What up, Enemaniacs?

Welcome to week #4 of our five-week trek through the film library of the diminutive starlet Pia Zadora here at B-Movie Enema. This week is the one that you could argue the entire month was built around. It’s one that would end up wracking up something like 11 Razzie nominations and winning six. It’s 1983’s The Lonely Lady.

On paper, The Lonely Lady might have had a chance to work. The movie was based on a novel of the same name written by Harold Robbins. Robbins wrote slightly more lurid novels that had a seedier side. He wrote a few books that either were directly about the underbelly of Hollywood’s film industry or kind of circled that drain. Several of his books were adapted into big-budget films. These included The Carpetbaggers which got adapted into a 1964 film with an all-star cast, A Stone for Danny which was turned into the big-time vehicle for Elvis, King Creole, and 1970’s The Adventurers.

Maybe most notable is that Harold Robbins’ name is often dropped as a joke in terms of an extremely popular writer who writes more lurid pulp than great American novels. His name is often linked to Jacqueline Susann who took inspiration from Robbins when she wrote Valley of the Dolls. For most of my life in pop culture, I had known Robbins and Susann’s names thanks to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Kirk is describing the types of vernacular, often laced with colorful metaphors, used in the late 20th Century to Spock who is trying to understand why Kirk is and a lot of other people in 1986 San Francisco are using curse words. Kirk mentions Harold Robbins and Jacqueline Susann as notable authors of the time. Spock then calls them “the giants” of literature.

In fact, the novel by Robbins this is based on is rumored to have been something of a recounting of memories Robbins had of Susann.

When it comes to The Lonely Lady and his titular character, Jerilee Randall, Robbins sold the rights to the film version to Universal a year before its publishing date. It’s very clear that his name being associated with a book that gives shocking insight into women in the film industry meant that it could be ripe for a film adaptation. This is not terribly uncommon for the film industry to get excited or want to hold a mirror up to itself whenever a biting commentary about the industry is being floated around as a film idea. Mix the inside jab at the industry with Harold Robbins and you’ve got Universal knocking at the door. Universal really wanted the movie adaptation to be ready for release in 1976, but a script could never really be nailed down to start actual production.

It wasn’t until 1982 when, guess who, Meshulam Riklis signed on as a producer and financier of the film that production really got going. He had already produced Butterfly and Fake-Out by this time so, of course, he was going to bring his wife along to star as Jerilee. He even brought Matt Cimber in to work on a version of the script. Now, it’s important to understand a couple things. First, Harold Robbins claimed to have never seen this movie, but he strongly disapproved of the casting of Pia Zadora as Jerilee. He said she seemed like a perfectly nice girl but he did not see his version of his character being like her. We’ll circle back around to that in a bit.

Aside from Pia Zadora, this film has other recognizable people in the cast. We have Lloyd Bochner who racked up over 200 credits on IMDb. Speaking of Star Trek, we have Bibi Besch in this as well. She was Dr. Carol Marcus, the long-lost flame of Admiral Kirk, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Glory Annen has a small role in this movie, so we get to welcome her back to the blog. But maybe the most recognizable guy in this is Ray Liotta. This was his feature film debut. All this comes to us from director Peter Sasdy who had a roughly 35 year career, mostly working on TV, but made a trio of Hammer horror films including 1970’s Taste the Blood of Dracula.

For the most part, The Lonely Lady disappeared after its release. It was a financial disappointment only making about a fifth of its budget cost in ticket sales. It was critically panned into oblivion by critics. While there are only about a dozen reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a dubious 0% score. More recently, it floated back into the spotlight in the fringe film circles. The Cinema Snob did an episode on the movie in 2014 and in the decade that followed, other YouTube film reviewers also looked at it. It got a nice, new Shout Factory Blu-Ray release in 2017. So in the fringe world of online reviewers and fans of boutique home video releases, I guess this did make a little bit of a resurgence over the last 10 years or so.

But with that, we know the critics universally disliked it, but is it one of the fun bad movies or one of the bad bad movies? It’s time for us to dig in and find out.

