This film truly marked the end of Kim Novak's career. Unfortunately, I think it was a combination things--the end of the studios, the end of the Hollywood dream era and the end of any kind of illusion of naivete in America at that time. The Kennedys, King assassinations, Vietnam. The bubble had burst. The films of this time when good were brutal and realistic and negative. The films that were bad were bloody, carnal and usually sadistic/masochistic in new ways for film. Sex was for the first time visual. Soft porn in PG rated films wasn't unusual. A breast of butt shot was the norm for most films. Lylah/Kim becomes the epidomy of the Hollywood actor--a confabulated doll, puppet really, who generates dollars at the box office and is of no importance to the studios than the money it receives. Follow the money. Money grubbing marked the end of any art able to be produced. The Jewish maxim "it's only business" ruled. You can snuff people on screen live and it is just what you do to get bread. This is a poorly written film, but does mark in a perverted (appropriately) way the beginning of the end of the dream of what film could be. The 1960s was both the apex and death of culture and civilization. We are now living in the decline period. All film produced now is either voyueristic or masturbatory.
Review of The Legend of Lylah Clare
