Lana @ 100: Love Has Many Faces
Tuesday, February 9, 2021 at 3:00PM Celebrating Lana Turner's Centennial. Here's Baby Clyde...
1965 was the year Martin Luther King marched on Selma, The Civil Rights Act was signed and Malcolm X was assassinated. The Vietnam War was raging, London was swinging, The Beatles played Shea Stadium and Dylan went electric. The times they were a changing, but some things stayed the same because this was also the year Lana Turner starred in the trashiest of all her tawdry melodramas, the Acapulco-set potboiler Love Has Many Faces or as it should have been called ‘Lana Has Many Costume Changes’.
In it she plays Kit Chandler a rich, international glamourpuss, with luxury apartments around the globe, who chooses to reside in the luxury Mexican resort with her estranged husband Pete (Cliff Robertson). When a dead body washes up on the shore it transpires that the deceased beach boy was one of Lana’s many conquests and she's the main suspect in the murder investigation....
Lana and Hugh O'Brian in "Love Has Many Faces"
Things get more convoluted when the dead boy’s girlfriend (Stefanie Powers) arrives to investigate the crime and falls in love with Pete. Lana looks like a million dollars (Which is reportedly what her wardrobe cost). If this all sound exciting, it’s not.
The film has Lana in sunglasses. Lana on yachts. Lana in capes. Lana with martinis. Lana with a cigarette holder. Lana in diamonds. Lana on horseback. Lana in a bikini. Lana flirting with matadors and Lana wearing a white snood to her toy boy’s funeral. What it doesn’t have is much of a plot.
I’d be hard pressed to relay what actually happens. There’s are a couple of American cougars played by the fabulous Ruth Roman and Virginia Grey stalking the beach looking out for hot young studs to ensnare. Unfortunately, all the resort has to offer is the skimpily clad middle aged lothario Hugh O’Brian pimping his wares and trying his best to steal Kit from her former gigolo husband. Quite why these gorgeous rich women are travelling all the way to Acapulco to hook men with all the allure of a Missouri car salesman is not explained.
It ends with hilarious climax where Lana has to be rescued from a rampaging bull. I have no idea who did it, if indeed anyone did. But that’s really not the point. The point is Miss Turner giving one of her last great Movie Star turns. That’s not to say it's any good but it is loads of fun.
Last year I insisted that "Movie Stars Need Love Too" and film goddesses like Lana deserved attention for the Academy because a great performance requires more than great acting. When doing so I did not include this film in my argument.
By this point in her career Lana has been a top ranking star for nearly 25 years. She’s outlasted all of her glamour girl contemporaries who by this time had either retired, moved to the stage, or been demoted to character or supporting roles. Miss Turner was still going strong, still having projects built around her, still top billed, still commanding million dollar fees and still demanding Edith Head wardrobes but whilst the movie business had moved on, Lana hadn’t. In the year of Darling, The Pawnbroker and A Patch of Blue perma-tanned Lana was poncing about on yachts wearing capes. This is of course EXACTLY what I want from her, but audiences of the time didn’t exactly feel the same way.
She never did try to adapt to the new wave. Having been a star since the age of 17 she knew no other way. She made a few more films with ever decreasing returns before the obligatory stage tours and soap roles, chat show appearances and Blackglama adverts. Her autobiography (The fabulously titled – The Lady, The Legend, The Truth) was a best seller and is one of my all-time favourite movie books.
Lana lived out the rest of her life as the glamorous, wealthy star, bedecked in jewels and hair always platinum blonde. Aware of her status until the end, it’s said she had a mirror by her front door and would check herself before the leaving the house. If she didn’t think she looked suitably fabulous, she would simply stay in. Reportedly her favourite holiday destination was Acapulco where I’m sure she enjoyed her fair share of yachts and martinis but there were no rumours of dead gigolos showing up. Whilst she lived her whole life every inch the movie star, some things were best left on the screen.
Reader Comments (13)
Hugh O'Brien was SO hot. Going to search for this one.
Swoon, always loved that Hugh O'Brian. Those leanly muscled, often hairy guys from the 50's & 60's were the best.
Great work! I hope we get a post on The Cube!
The movie is everything you say it is and everything you say it isn't and that's perfectly okay by me. If I want something serious and deep I sure as hell ain't watching a Lana Turner movie to get it! That's not what I expect or want from her. I want someone who works HARD at her appearance and image, whose films are most of the time designed to be pleasurable time passers dripping in glamour. This for all its absurdities is just that.
Another big plus for this movie is that it has another of my favorite actresses in the cast, Ruth Roman so all the better.
I love how this movie showcases 40-ish beefcake.
@Rob Yes, the 50s-60s Men are the Best!
Always reminds me of that wonderful Frank O'Hara poem (you may remember his work referenced in Mad Men):
Poem [Lana Turner has collapsed!]
Frank O'Hara - 1926-1966
Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headline
LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!
there is no snow in Hollywood
there is no rain in California
I have been to lots of parties
and acted perfectly disgraceful
but I never actually collapsed
oh Lana Turner we love you get up
@Steve G: I love that poem very very much. Lana was the best!
What a treat to see Cliff Robertson and Hugh O'Brian so young and so cute!
I know this post is a (well-deserved) >>LanaTurnerCentenaryCelebration<< but all this talk about 50s 60s Men inspired me to list some 50s 60s hunky guys. But only some - there are much more, obviously.
(In alphabetical order)
Harry Belafonte
Jean-Paul Belmondo
Jeff Chandler
Steve Cochran
Robert Conrad
John Derek
Vince Edwards
Ty Hardin
Ricky Nelson
Steve Reeves
Clint Walker
The poem is won-der-ful. Heart touching. Whenever a movie star died, instead of the traditional obituary, they should write a poem.
Love Has Many Faces, like other movies from La Turner's last phase as a box office attraction, is a lot of fun - for the actress, the cast and the costumes.
Last night I (re)watched The Postman Always Rings Twice, and Lana Turner is absolutely an A+ movie star. It's easy to see why James M. Cain, the acclaimed author (see also: Mildred Pierce and Double Indemnity), was so taken with her depiction of Cora. She really delivered on all counts, God bless her.
That poster just made my brain explode.
Lana Turner is glamorous and mesmerising on screen. However, the acting was a bit all over the place.