The film opens at the Academy Awar… er… I mean “The Awards Presentation Ceremony”. Yeah, that… that’s where we’re starting, huh? Holy fucking shit that nothing screams “you can’t use our actual name” like calling something super fucking lame and generic and to have people say it with a straight face… in a movie that I’m sure some people thought could be taken seriously enough for award consideration.

I think what makes this opening few moments damn near embarrassing for this movie is how small and stupid it all is. Have you ever watched The Oscars? While I’m not a red carpet kind of guy, I have seen the red carpet to that show. It’s like a mile long and it’s packed with people as far as the eye can see. If you look at any red carpet, even for movie premieres and forget about award shows, you will see cameras and reporters and constant interruptions from people wanting to talk to anyone walking the red lined sidewalk. It’s about a billion times more intense at a prestigious award ceremony. In this, the red carpet is about 50 feet. There are about two dozen people standing around outside stargazing. No one is asking anyone to stop and take pictures from the lineup of about six photographers assembled along the red carpet. It’s not even trying to look like a big deal. Maybe the one thing that makes it all that much worse is the terrible theme song performed by Larry Graham blaring over all of it. I love it.

Okay, so anyway, we also get a reference to the title right away too. Our lady of the month, Pia Zadora, arrives looking like a knockout in that red dress. However, she’s alone. She stops to talk to no one. She does not get asked for a picture from anyone. When it’s pointed out by some of the onlookers, it’s determined that if she has no escort, she’s a nobody. She arrives without fanfare. I almost want to say that she arrives with no fanfare much like this film did in 1983, but that’s not true now is it?

This movie arrived like a fart in a car. (Ha! Got ’em.)

Inside the awards show, the movie then flashes back to when Jerilee won an award as the most promising new creative writer in high school. I don’t know if that was for the most promising new creative writer in all high schools or in all the high schools in California or all the high schools in that specific district. Whatever it was, they hand her something that looks like skinny dildo wrapped in that gold foil shit on the cheap champagne you bought to get you and your uninterested girlfriend drunk on New Year’s Eve. Also, I like that the way they made Pia Zadora look like she was in high school was to put her in pigtails and an outfit that looks like of like those little sailor-inspired outfits that we see kids wear.

You know what I’m talkin’ about with those sailor outfits.

Jerilee is gracious with her award. However, as she continues to talk about her creative process and how she tries creating identifiable characters, the principal lady cuts her off and basically tells her to go sit down and shut up. I mean not in those words exactly, but it’s kind of rude. She is definitely being stifled when trying to talk about how her characters and her readers should have things to be mindful and concerned about.

After the ceremony, Jerilee and a guy that might be her boyfriend named Bernie go to a party. This is kind of a mixed affair as some of the kids go to the school Jerilee and Bernie go to and others go to Beverly Hills High. She’s dancing with a guy whose father, Walter Thornton, is a famous screenwriter whose name Jerilee recognizes. Now, while he’s name droppin’ his dad’s name Bernie is not impressed at all. In fact, he wants to skedaddle because he’s promised Jerilee’s mother, Veronica, that she will be home by a certain time… a time that is fast approaching. Also at this party is Ray Liotta smokin’ dope. Jerilee isn’t wanting to leave quite yet. She’s having fun. She’s meeting people. She’s really interested in meeting this guy’s dad who might help her get along in her career.

Also, she’s got guys all over the place offering her their hot dogs.

Jerilee accepts Walt Jr.’s hot dog making Bernie throw his to the ground angrily and he leaves the party. Walt Jr. takes Jerilee to his house to meet his father, the aforementioned Walter Thornton, big time scriptwriter. Joe (Liotta) and his girlfriend (played by Glory Annen) join them. Right there in the fuckin’ backseat, Joe opens up his girl’s top and starts suckin’ on titties. Joe, already teasing Jerilee that her award looks like a golden dick, sets his eyes on fuckin’ with Jerilee and grabs her tits from the backseat. When he’s rebuffed by Walt Jr. and Jerilee, he decides to settle for a blowjob from his girlfriend. He’s trouble, and it isn’t his permanent cocaine eyes that are telling me that.

