Love Has Many Faces (1965) User Reviews

And Lana has many wardrobe changes...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 30 September 2006]

At least you have to give this one a chance for sheer watchability since LANA TURNER keeps turning up in one great costume after another, proving that even in her forties she was still a glamor girl. The story is trash--as are the main characters--so if you get any thrill out of watching the bronzed bodies enjoying themselves in a potboiler you can call it a guilty pleasure.

Turner is as fickle as they come. Although married to handsome CLIFF ROBERTSON, she's always on the lookout for another gigolo to keep her love life perking. She pays the most attention to HUGH O'BRIAN, who sports a series of brief beach outfits to demonstrate his hunk appeal while he flirts with all the wealthy females on the beach.

If you're still watching, the story leads to a climactic bull fight at a Mexican arena and by that time all the clichés have been thoroughly trampled upon by a ludicrous script and some bad direction.

For Turner's fans, however, it's worth watching for Lana alone. She's lovingly (and carefully) photographed and shows why she was the "it" girl of her generation.

One face is plenty, thanks

[blanche-2 · 5/10 · 31 May 2008]

This unintentionally hilarious 1965 sudser stars Lana Turner as Kit, a wealthy woman trying to hold onto her purchased husband Pete (Cliff Robertson) when one of her ex-beaus is found dead on the beach, a probable suicide. His girlfriend (Stefanie Powers) arrives to find out what went on, and she and Pete fall for one another, to the dismay of Kit, who spends a lot of time drinking, changing clothes and throwing parties. Watching the situation unfold and hoping to get in once Pete is out is a gigolo (Hugh O'Brian) who is currently romancing a tourist of a certain age (Ruth Roman) while his partner romances her friend (Virginia Grey).

At 45 or thereabouts, Lana Turner is deeply tanned, expensively wardrobed and beautiful, though a bit hard-looking. It's sad to remember her in films like "These Glamor Girls" and "Slightly Dangerous" where she was so fresh, energetic and lovely. It's more than age - it's drink, it's cigarettes, it's bad men and it's the Stompanato scandal.

The story starts out one way - the dead man on the beach and an investigation into his death, and then keeps changing, first to a volatile marriage, then to adultery and finally bullfighting, which is used as an allegory for what goes on between a man and a woman. Another fifteen more minutes of film, who knows where we would have ended up.

However many faces love has, this film doesn't move through them very quickly. It doesn't have the pizazz to be the campy film "Portrait in Black" is. As over the top as the story is, the acting isn't over the top enough. See it once for Lana's wardrobe, how unbelievably young Stefanie Powers is and Hugh O'Brian in swimming trunks, and then forget it. You'll be able to.

Pretty on the outside...

[moonspinner55 · 5/10 · 14 March 2010]

Nancy Wilson's opening-credits title song tells us that "love has many faces...and I mean to kiss every one!" Unfortunately, there are more hisses than kisses happening here, as an attractive cast lounges sleepily in the cartoonish paradise of Acapulco yet nobody seems to be having a good time. Lana Turner (tanned and coiffed to a fare-thee-well) plays a wealthy woman who used to run around with beach boys and gigolos until she married one (Cliff Robertson, looking dour); when an ex-paramour washes up dead on the beach, Lana isn't a suspect in his death but certainly acts like she is. Hugh O'Brian plays a virile, narcissistic stud wooing vacationer Ruth Roman, while Stefanie Powers turns up as another former lover of the deceased rivaling Turner for Robertson's affections. It might be too silly--and slurpy-slow--for words were it not for some amusingly catty digs and an unintentionally hilarious bit where Lana meets an angry bull head-on. The fashions and settings are ravishing, so there's really no need for all these people to be so bitter and petty. Money seems to flow between them like water, and everyone looks great in (and out) of their clothes. Alexander Singer directs the whole thing with one eye shut; alas, his film is half-asleep. ** from ****

amusingly bad camp trash

[notmicro · 13 April 2001]

My favorite quote: Hugh O'Brian, who plays an aging beach-boy gigolo, stands in front of a mirror in shorts patting his flat abs and saying "How long, oh Lord, how long..." Recommended for fans of lurid, tasteless, over-the-top Hollywood camp drama. The basic story involves wealthy middle-aged American women hanging out in their lavish Mexican beach houses, wearing flashy expensive clothes, and passing the time toying with the local gigolos - so why should they be miserable? All the stars are attractive, though no longer young. The story is played devastatingly straight, with many heavy emotional moments and Dramatic Revelations which will have you chuckling.

