Love has many faces (1965)

Love Has Many Faces. [Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment] : Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, [2011]. Originally released as a motion picture in 1965. Directed by Alexander Singer. Performers: Lana Turner, Cliff Robertson, Hugh O'Brian, Ruth Roman, Virginia Grey, Ron Husmann, Stefanie Powers. Music by David Raksin. Wardrobe by Edith Head. Title song performed by Nancy Wilson.
 Summary: Wealthy heiress Kit Jordan is in Acapulco vacationing with her husband Pete, formerly an American beach boy working the shores for rich women. Meanwhile, the body of one of Pete's fellow beach boys, Billy Andrews, washes to shore. The police investigate whether it was murder or suicide. Romantic conflicts and a bullfight add to the mix.

style ****
substance ***

I just caught Love Has Many Faces recently on GetTV and absolutely loved it, so much so that I promptly ordered the DVD from Amazon. A high gloss, widescreen product typical of the era, Many Faces had its world première a half century ago, and perhaps some thoughts on the film and its charismatic star Lana Turner are in order. First comment: times have changed, haven’t they? Or have they? Plus ça change(?) ... well, that, as they say, is another story, and another post.

But as for LHMF, it’s less notable for the plotline, such as it is, than the high-powered cast, and even more so the lush tropical backdrop. Acapulco was always a favorite setting for movies, but never had it been presented in such technicolored, mouth-watering fashion, here depicted as small-town, unspoiled, and under-the-radar, just the perfect playground for the bored rich.

A kind of synthesis of Peyton Place and a Sixties beach movie, Many Faces is nominally a tale of a suspicious death. But the story line is only incidental: at its essence our movie is about beautiful people in a beautiful place, behaving not very beautifully. Like so many glossy soapers of the era, the characters have every reason to be happy and count their blessings but instead mope around and fill themselves with alcohol to medicate their neurotic state of mind. In other words, it’s an irresistible blend of sleaze and sophistication.

To further cement its bad movie pedigree, Many Faces has more than its share of dialogue clunkers, most of them delivered during the alcohol-drenched interludes, in which we’re given a goodly amount of snappy repartee, some of it good, most of it not so good. Would-be profound observations fall flat or descend into campy absurdity. There are compensations: the catty digs sprinkled throughout are absolutely delicious in their acidy meanness.

My favorite scenes in Many Faces, however, are those of Hugh O’Brian, here cast as the aging gigolo Hank, cavorting with a worse-for-wear Ruth Roman, who plays an ‘older woman’ who is his favorite client. Roman and O’Brian have a chemistry that’s just right, and Miss Roman especially inhabits her role with perfect pitch: a world-weary character full of cynicism that drips like warm honey on, well, an Acapulco afternoon. If she’d had more scenes I’m sure she would have flat-out stolen the movie from Lana. Alas it was not to be.

The presence of veteran Virginia Grey as Ruth’s travel buddy is a plus, but she’s given little to do except lounge around the pool and make a few quips. Enrique Lucero as the Mexican cop does solid work as one of the few appealing characters, though his is a relatively minor part.

Ultimately LHMF is a lot less lurid and unsavory than it seems: most of the steamy activity occurs off-screen and far more is suggested than is shown. In this sense it harkens back to those mid and late Fifties melodramas of the kind Douglas Sirk did so well.

Whatever else it is, this is Miss Lana’s movie and further confirms her status as the queen of late Fifties and early Sixties romantic potboilers. Maybe she wasn’t a great actress – I confess I was never a big fan – but she had plenty of attitude and screen presence. And she always gave it her all no matter how bad the script. Even when she looks bored, as she frequently does in this film, she does so in an intense sort of way and always commands our attention.

Many Faces is hardly what one would call a great film, at least in the conventional sense, and it’s mostly the visual beauty of the film that makes it so … if not memorable then watchable. Few movies have looked this good – before or since. It’s well worth a visit, especially if you’re a fan of Miss Turner’s later oeuvre or enjoy movies with tropical settings stunningly photographed.

Truth be told, I’m not sure whether we’re the richer or poorer for the consignment of the Old School melodrama to history. The silver lining is that we have the originals, many now available on DVD, and for that we are grateful. There’s also the, far too infrequent, worthy homage like Far From Heaven that gets pretty close to the heart of the matter.

Time has been kind to Love Has Many Faces. A masterpiece of its kind – even if its niche is that of kitsch masterpiece – it actually gets better with repeated viewings, and is eminently deserving of its reputation as one the best bad movies of all time.

Memorable lines:

“Love is thin ice” (inscription on bracelet of dead man).

Margot: “Honey, when someone asks you to tell them the truth, always lie … and when you lie, make it a big one.”

Kit: "There's a world out there. Let it stay there."

Hank: “Haven’t I seen you around?”

Margot: “It’s possible. I’ve been there.”

Kit, to Hank: “You're ninety-percent MAN, ten-percent RAT!"

Further reading:

Lana Has Many Costumes

Stefanie Powers, One from the Hart, N.Y., Gallery, 2010, pp. 50-54.

Lana Turner’s Million Dollar Wardrobe (fascinating behind-the-scenes featurette)