Walt Jr. shows Jerilee around while Joe and his girlfriend go swimming in the pool. To fuck around with this poor girl more, Joe decides to play a trick on her that involves him first grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her into the pool before chasing her through the yard. When he catches her, he tears open her dress to expose her breasts and tells her that he’s gonna do something that will make her nicer to him. Walt Jr. tries to help her but Joe knocks him down and out. And then Ray Liotta’s first role in film reaches its peak as he rapes Pia Zadora’s character. Not the normal way. Oh no. He uses a goddamn garden hose.

What’s kind of wild is that there’s little to no reason for Joe to be this way. Okay, sure, he’s stoned and drunk. We see him as being something of a bad boy at the party, but he didn’t seem like he would go from zero to raping Pia Zadora with a garden hose in about an hour. Like it’s a rough scene that comes almost out of nowhere. Again, is he a bad boy? Sure. Is he sexually charged? Yeah. Has he been portrayed as angrily sexually aggressive? Not really… until Jerilee got pulled into the pool and she got out and ran away from him.

Do you think Martin Scorsese was at the premiere of The Lonely Lady, saw that scene, and then said “Yeah, that’s my Henry Hill!”

This is one of those things that really tips you off that this is an adaptation of a book. Ever watch something and you think, “Gee, that really escalated really fast.” or “Gosh, that came almost out of nowhere.” You know, kind of like Ray Liotta raping a character with a garden hose in the first 12 minutes of a movie ostensibly about a lady writing movies and stuff? Anyway, that’s always a tell tale sign to me that what I’m watching has source material that is likely got a lot more background and forewarning that it is about to go that direction that happened out of the blue in the movie. Besides, we know her dorky little friend Bernie and I assume he is interested in her but we see him for two scenes and never again. I’m guessing there’s a lot about him in the book and maybe even have him be a representative of Jerilee’s innocence. Walt Jr. disappears quickly too. He’s not gone quite yet at this point in the movie, but it ain’t long afterwards that we never see him again.

ANYway… Dr. Carol Marcus tells the family physician who came over to check on Jerilee after she was returned home that she has major reservations about filing a charge of assault. The doctor is quite frustrated at this because Jerilee has cuts and bruises and she’s in pretty nasty shape. Oh yeah… she also had a garden hose stuck up her lady bits. That’s some pretty serious shit.

But Jerilee’s mother says that while she was assaulted, she was not “raped” by pure definition. The concern is that she can’t afford the lawyer to take on the kid of a Beverly Hills family. There is something to be said here. In fact, I’m sure that’s even something well plotted out and well covered in Robbins’ book. There is a hierarchy here that is not to be disturbed. The Beverly Hills folk can basically do what they want and their kids don’t really have to work as hard as the people outside that circle. They’re so insulated by money and power, there is no hope for the average person, let alone a seemingly single parent, can do to protect their daughters as it were.

I know the general plot points that follow along with this movie as it continues. There is something here to be said about certain structures around certain concepts. The protection of a Beverly Hills kid even when he does one of the more heinous crimes in society is one of those tales as old as time. As Jerilee continues trying to make it as a professional writer, she’s either blocked, or considered incapable of being taken seriously, or is seen as a foil of a much better, and more prestigious man. None of this is helped by Jerilee’s own mother is not exactly supportive of protecting her daughter or her success. This movie has the bones to be something interesting.

Walter Thornton comes to visit Jerilee as she convalesces after her attack. She left her award in his office and he brings it with him to return it. Jerilee is excited to talk to him as a sort of peer. She’s an aspiring writer. He’s a famous one. He gets some of the things she understands and vice versa. However, her mother keeps doting on her like she’s a child. Worse, she even seems to lay it on thick that she’s widowed.

However, it seems Jerilee wins the day as he suggests they get together so he can read some of her writing. Soon, they are friends. They are even jogging together. Then begin dining together. He compliments her writing. He compliments her as a person. They then begin kissing. Smash cut to Jerilee’s mother yelling about how he’s too old for her. In her frustration over Jerilee’s much older boyfriend, she even says she wishes Jerilee would stay in college and learn about something other than writing so she can do something more with her life. But Walter and Jerilee marry.

Buuut… Walter can’t perform in bed. Sure, he can stimulate her mind, but he’s not doing much for the body. Welcome to the real world, Jerilee! It sucks and is often disappointing!

They are still seemingly a happy couple.