Fun in Acapulco

[richardchatten · 1/10 · 20 February 2020]

Who would have thought adultery among the super rich (complete with bullfighters, Lana Turner dressed by Edith Head in expensive bad taste, and with the men spending most of their time with their shirts open to their navels) could have resulted in such a dull film?

Although surrounded by plenty of other people who show every sign of enjoying themselves, none of the principal characters ever seem to smile, read, or to care about anything other than themselves; instead spending their time sunning themselves and sulking, like characters in an Antonioni movie, but even more self-obsessed, with even more money and even less sense. (Scriptwriter Marguerite Roberts had just spent ten years on the Hollywood blacklist, so depicting the lives of the idle rich as so arid and joyless was possibly payback time.)

Both Ruth Roman and Virginia Grey could have shone in 'A Cold Wind in August', but Alexander Singer's first feature film in colour instead represented his grim surrender to mediocrity after the OTT pretension of 'Psyche 59'.

Better Than Its Trashy Premise and Reputation

[alonzoiii-1 · 6/10 · 14 March 2010]

Aimless rich nymphomaniac Lana Turner is one year into an alcoholic marriage with ex-beach boy Cliff Robertson. When one of Lana's earlier beach boy dalliances washes up on the Acapulco shore dead, will grouchy, self-loathing Robertson, egged on by gigolo from Hell Hugh O'Brian learn that his bitter, stormy, (but quite sex-filled) marriage to Lana is exhibit A for the proposition -- "LOVE HAS MANY FACES"?

This movie is one of those that is destined for that dismissive category "so bad its good", on the basis that its star was older than was fashionable for a sex symbol, and many of the men spend much of their time showing their manly torso to over age women. Since the subject is uncomfortable, the safe response for the male reviewer is to giggle, mock, and move on.

But the movie has real strengths despite its garish exterior, and Lana Turner, dressed in best screen siren style, and photographed so that the wrinkles are vague, but the smokin' hot body is in full view, may never have been put to better use in a movie. Hugh O'Brien, too, plays a loathsome character with such bare chested charisma and relish that one could conclude the whole Wyatt Earp TV show thing was epic miscasting. Thios isn't Shakespeare style emoting, but it is good solid acting by people who know how to keep the melodramatic plot fizzing along. Acapulco -- the setting under which all the eye candy is displayed -- looks great, too.

So, if the acting is good, and the melodrama solid, what's the problem? Mostly, Cliff Robertson, whose self-loathing is all encompassing (and really annoying) Also, the movie maker's ambition to get every male torso properly displayed does at time slow the action down to a crawl. Finally, the motivation of some of the characters does not make a whole lot of sense.

But this is a movie worth the time, and not just for the giggles.

Aging women and their beach boy toys

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 16 January 2017]

Some nice scenery of Mexico's beach playground Acapulco and some fine young specimens on the beach are the main attraction for Love Has Many Faces. As a movie it has some of the themes of Tennessee Williams's The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone if it were done by Jackie Susann.

Lana Turner gets top billing here as an aging heiress who actually married her beach boy toy Cliff Robertson. But one of the boy toy set washes up on the beach dead. His girl friend Stefanie Powers comes in from the States to find out the story. As Robertson and Turner are in a rut of some kind, Cliff makes a play for Powers. And while that's going on Hugh O'Brian who is about as far from the stern and morally upright Wyatt Earp sets his sights on Turner.

Best in the cast is another aging heiress Ruth Roman who lets nothing slip by her eyes without a comment. Definitely Marguerite Roberts the writer gave her the best lines.

