Jean Carroll Movies
- 1968
Film star Lylah Clare is dead, but her legend lives on. Movie-producer Barney Sheean (Ernest Borgnine) hires Elsa Brinkmann (Kim Novak), the living image of the late Lylah, to star in a film based on Ms. Clare's life. Barney hires director Lewis Zarkan (Peter Finch), Lylah's former husband, to transform the talentless Elsa into a facsimile of the deceased screen queen. Elsa not only learns to imitate Lylah but, at crucial junctures, becomes the dead woman. While restaging the accident that killed Lylah, the obsessed Zarkan deliberately drives Elsa to her doom -- and in so doing reveals his complicity in the death of his wife. The film ends with Lylah's onetime housekeeper (Rosella Falk), gun in hand, lying in wait for Zarkan to return home while her TV blasts forth a grotesque (and possibly symbolic) dog-food commercial. A trash masterpiece, Legend of Lylah Claire works so hard at vilifying the Old Hollywood (there's even a vicious Hedda Hopper caricature) that it's a wonder the actors could keep a straight face. The film was based on a 1962 Dupont Show of the Week TV drama co-written by Wild in the Streets creator Robert Thom. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kim Novak, Peter Finch, (more)
- 1962
Alluring but mysterious females come to rescue of a man on a mission in this beautifully photographed underwater adventure. Dr. Samuel Jamison (George Rowe) is a marine biologist on the staff at an aquatic theme park who one day receives a visit from an elderly gentleman named Ernst Steinhauer (John Mylong). Steinhauer shows Jamison some remarkable specimens of "flame pearls," rare jewels of the sea that change color in a prismatic fashion, which he discovered during a recent visit to the island of Tiburon; he wants to know more about them and invites Jamison to his home to discuss his find. However, when Jamison pays Steinhauer a visit, he finds the place ransacked, the pearls gone and old man missing. Jamison charters a boat to Tiburon in search of the pearls, but he's not the only one who knows about the treasure; Milo (Timothy Carey), a vicious gangster, stole Steinhauer's maps and killed the old man, and is now sailing to Tiburon to claim the valuables. Jamison discovers the pearls are being guarded by a handful of beautiful mermaids who are determined to see that the treasure doesn't fall into the wrong hands. The original version of The Mermaids of Tiburon featured noted pin-up model Diane Webber as the queen of the mermaids, complete with a fishy tail; when the movie failed to do much business, director John Lamb added new footage in which the queen is joined by a bevy of other underwater beauties, who mysteriously have legs but also swim topless through the ocean depths. The nudie version of Mermaids of Tiburon was also distributed under the title The Aqua Sex. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Diane Webber, George Rowe, (more)
