maybe some other time
I could only stand to watch the first 30 minutes or so. Apart from its intellectual gifts, all I could say to myself about this was "pretentious schlock." Or, better still, "pretentious, annoying schlock." How many over-acted reaction shots did we actually need of each of the various dirty old men lusting after Tuesday Weld's character (including her character's daddy)? That's what sank the movie for me. Subtle it's not. I suppose if I were in the mood for wretched excess I could have sat through the whole thing. Pity, both Weld and Roddy McDowall threw a lot of craft at it. It looked like they were having fun, too. I may revise my rating upward if I can actually sit through the whole thing in the future. Then again...Someone said something about it being remade. Oh, please, don't. It's definitely of its period: at the point when the general popular imagination regarding the sexual mores of teenagers in the U.S. was on the cusp of going from Eisenhower-era prudishness to the Summer of Love. I suppose that in 2008 it works as a museum piece, but certainly not as a satirical window on present-day sexual hypocrisy. I think you could get more of that kind of mileage doing something about Henry VIII as serial polygamist and archetypal trophy wife killer.
score 5/10
screaminmimi 27 July 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1919409/34984
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