I guess fun in the sun in Acapulco is reason enough for doing the film for the players. They've all done worse, but they've all done better.

A guilty pleasure

[dinky-4 · 6/10 · 20 November 2011]

It begins with the discovery of a body washed up on a beach -- a classic start to a mystery story -- but there proves to be little interest in the fate of that particular body. Murder? Accident? Suicide? The movie never delivers a satisfying answer because the body on the beach turns out to be simply a flashy introduction to the story of a troubled marriage among the idle rich. Even this aspect of the story isn't well handled because the movie doesn't seem to realize that Cliff Robertson is or at least should be the main character. He's the ex-beach boy who's now married to the wealthy Lana Turner but whose sense of decency causes him to feel guilty about living in her world of privilege. Perhaps not surprisingly, he finds himself drawn to the youthful innocence of Stefanie Powers, the girlfriend of the body-on-the-beach who's come to Acapulco to investigate the situation.

However, though Robertson is the character in the compelling position, the character who undergoes the greatest degree of growth and change, the movie understandably keeps turning its attention to Lana Turner. After all, she's the top-billed star and it's with her name that the movie hopes to attract its core audience of Sunday-matinée women. Turner certainly looks good, all things considered, and she's dressed and jeweled with all the requisite glamour, but her character never comes to life and the attempt to give her depth and sympathy through the revelation of a "shocking secret" from her past simply doesn't work. The revelation seems too pat, too contrived, and the fact that it's delivered through a monologue Turner implausibly shares with her maid doesn't help matters.

Interest starts to ebb away in the second half and an effort to re- charge the movie with a bullfight sequence seems more silly than exciting. Still, there's enough of a "glow" to this old-fashioned star vehicle to qualify it as one of those "guilty pleasures" whose charms can't adequately be explained to the uninitiated.

Cliff Robertson does what he can with the material but seems glum and uncomfortable and one never really accepts that he loves Lana Turner. For her part, Turner strikes the right poses but fails to become anything more than a look-don't-touch pin-up. Acting honors actually go to Hugh O'Brien who's usually seen in nothing more than a variety of crotch-bulging swimsuits and whose hairy, sun-bronzed torso seems the very distillation of raw male sexuality. (Robertson has only two bare- chest scenes, one of them quite minor, and while he still has an attractive physique, his beefcake appeal is put on better display in the 1959 "Gidget.") Ruth Roman adds some peripheral interest to the proceedings and one wishes more had been done with the character of reluctant gigolo, Ron Husmann.

Oh, the harrowing life of the idle rich.....

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 8 November 2011]

This is a film from the genre I'd like to call the 'poor 'old rich folks' type of film. Like so many glossy soap operas of the era, it's all about folks who have every reason to be happy but instead are neurotic idiots.

The film stars Lana Turner (THE ultimate middle-aged rich character from the 50s and 60s), Cliff Robertson, Ruth Roman, Hugh O'Brian (the gigolo) and a young Stephanie Powers and the film is set in Acapulco. Turner and her husband, Robertson, are rich and spend their time lying about on the beach or in their yacht--drinking and being lowlifes. Throughout the film, she drinks and he chases Powers--as Roman and Turner are pursued by the opportunistic O'Brian. There really isn't much more to the film than this, as they (especially Turner) are all cold and self-involved idiots.

The characters are rather one-dimensional and the film yet another film in Turner's late career in which she played a caricature of herself. Like these other films, this one is trashy and silly. Some may like it for just this reason--it is oddly entertaining. But it's also a great example of a bad film--a very bad film. As for me, I just found it all very tedious--though at least Powers was nice eye candy.

"A little over ripe but choice"

[mls4182 · 7/10 · 19 June 2023]

That was sun dried gigolo Hugh O'Brien being tactful in regards to booze bloated Ruth Roman.

This was Lana Turner's next to the last starring role, and she knew she had nothing to lose. Her next film would be one of atonement, Madame X.

