The greatest movie ever made..!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Load of rubbish!!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

***SPOILERS*** Paddy Chayefsky's thinly disguised biography of Hollywood sex symbol Marilyn Monroe and what fame did to her and those close to her. Kim Stanly plays the part of Emily Ann Faulkner a local girl, from rural Maryland, who made it big in tinsel town and in the end paid for it. Working her way up in mostly non speaking parts in mostly B-movies Emily got her big brake after she married former light heavyweight champion of the world Dutch Seynour, Llyod Bridges, who in fact saw more of Emily Ann then anyone in the movie. This was after a failed marriage with son of major movie star John Towers, Steven Hill, whom she had a daughter with and who deserted them both to go overseas to fight fascism in Nazi occupied Europe wishing that he'll never come back alive. It's much later that a sober and reformed Towers does come back to Emily Ann together with the couples 14 year old daughter, Gial Haworth, but by then Emily Ann is so out of it she's in no condition to see her.The film mirrors Marilyn Monroe's career in Hollywood where she became the biggest star in films but paid dearly in the lifestyle she lead off the screen that in the end, that's 4 years after the movie was released, ended up losing her life at the young age of 36. It's the death of Emily Ann's bible thumping mom Laureen, Betty Lou Holland, that really pushed her over the edge. We see Emily Ann slowly self destructs and become addicted to pills and booze to the point where the only thing left in life to her is the movies that she stars in that make money for the studios. We get to see Emily Ann go from a beautiful and talented actress to a bed ridden pill popping wino in less then ten years, 1947-1957, not at all caring what will happen to her in the future.***SPOILERS*** It's a true story in many ways of how fame can destroy the person who has it and Kim Stanley does an amazing job of acting to make that point on the screen. We've seen so many similar cases in and out of Hollywood of people who seem to have the world in their hands and at their feet and then end up dead or institutionalized because of the pressure it, fame, demands of them which they can't handle.

*Marty,* *Network,* and... *The Goddess*? I was looking forward to viewing this film by Paddy Chayevsky, who I admire, and whose script was nominated for an academy award. But it plays like an adaptation of a much richer novel, or perhaps a stage play. On the plus side: Chayevsky assumes that the viewer has a certain level of intelligence, a courtesy not always offered by Hollywood. Characters deliver long, well-written speeches, trusting the viewer both to pay attention and to draw more inferences than than most modern *or* classic films allow. That said, the story feels undeveloped,as if Chayevsky was asking us to his work for him. An important character undergoes a religious conversion without explanation. Marriages end off-scene. The film moves forward choppily, superimposing the year ("1930," "1942") on screen to ground us -- but not very successfully. The camera is on Stanley for almost the entire film and very few performers can sustain our interest for that long -- at least not without a very strong script. To end on another positive note: a studio exec acknowledges that Stanley's character isn't very pretty, but that she has warmth and sensuality with which to engage her audience. The same might be said of Bette Davis or even (gasp) Meryl Streep. I appreciated that bit of honesty.

I'm a sucker for great, enormous performances. This is the ultimate expression of that. Kim Stanley was 40 years old when she made this picture, her first. Apparently Paddy Chaeffsky, John Cromwell and a group of brilliant actors decided to put their efforts together and create this vehicle for one of the greatest actresses that ever lived. I. for one, will always be grateful to them for their generous and visionary gesture. The film cost, 5.000$ but it's worth a fortune as the surviving (immortal) document of an unrepeatable personality capable and willing to drown into another. Although Marilyn Monroe was not only alive but at the top of her game at the time. This devastatingly sad story seems to reflect Marilyn's own. Kim Stanley is glorious, glorious! If you're interested in acting as art. You can't miss this extraordinary movie.

Kim Stanley was the great interpreter of William Inge at the time he was the most successful playwright in America. On Broadway she played Millie, the younger sister, in his "Picnic" and Cheri in "Bus Stop" -- ironically, the role played in the movie by Monroe, the model for "The Goddess." Cast in "The Goddess", Stanley is clearly too old for the part, and not cinematically 'beautiful' enough. What she does bring to the role is an astonishing talent based on flawless technique and an emotional sensitivity that both made her career and destroyed it. I ran across the movie by accident when I was about 12 years old, and Stanley's performance has continued to haunt me for 36 years. The making of "The Goddess" was so emotionally agonizing that Stanley essentially fled from the movie business. How brilliant she would have been in dozens of roles that won acclaim for lesser talents. Many years later she played Jessica Lange's mother in "Frances" -- a similar story of a glamourous and tragic film star. She told Lange, "As soon as this movie's over, do a comedy. Immediately. Any comedy you can get your hands on." That comedy was "Tootsie" which won Lange her first Osacr.