LONELY LADY

US, 1983, 92 minutes, Colour.
Pia Zadora, Lloyd Bochner, Bibi Besch, Ray Liotta.
Directed by Peter Sasdy.

Lonely Lady is a version is a Harold Robbins novel. Robbins has the reputation for writing big, glossy, affluent, sleazy bestsellers and this film in no way detracts from his reputation.

Directed by Peter Sasdy, director of a number of English horror films in the '70s, the film is an example of B budget glossy trash. It was intended as a vehicle for Pia Zadora, who made her debut in the James M. Cain story (with a star cast in attendance), Butterfly. In this film she has a rather less-known cast - straight from the Beautiful People of TV soap operas.

The story is absurd (reminiscent of the '60s potboiler The Oscar). Pia Zadora portrays a young writer with loft ambitions who is sexually abused, marries her Hollywood writer mentor who is impotent, reacts promiscuously against him, gets involved in all kinds of deals and Hollywood low jinks. In a final attempt at self-assertion, she writes an Oscar-winning screenplay, receives the award and makes a four-lettered speech abusing the Academy and walks out, presumably to integrity. The film is so trashy that it could end up as being a celebratedly enjoyable example of its bad kind.