This film is trashy. It wasn't meant to be anything else. I watched this hoping it would be hilarious in a campy way but it is actually quite depressing. I think the main requirement of being cast in this film was to be addicted to both alcohol and Benzedrune. The latter wasn't enough to help former Earners starlet cram her gut into her swimsuit.

High O'Brien: "Go ahead and get yourself wet, and if I'm not there in five mi,tues, start yourself. "This should be renamed, "Love Has Many Feces."

A Great Fashion Show

[julianhwescott · 3/10 · 16 March 2001]

As usual, another boring Lana Turner film in which Lana plays 'herself'. This film is very skimpy on story and is a total waste of time as far as I'm concerned. Even though the cinematography is beautiful, the film editing is awful and extremely choppy. Oh, and the Edith Head costumes are great, especially Lana Turner's, Cliff Robertson's and Hugh O'Brien's, if indeed you can call what O'Brien wears a costume. I don't know why Ruth Roman and Virginia Grey were even cast in this film, both talented actresses with absolutely nothing to do. Even Stephanie Powers was boring. I guess one other good thing about this film is the title....attractive!

Slight, well-written, and ultimately marvelous

[beyondtheforest · 10/10 · 29 May 2008]

Luscious Lana Turner stars as "Kit," a lovely yet jaded socialite with a few million in the bank, a private yacht, a house in every port, and a hunky husband played by Cliff Robertson. They are currently staying in Acapulco, where Lana is being pursued by a virile gigolo (O'Brian) much to her husband's jealousy. Tables turn when Lana notices her husband's affections are turning to a seemingly innocent young woman played by Stephanie Powers.

The plot is mostly concerned with Lana and her jaded friends playing the field, drinking drinking drinking, changing outfits (Lana has several knockout pieces designed by Edith Head), and spouting cynical yet often profound dialogue. Contrary to what has been said, the film is remarkably subtle in its storytelling approach. The visuals are grand, the performances are sound, and the dialogue priceless.

Lana's character, who by all outwards appearances seems a heartless vamp, actually has a deep core of vulnerability which is gradually exposed throughout the film. Her husband is sensitive but it takes him some time to see his wife for what she is inside -- and not the shallow playgirl she pretends to be. There is one fabulous line in which Lana explains to Stephanie Powers how she met her husband. It was in a hospital -- Lana was ill and wanted to 'buy his blood,' setting Lana up as the ultimate vampire.

The climactic bull fight scene is vivid and highly dramatic. The colors and cinematography in many scenes, including this one, are inspired.

This is one of Lana's most interesting, and solid, films. At 45, she never looked more beautiful.

love has many faces

[mossgrymk · 6/10 · 26 June 2023]

It's really two quite different movies tied together by wonderful, lush Acapulco location cinematography by veteran DP, Joseph Ruttenberg.

The A movie is a heavy, rather dull Miseries Of The Idle Rich tale with unhappily married Lana Turner and Cliff Robertson at parties and aboard yachts, drinking, and repeatedly almost being unfaithful to each other. Yawn.

The B movie, which I wish had been the lone movie, features Wyatt Earp as a cheerfully amoral beachboy/gigolo. If Marguerite Roberts' dialogue in the A movie often resembles Charles Schnee with a lobotomy whenever Hugh O'Brian speaks we're almost in Tennessee Williams territory. And matching O'Brian in jaunty lustiness is Ruth Roman as a rich, aging American gal on the prowl.

Bottom line: Alternately boring and fun, with the former, unfortunately, winning out. C plus.

Love Has Many Faces-Boredom in Acapulco *

[edwagreen · 2/10 · 29 May 2008]

Miserable film about older women seeking the pleasure of younger men.

Let's face it, Lana Turner looked like an old hag here and being married to Cliff Robertson in the film made it appear that the latter was nothing more than a gigolo. Ditto for Hugh O'Brien, who is horribly miscast here.

The idle rich live a completely dull, frustrating life here. They sit on the beach and drink all day to drown out their misery.

