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.
