This is the drama of a film studio looking to make endless millions out of its top male star, just as long as word doesn't get out that he's gay. It's certainly a measure of Rock Hudson's fame that they were willing to throw two other stars to the wolves in a desperate deal with a gossip columnist to keep the lid on it all.
The main mover and shaker is Rock's agent, Henry Willson, played by a well-cast Andrew Robinson, whose office was known to be a nest of scheming gays, including Willson, whose lesbian secretary Phyllis was ordered to marry Rock, purely to damp-down the rumours. That part of the story is left out, however, since the film is based on Phyllis's own memoirs, written soon after Rock's death from AIDS. Instead the three-year marriage is presented as a non-stop honeymoon with the love-birds canoodling in a dozen romantic locations, and brought to an end only when he attacks her in a drunken rage. (Check the only interview she ever gave, with Larry King. You'll see something very unlike the wholesome Daphne Ashbrook who plays her here.)
Otherwise the casting is unremarkable, as is the narrative, especially some quite unnecessary newsreel footage to signal that we're moving from the discreet Fifties into the disquieting Sixties.
The main mover and shaker is Rock's agent, Henry Willson, played by a well-cast Andrew Robinson, whose office was known to be a nest of scheming gays, including Willson, whose lesbian secretary Phyllis was ordered to marry Rock, purely to damp-down the rumours. That part of the story is left out, however, since the film is based on Phyllis's own memoirs, written soon after Rock's death from AIDS. Instead the three-year marriage is presented as a non-stop honeymoon with the love-birds canoodling in a dozen romantic locations, and brought to an end only when he attacks her in a drunken rage. (Check the only interview she ever gave, with Larry King. You'll see something very unlike the wholesome Daphne Ashbrook who plays her here.)
Otherwise the casting is unremarkable, as is the narrative, especially some quite unnecessary newsreel footage to signal that we're moving from the discreet Fifties into the disquieting Sixties.