years later she played Jessica Lange's mother in "Frances" -- a similar story of a glamourous and tragic film star. She told Lange, "As soon as this movie's over, do a comedy. Immediately. Any comedy you can get your hands on." That comedy was "Tootsie" which won Lange her first Osacr.

Paddy Chayefsky's "The Goddess" from 1958 stars Kim Stanley, one of the great actresses of our time, as a Marilyn Monroe type, a lonely, unloved girl who finds stardom in Hollywood but ultimately self-destructs. It should be noted that the movie predates Monroe's death by four years.

Chayefsky is responsible for such screenplays as "Network," "The Hospital," "Marty," among others, and, frankly, "The Goddess" is one of his weaker works. There is very little in the way of character development - events happen very quickly, skipping over years, hitting the high points, with very little in between. For instance, Emily Ann (Stanley) talks about her nervous breakdown, but we don't see it. She makes reference to past promiscuity while talking to her second husband (Lloyd Bridges), but all we see is an invitation by a studio head to come to his house.

The film is notable for the tour de force performance by Stanley who, despite the gaps in the story, creates a vivid characterization of a desperate, ambitious, easily influenced woman looking for someone to love her. Stanley absorbs all of Emily Ann's changes of mood as well as her temperament. When Emily Ann is recently home from the sanitarium, she receives a visit from a director (Werner Klemperer) and his wife. She's hyperkinetic, a ticking bomb; the next time we see them visit, she's found Jesus and acts calm and centered. One can see here that she must have been a magnificent Blanche DuBois, a role she performed early in her career.

"The Goddess" seems to have been made on a tight budget; it certainly doesn't look like a glossy Hollywood film. Stanley was 40 when she made it, and her role begins when the character is 19. There's no attempt anywhere in the film to make her look younger or like a starlet or a movie star. Yet she makes you believe the whole thing.

It's a pity Stanley didn't make more films, but "The Goddess" gives us an excellent idea of Kim Stanley's magnificence as an actress.

I recently caught this movie on TCM and loved every second of it. Kim's accent gets a bit tiresome but the overall effect is great. Love the scene in which Patty Duke, playing The Goddess as a neglected child, pathetically tells her cat that she got promoted to the next grade in school. This movie contains all of the tried and true "money and fame aren't everything" requisites. I wish Kim Stanley had tried her hand at Tennessee Williams. She has that "Geraldine Page" affectation that Mr. Williams apparently appreciated. I remember her from "Frances". It's too bad she didn't do more movies. The Goddess is a wonderful look at late 50s Hollywood and the inherent danger in getting what you've always wanted.

In "Broadway: The Golden Age", Rick Mckay's wonderful documentary, Kim Stanley receives tremendous praise from all the great actors of that time as being especially influential. With the publication of her biography there seems to be a renewed interest in her life and career.

Unfortunately very little is left in the way of documentation of her talents. She came to movies after a career on Broadway and a number of live television plays. But her film career was not to be, owing to the many personal problems she suffered from, which seemingly burnt her out.

"The Goddess" was her first film and it remains the most complete testament to her talents. As such, it really is a must for anyone who appreciates the art of acting. The title role allows for a huge range, from hopeful teenager to jaded Hollywood star. Although clearly too old to play a teenager and definitely no screen beauty worthy of the title "goddess", Stanley pulls it off with the sheer force of her acting. Her portrayal of the breakdown of the actress is devastating. It's particularly disturbing in the light of the similarity of what would become her very own fate.

Paddy Chayevsky paints a bleak picture of the Hollywood Star system as he would later do with network television in "Network". Although well written, it's not an especially astute script lacking in both scope and depth. There is good support form Betty Lou Holland and Lloyd Bridges, but the only reason to seek this one out remains Kim Stanley.