When a guy looked over by Turner kills himself, his girl friend (Stephanie Powers) comes to investigate and soon falls for Robertson. O'Brien, a friend of Robertson, has his own designs on the Turner character as well.

Wasted here are veteran actresses Ruth Roman and Virginia Grey, both playing middle-aged women in pursuit of younger men. The guys look absolutely ridiculous besides them. In addition, Grey wears a hat worn by older women in Brighton Beach Brooklyn during the summer.

The film is slow moving and lacks any interest whatsoever.

The ending with the bulls is most appropriate since the film is a lot of bull itself.

Tame stuff now, but not without it's rewards.

[Poseidon-3 · 6 January 2000]

Released the same year as "The Sound of Music", you won't see any nuns or singing children trotting through this film! The action is on a far seedier level. Ms. Turner (enjoying a career renaissance after the stabbing death of her gangster lover and the wild success of "Imitation of Life") plays a bored, despondent socialite who passes her long afternoons in the Acapulco sun with local gigilos while her husband (a former gigilo) turns the other cheek. Things get ugly when one of Turner's playthings washes up onshore---dead. His former girlfriend (Powers) comes to claim his body and attracts the attention of Turner's husband. Meanwhile, O'Brian (yet another aging gigilo!) is bedding rich vacationer Roman and trying to get Turner's attention as well. It all culminates in an overheated, eventually hilarious climax involving a bull! The chief assets of the film are Lana's clothes (the Edith Head concoctions cost a then-staggering---even now-staggering $1,000,000!) and the ultra-macho, hairy-chested, leathery-tanned, sexually insatiable, skimpy swimsuit-wearing O'Brian! Lana's outfits will please any fan of glitzy, over-the-top, drag-queeny get-ups (The swimsuits with matching cover ups alone could make Ru-Paul drool). Hugh is a revelation. He trots around in teensy, clingy trunks, sporting a lean, hirsute figure and displays virility in the form of surfing and beach fitness. Once seen, ol' Wyatt Earp can never be thought of the same way again. HOT!

The mirror only lies when you cover it.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 9 November 2017]

Aging socialites with nothing better to do than lie on the beach and be picked up by gigolo Beach boys are the focus of this colorful soap opera that features some campy lines but is emotionally empty. Still gorgeous here, Lana Turner is living a pointless life and no amount of boys, booze and beach can fix it. She's dealing with the fallout from the suicide of one lover and the frustration of younger husband Cliff Robertson finds himself drawn to the dead lover's former girlfriend (Stefanie Powers) who shows up out of the blue.

There's homoerotic eye candy for the presence of beach gigolos Hugh O'Brien and Ron Husman who parade around in teeny tiny tight shorts and no shirt, and share a teeny, tiny beach house. They become the companions to two aging rich observers (Ruth Roman and Virginia Grey) who are obviously envious of the smoother looking Lana whom Roman seemingly has dirt on. As the situation gets more tense and the plot thickens faster than boiling oatmeal, it gets more absurd, and interest wanes. All scenic and exotic, but there's really very little love going on, only possession from Turner towards her varied studs, and it becomes obvious that these characters are as emotionally dead as the deceased Beach boys is physically.

Perhaps the lack of a strong film director (TV veteran Alexander Singer) hurts this, as does the unbalanced script. A bullfight subplot dominates the last quarter, and that slows this down to the pace of a TV golf tournament. Turner is beautiful but her character is one dimensionally shallow. Robertson is stronger, and Powers instills her character with a variance of nuances. But the best thing to come out of this is Ruth Roman, the Ava Gardner lookalike who had an interesting career but was overshadowed by Turner's old MGM pal. Ironically, Robertson would come onto the TV series "Falcon Crest" after Turner was killed off, playing her nephew.

intriguing

[AlecoBravo · 4/10 · 13 December 2004]

