JACK ANDRUS The washed-up movie star who thought he was doomed – until the love of a good woman saved him.
MAURICE KRUGER He handled people like he directed films – with an iron hand!
CARLOTTA Jack’s ex-wife – she never met a man she didn’t like.
DAVIE DREW The handsome young star – driven by demons.
CLARA KRUGER When she got drunk she got jealous – and she was drunk all the time.
Minnelli and screenwriter Charles Schnee and all involved end up taking this film deadly seriously. It’s self-reflexive follow-up to The Bad And The Beautiful – shots from that film appear in this as an example of the fine work Jack (Kirk Douglas) and Kruger (Edward G. Robinson) did together once upon a time, netting Jack an Oscar and making Kruger king of Hollywood. But times have changed; Maurice has lost his touch, and is now shooting a cheesy historical flick that seems a combination of Visconti’s Senso and Dostoevsky’s The Gambler, at Cinecitta. Kruger’s up against a wall, with the producer, an Italian movie shark, planning to take over the dubbing when the film’s two remaining weeks of shooting are done, which would then be done in typically brutal and careless fashion of international film-making in the early ’60s, something Kruger, who is desperate for a quality picture, can’t abide. To get out of the jam, he turns to his old star, Jack Andrus (Kirk Douglas), for help. Jack’s in a far worse lot than even Kruger. He’s been hiding out in an genteel mental home, having hardly survived a car-crash that came about after a long period of self-doubt and the indignity of catching his wife Carlotta (Cyd Charisse – boy could she not act) sleeping with every man in town, including Kruger. Jack’s attracted to Rome with an acting job, but Kruger, trying every manipulation is lengthy book of tricks, asks him instead to take over the dubbing. Jack agrees – for $10,000 – and finds himself having to battle every force in the universe, from Kruger’s hero-worshipping assistant to the film’s young star, Davie Drew (George Hamilton) who having become a star before he could handle it has run off from two shoots in a row and suffers from Kruger’s constant abuse. Even Carlotta’s in town, married to a super-rich Onassis-type but phoning Jack all hours of the day to come to her room and do the horizontal mambo. Only the appearance of Veronica (the delectable Daliah Lavi) consistently pulls Jack from his twitchy, suicidal interludes; she’s Drew’s girlfriend but she and Jack quickly become co-dependent, which drives the already despairing Drew to attempt to stab Jack. Meanwhile Kruger has his usual affair with the leading lady and ignoring his drunken wife. Claire Trevor’s performance in this part is excessive and one-note, but there’s one terrific scene of marital battle, as she abuses Kruger for cheating on her, to which Kruger, suddenly enraged, answers why shouldn’t he, when he’s married to an old drunken hag like her? At which point Trevor locks herself in the bathroom with a bottle of sleeping pills. Kruger casually kicks down the door. Later in bed, Kruger has to be babyishly cradled by his wife as he weeps over his fear of failure and bankruptcy. The whole film teeters on such a knife-edge between pungent emotionalism and soap-opera ham. It pays a more than slightly tongue-in-cheek tribute both to old Hollywood and then-current Euro art cinema. Things come to a head when a heart-attack immobilises Kruger and Jack takes over directing, paternally adopts Davie and rehabilitates him as a star, and suddenly re-inventing everyone’s life. It’s a glib, almost hilariously feel-good end after all the back-stabbing, interpersonal brutality, and financial torture. But you can’t write the overwhelming style it’s all filmed and edited with; frames as carefully posed and decorated as classic paintings; Minnelli’s trademark use of soft-focus photography and color; the liveliness of the Roman streets that Minnelli virtually paints with light; and there’s an absolutely brilliant finale involving Douglas and Charisse indulging in a last taste of the old madness in a speeding sports car that’s filmed and edited with an almost surreal bravura.