More times pass and Jerilee is a published author getting pretty decent reviews and a spot on the Bestseller list. They go out to celebrate her first novel and the reviews, but they run into a lot of people who want to talk to Walter about his next screenplay that is heading into production. It’s her night and he’s getting all the attention. But I guess there’s some good news… They successfully have sex. They succsexfully.

She asks about getting into screenwriting. He suggests she come to the set with him and help out with rewrites and punch up work. She discovers that a scene in which the leading actress is struggling with is inadequate. It’s a bad scene with some pretty shitty dialog. She rewrote it and that pisses Walter off. It’s a bunch of hubbub around one single word: “Why?”

Yeah, this relationship is on the way to Shitsville over a single word. The scene concerns a burial. It was either underwritten or overly written by Walter. A woman is burying her child. Jerilee’s suggestion was to have the coffin put into the ground and the actress turn to the priest and shout “WHY?!?” as she tries to figure out why she’s having to lose everything and everyone she loved. They go with the rewrite but Walter takes credit for the line. The burial scene ends up making the movie and the moment that everyone talks about in reviews.

At a luncheon, everything falls apart for Jerilee and Walter in front of his agent and the producer of the film. They snipe at each other until eventually Walter walks out. She finds him at home by the pool… A pool, I might add, that still has the garden hose that made Ray Liotta a movie star. Speaking of that garden hose, Jerilee tries to apologize to Walter and say that they need to talk and really work some stuff out. He gets angry, accuses her of having eyes for a nightclub owner, Vincent Dacosta (played by Joseph Cali from Saturday Night Fever), and then picks up the garden hose and asks her if that’s more her kick when it comes to gratification.

This is a good reminder that all she did was put a single word into Walter’s screenplay and expected a little credit for it.

Anyway, apparently Walter and Jerilee are on the outs. She’s moved into an apartment. She’s visited by her director friend Guy. The whole time he’s there, we hear police sirens in the background. I’m guessing she’s working her way up from the bottom again. They go out to a party where she meets and ends up being taken home by actor George Ballantine. George is played by Jared Martin who was the lead in Aenigma.

They have sex, then shower together where she blows him. They start a torrid love affair. There’s a hiccup though… He’s married. But she keeps working on a script. She visits George, Walter’s agent. He says that he’ll read the script and represent her based on “where things go from here” (read: if she puts out). She rejects his advance and leaves. She continues to shop her screenplay looking for an agent but either runs into roadblocks because she’s not in the Writers Guild or simply because she’s a woman.

Soon, she’s not getting calls from agents or George. She discovers she’s pregnant with George’s baby. He tells her that there’s not much he can do about that. George is one of those really stand up guys. He likes pretty girls. He sleeps with pretty girls. But the moment he knocks up a pretty girl, he’s gonzo.

It’s like this movie features every single thing that can go wrong for a woman. She can’t get credit for doing a good thing because she’s a chick. She can’t get a job she might deserve because she’s a dame. She gets almost condescending, back-handed reviews for her books because she’s a girl. She has to get an abortion because she gave into her womanly desires. Ray Liotta is chasing her around with a garden hose… It’s a nightmare.

For Veronica’s birthday, Jerilee takes her out to lunch. She runs into Vincent Dacosta who tells her that if she brings her script to his club, he’ll see what he can get done to get the movie made. She takes him up on this. He explains to her that he’s having issues with raising money himself, but he has connections that might help her. She explains that she’s stuck in a catch-22. She can’t sell a screenplay because she has no agent. She can’t get an agent without selling screenplays.

This is yet another interesting element in this movie that doesn’t really scratch enough of the surface. There is a lot to say about how experience and getting a job (or in this case getting represented) can be so difficult. This is especially true when it comes to working in entertainment. If you aren’t lucky or accidentally discovered, it’s next to impossible to succeed as an actor or screenwriter. That’s why we hear so much about nepotism. It’s unfair for someone to be born into a role while there’s an untapped pool of talent that can’t get recognized without the special leg up. Those who aren’t related to someone or stand out with exceptional looks or just plain lucky have to either be the most patient and hard-working people on the planet, or they have to do some pretty cruddy, and downright gross, things.