I just checked out this film and am intrigued to see that voice-dubbing was used for Jaime Bravo's handful of lines. Was Jaime's accent a little too strong for US audiences? For those of you who do not know, Jaime Bravo is the matador who is seen training the Americans in the film. An incredibly talented and exhilarating matador, his life was cut short in a February, 1970, car accident. The two most obvious vestiges of his talents are a wonderful black and white film, "Story Of A Matador", and his surviving apprentice, Eloy Cavazos, who is one of the world's current great matadors. If a viewer would like to experience an accurate, truthful account of a matador's preparation for a bullfight, then "Story Of A Matador" is an excellent resource.

slow tropical melodrama mystery

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 13 June 2023]

A dead body washes up on an Acapulco beach. Mexican police investigates the possible murder of the "beach boy". Pete Jordan (Cliff Robertson) is a former beach boy who married rich American Kit Jordan (Lana Turner). She knew the dead boy. His girlfriend Carol Lambert (Stefanie Powers) arrives looking for answers. Hank Walker (Hugh O'Brian) is a suspicious beach boy who works the rich vacationing older ladies.

This has the tropical sunshine and the glistening male beach bodies. It's a beach blanket bingo mystery, but it moves much too slowly. It's a lot of lounging around on the beach or doing pulpy artificial melodrama which grinds the pace to a crawl. Lana Turner suffers from this in particular. It is interesting to see some of these old Hollywood faces. Stefanie Powers is so young here. The story just moves so slowly.

Lana Turner Stars In Sexy Drama "Love Has Many Faces". Columbia

[adventure-21903 · 9/10 · 2 February 2020]

Lana Turner was a Movie Star! And also a great film actress: The Postman Always Rings Twice blazing sex appeal in her white costume!, The Bad and The Beautiful, Peyton Place and when her career was deemed over due to the Stompanato scandal, Lana took only a small salary against 50% of the profits triumphed in Imitation of Life a mega hit for Universal. Lana made millions of dollars with her hit Imitation of Life. Lana was incredibly beautiful and one of her producers Ross Hunter got off a great quote" Photographing Lana. In Black and White is like photographing champagne in a coffee mug"

Lana Turner had a firm hold on the female audiences even with the notorious killing of Mafia Hood in her home by her daughter Cheryl.. I was astonished wen Cheyrl on a talk show deemed her mother " great woman" all the while involving Cherrl in one of Hollywood's greatest scandals. Cheyrl in her great book "Detour" noted her Mother's Many Husbands and as Cheyrl noted "Caravan of Lovers." See Lana on the Phil Donahue show where she got a prolonged standing ovation, and gives a description of her 7 husbands and her "great love" Tyrone Power.

Lana ventured to Columbia Pictures for this sexy drama set in Mexico. It makes little sense but no matter Lana had a $1 million wardrobe created by Edith Head as she dealt with the varied Men the picture. Stefanie Powers then a Columbia contract star has a featured role but it is Lana Turner in the spotlight. One actor Ron Husman was a great Broadway star in the play "Tenderloin" but never made it to stardom in Hollywood.

PS. Lana fell ill during the early stages of filming and Susan Hayward and Jennifer Jones were mentioned as replacing Lana, but Columbia waited for Lana to return.

Love Has Many Faces is a guilty pleasure with Lana looking like a million and wearing Edith Head;s $1 Million dollar wardrobe, the total focal point of this film.

Lana Turner makes this trash look like class!

[Hoohawnaynay · 26 December 2003]

Lana Turner, you have to admit it can make even the campiest, trashiest, movie look good. I can watch almost anything with her in it. Her costumes are over the top but she looks great in them. Ruth Roman plays a boozy broad with great one liners. One line I remember is where gigolo Hugh O'Brien says "Haven't I seen you around?" , Ruth responds with "Could be, I've been there". Not much plot but who cares, the sets are gorgeous, the campy dialogue and the entrance of a very young Stephanie Powers make it all a good old roll in the mud. I enjoy trash like this, it is far superior to the vulgar trash they make now. If a bad movie like this is memorable so many years later then it succeeded on some level. Of course there are no stars like Lana Turner anymore. Watch it for her alone.

What's Not to Love?

