Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Pia Zadora | ... | ||
Lloyd Bochner | ... | ||
Bibi Besch | ... | ||
Joseph Cali | ... |
Vincent Dacosta
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Anthony Holland | ... | ||
Jared Martin | ... |
George Ballantine
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Ray Liotta | ... |
Joe Heron
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Carla Romanelli | ... | |
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Olivier Pierre | ... |
George Fox
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Kendal Kaldwell | ... |
Joanne Castel
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Lou Hirsch | ... |
Bernie
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Kerry Shale | ... |
Walter Thornton Jr.
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Sandra Dickinson | ... |
Nancy Day
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Shane Rimmer | ... |
Adolph Fannon
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Nancy Wood | ... |
Janie
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Jerilee Randall, a simple schoolgirl living in the San Fernando Valley, dreams of becoming a famous screenwriter. While at a party, she meets the son of a famous screenwriter. The son invites her over to his house; she accepts. They drive away with some other people, and that night, she is assaulted by one of the son's friends with a garden hose. The friend is interrupted in his assault by screenwriter Walter Thornton, who arrives in time to save her from an even more disgusting fate. Walter's rescue of Jerilee begins a friendship between the two, and before you know it, the two fall in love. They marry. Their marriage falls apart when Jerilee's script rewrites actually improve one of Walter's screenplays and he feels one-upped. Jerilee then goes through affair after sordid affair in her attempt to write her own screenplay and have it produced. Written by Chris Holland <cholland@atlantic.net>
This early Pia Zadora vehicle followed a familiar Harold Robbins formula: ambitious main character wallows in decadence while pursuing the path to the top of some randomly chosen but glamorous world, in this case the movie industry. But despite being so formulaic as to be completely predictable, this movie manages at the same time to be completely unbelievable. Zadora (to call her inexperienced as an actress is to be charitable) never convinces as a screenwriter. One would expect a movie about movie-making to have some insights into its own industry and creative process. But the script gives her none of the qualities which make writers interesting movie characters: observance, skill with words, a love-hate relationship with one's own creative abilities. Her character is as empty as a donut hole. And this is just a taste of the incompetence on display here. The cinematography is so murky that it is sometimes hard to see what is happening. And the scenes never really hang together, so everything seems like a succession of random moments at bad Hollywood parties. Avoid.