So Jerilee has to do some cruddy and downright gross things to get ahead. Jerilee is broke. Vincent says he can broker a deal, but it may take six to twelve months to get it done. Kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place, and not wanting to pass up on the possible opportunity, Jerilee agrees to work for Vincent. Soon, she discovers that the girls that work for him are handed out to directors and producers as prostitutes with promises that they will get a break in the movies. She tries to stick up for the girls but Vincent kind of sweet talks her and they end up becoming romantically involved. They go out for a date at an ice cream parlor across the street from a fuckin’ awesome slate at the movie theater.

Fuck that ice cream! I wanna go to the movies!

Guy comes to the club to see Jerilee. With him is a friend… an agent – a female agent. She wants Jerilee to talk to her to get representation. Jerilee says that Vincent has things set up for her but Guy says that he’s not a good dude and is always claiming he has things set up but doesn’t ever make good on his promises. Vincent gets pissed off and threatens Jerilee by saying he saved her life and she is only allowed to write for him. And that’s when the scene cranks the melodrama up to 11.

Jerilee goes home and tries to write, but just gets drunk and sad. She calls Vincent to apologize and goes over to his place where they fuck. I think I’ve seen more Pia Zadora ass and tits this week than I have in the three weeks prior combined. Okay, well, not with Pajama Tops. That wasn’t going to have tits and ass, but goddamn she’s naked A LOT in this movie. I’m not all that upset, but it’s worth pointing out that if you want to see a lot of Pia, this is the movie for you.

While I was pondering how much nudity we see in this movie, Vincent tries to force hard drugs onto Jerilee as they party and fuck and party and fuck. Then, Vincent introduces Jerilee to a couple of Italians that he says are interested in her screenplay. He stays behind to work at the club and suggests Jerilee just “be nice” to them. However, they aren’t here to talk movies. The actress, Carla, just wants to have lesbian sex. I mean, sure, Carla says her script is beautiful, so I guess Jerilee is fine with a little bit of muff diving because Vincent says this is their last chance because Jerilee hasn’t made a name for herself.

Now, I have some question around this. Jerilee is at least a twice-published author who had several reviews written. She can’t get someone to take on a screenplay of hers? I don’t believe it. Novelists were jumping into movies all over the goddamn place in the 60s and 70s and into the 80s. It would make a lot more sense if Jerilee was being blocked or blacklisted by Walter. It would make a lot of sense. She didn’t start cranking out a script until after she split from him. Also, she’s good friends with an actual director – Guy. He can’t go to bat for her? The more you think about this plot, the harder it is to see it actually make sense that she would have this much trouble. It makes the movie, and likely the source material, a little more pulpy and trashy than it probably should be.

Anyway, yeah… Vincent whored Jerilee out to this couple. The guy, who supposedly couldn’t speak English, tells her to get lost and even mocks her when she asks about her script – in pretty good English. She storms back to Vincent’s club and finds him drunk and naked with the other girls at the club she works with. She demands her script back, he throws it at her and he and the other two girls laugh at Jerilee as she flees.

Jerilee goes home where she ends up having an emotional breakdown where she showers in her clothes, tears up the screenplay, and destroys her apartment. Everything she’s been through has finally pushed her over the edge. It’s like all Guy Jackson had to do as a Hollywood director was get her script in front of someone’s eyes. Oh well. Not his problem, I guess.

At the mental institution, Veronica is told by the doctor that Jerilee is acutely depressed and her condition was caused by a combination of various drugs and alcohol. Veronica just says she has always been difficult. You know what? I’m beginning to think Jerilee’s mother is something of a cunt.

Walter arrives to see Jerilee, but she’s more or less catatonic. She wouldn’t speak to her mother. She doesn’t speak to Walter until she just starts screaming in fear and agony. She tosses and turns at night and in the daytime, she just lies there staring at nothing. It’s not until Guy, you know, the director who could have helped her get her goddamn screenplay made into a movie at any point over the last several years, says something that no one else has in this movie – “I love you.” She comes out of it and Guy visits her more and more as she continues to get healthier and healthier.