[warren-parr · 10/10 · 9 May 2020]

Acapulco circa 1963, Hugh and beach boy hunks bearing their Eros wares, brandy swill ing Lana rocking a million dollar Edith Head wardrobe; well-directed for the genre, sensitively shot on location and smartly designed Mexico City sound stage interiors ... chips & guacamole for the senses!

It May not always be "great," but it's beautiful entertainment

[pmullinsj · 5 April 2004]

Much the truly best thing is still the credits with Nancy Wilson's superb performance of the Raksin-Davis title song. This is 60's "fashion sound," more like you'd expect for an Audrey Hepburn caper.

But this is pithier than the light charm of Audrey. This is more interesting than that could ever quite be. This is Lana Turner and that was always interesting, because of all major stars, she seemed most ultimately consumed by perdition. The movie often seems awful, but the relationships are so loose that the beginnings, middles and ending all seem at least possible, given all the elements of the milieu.

And Turner's wonderfully absurd costumes are thoroughly matched by an amazing performance of sustained pornography by Hugh O'Brien, as Hank, fantastically lascivious--with no more thought of giving it up to stay out of hell than Don Giovanni. And his wardrobe is almost as varied as hers is--there are several changes of beach boy bikini. It needs to be: He suggests nothing so much as Stompanato, and this is Turner's most interesting post-Stompanato picture besides 'Imitation of Life'. In both of these her burden of falseness is carried with as much courage as something that lonely must be--if we are to believe Eric Root in his 1996 book regarding her confession circa 1985 to him in New York while viewing a TV documentary or clip about the murder-how her career could not be interrupted by this moment of passionate horror; and how this may or may not have been the selfish decision to make when her daughter was involved. It may have made her a great actress from time to time; she certainly had never been more than very good before, and she was simply execrable occasionally, as in 'The Merry Widow'--an unspeakable performance, all stiffness and ignorance.

Harold Robbins's novel 'Where Love Has Gone' was based on the Stompanato-Turner affair and she wouldn't speak to him or shake his hand when once she was introduced to him.

But later, she would be cordial to him when a career move--that of 'The Survivors' for television by Robbins and co-starring George Hamilton--presented itself as expedient.

She settled rather as comfortably as possible into BEING "imitation of life"--and it was always fascinating.

Fidelity is a subject that comes up in the relationship of Kit (Turner) and Pete, her husband (Cliff Robertson) quite a lot in the movie; and thus it seems about as relative a value as possible given the circumstances, the setting (there are the well-known photographs of Lana and Stompanato in Acapulco). That makes it sad, because fidelity as something difficult is common enough (most of us have experienced its seeming near-impossibility), but here it seems as if, no matter how things appear briefly, it has ultimately vanished, is 100% inaccessible--in any arena of relationship. When Pete tells Kit after the bullfight that his new love interest,played by Stephanie Powers (there to investigate the death of a friend of hers, another lover of Kit's), "has something we all once had...a conscience," there is an interesting invective about "buying monogrammed hair shirts" that bursts from Turner's lips--the kind of line certain kinds of lazy money will definitely buy.

So that, in the title song are "play the field, I told my fickle heart"..and "I said love has many faces, and I mean to kiss every one.."And then there is "that's how it used to be, till you smiled at me, and then I knew, that not any of the many faces was love..till I looked at you.."

What one wished both.

Much of 'Love Has Many Faces' may seem trashy and campy soap opera, but it's actually tragic, it's about something that happened, even if they only halfway knew it,even if they were just trying to do something commercial.

She still looked lusciously beautiful at that age (about 45), and this age has a strange feel to it, as she goes about playing the playgirl seemingly endlessly, as if still an ingenue--reminding one of the story of the revered Bishop Nonnus of Antioch and Pelagia, the leading actress of the city, as recalled by the Desert Fathers; and when she first entered a chuch, and was overcome with the fear of God. Various "discoveries of God" happened to Lana in the last decade of her life (sometimes it was Shirley Maclaine, alas); she "surveyed the field" for God, too, it seems, and there you have it: one of the most authentic and inimitable lives of Hollywood history.