Before she gets out of the hospital, she goes back to writing and starts to heal by writing her life story. Guy wants to put the script in front of his agent. I guess better late than never. Anyway, the agent suggests her script be packaged in a way the producer he has in mind can’t refuse it. So that means Guy is going to direct the film and it will star George Ballantine. Jerilee, still pretty raw from all the doggin’ they did before he tossed her to the fuckin’ curb like so much used underwear, refuses to work with the actor. The agent and Guy both say that basically she doesn’t have much of a choice to get into the business. She’s going to have to always rely on people who are just the worst so she better learn to get tough and forget about it and move on or she’ll never make it.

Are we sure this wasn’t written by Harvey Weinstein?

As a side note… the agent is played by the guy in GoldenEye who had the yacht and got squished to death between Xenia Onatopp’s thighs. Lucky man.

Anyway, she goes to meet with the producer of this movie who happens to be screwing the sister of the head of the studio. When the very busty sister of the studio head invites Jerilee into the pool with open arms, Jerilee has a little bit of PTSD from that one lady right before she lost her marbles. We then fade back to the sigh… “The Awards Presentation Ceremony”. Jerilee is nominated for the screenplay for The Hold-Outs along with pretty much everyone else who made the movie. She’s nominated against Walter Thornton too. I guess it makes it especially sweet that she ends up winning.

But I guess what makes this memorable, though, is the acceptance speech that includes the only line in this movie… in Pia Zadora’s career… that is truly remarkable.

So, yeah, Jerilee decided to go out in a blaze of glory. After basically saying that all her friends fucked her, even Guy and I’m pretty sure that’s not possible because Guy is VERY gay, she does not accept her award and walks out. What’s great about that moment that makes me just laugh and laugh is that she can’t just walk back stage and out the back of the auditorium like you probably can at the real Oscars. Instead, she has to walk across the stage, down the stairs in front of the stage, and up the aisle surrounded by people booing and jeering her. She walks through the lobby and out the door where the theme song blares and we’re just supposed to, I guess, believe she’s done with movies.

This movie sucks but for as much as I had my asides about the cruddiness of the movie, this is actually a fun bad movie. I knew it would be. It’s the kind of melodrama that is bad in how earnest it is. It takes itself EXTREMELY seriously while also being very stupid. Love it.

The Lonely Lady did get a chance to have its own awards but not the ones it might have thought it could get. Yeah, this was a Razzies superstar. It was nominated for 11 Razzies in 1984 and won six. Zadora won for Worst Actress, Sasdy won Worst Director, Worst Screenplay (in what might be the funniest of the wins considering this is all about getting a screenplay written and filmed), Worst Original Song (not the actual theme song but some other clunker), and Worst Score were five of them. You better believe the sixth was Worst Picture. It got nominated again for Worst Picture of the Decade in 1990 and again for Worst Drama in Our First 25 Years in 2005.

Does it really deserve all that? Yeah… Yeah, it does. I am often critical of the Razzies because they tend to pick on things that is either extremely unfair (see the little girl getting nominated for the Firestarter remake which thankfully got rescinded) or really dumb (see Mommie Dearest or Kubrick being nominated for Worst Director of The Shining). This one? Yeah, it’s a stinker. But at least it’s a fun stinker.

I already mentioned that Harold Robbins hated the movie. He especially felt that way after seeing a work print. While he didn’t have much negative to say about Zadora when cast, he had lots to say negative about her after seeing that work print by calling her “not an actress” who couldn’t carry a movie and that he felt the film was shit and nothing resembling what he wrote. Zadora herself admitted that she knew from moment one that the movie was crap too. She said that while Sasdy took it seriously, she never did. She found it to be campy and understood why people ended up liking it for being so bad it was funny. She actually wanted her husband to buy the whole damn thing out from the other producers and Universal and stash it away. She knew she already had a credibility problem and knew it would not help her.

She would be right. We only have one more film of hers to go this month and, as it turned out, it would also be the final film in her filmography that featured her as a character in a significant role. What we have, though, might be a fifth film that might just win this whole month over as being a somewhat fun experience after a really shitty start. Join me next week as I take a look at the sci-fi/musical/comedy Voyage of the Rock Aliens!

Until then… I’m gonna go fuck my way to the top and tell everyone about it at the annual blogging awards ceremony.