#the legend of lylah clare 1968

[schlock-luster-video]

Happy birthday film icon Kim Novak! Here's some art inspired by Vertigo and The Legend of Lylah Clare to celebrate!

[forever70s]

Kim Novak in "The Legend of Lylah Clare" (1968)

[hellyeahgeorgekennedy]

Kim Novak and George Kennedy in The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)

[bitter69uk]

Recently watched: made-for-TV movie Death at Love House, originally broadcast on ABC 3 September 1976. Joel and Donna Gregory (Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson) are a husband-and-wife writing duo collaborating on a biography of the doomed Hollywood star Lorna Love, who died tragically young in 1935. (Coincidentally, Joel’s artist father had an impassioned affair with Lorna and painted a portrait of her). And for reasons never fully explained, the couple move into Love’s totally intact Hollywood mansion to research their book (Love House was shot on location at the former estate of silent movie star Harold Lloyd). Creepily, Lorna’s perfectly preserved, eternally youthful corpse is on permanent display – Snow White-style - in a shrine on the premises. Strange occurrences immediately start happening. Who is the ethereal “woman-in-white” Donna glimpses in the garden? Why are there macabre occult symbols everywhere? Who was Father Eternal Fire, Lorna’s satanic looking “spiritual advisor”? Obviously, almost anything produced by Aaron Spelling is bound to be campy fun. With its emphasis on occultism and lurid showbiz tragedies (Lorna is clearly inspired by Jean Harlow), Love House suggests a page torn from Kenneth Anger’s Hollywood Babylon. It will also remind you of other, superior movies: Sunset Boulevard (1950), The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968), Fedora (1978). And like 1944 film noir Laura, characters spend a lot of time staring, mesmerized, by an oil painting of a dead woman. For verisimilitude, supporting parts are played by actual classic Hollywood veterans like Sylvia Sidney, Joan Blondell, Dorothy Lamour and John Carradine. (The Gregorys’ literary agent is played by Bill Macy - Walter from Maude!). Less happily, zero effort is taken to make Lorna 1930s “period appropriate”. (She’s seen in flashbacks portrayed by Marianna Hill - cult movie fans will recognize her from The Baby and Messiah of Evil – with a feathered blow-dried 70s coiffure). And the ending is worthy of an old episode of Scooby-Doo! Smudged, murky prints of Love House are easy to find on YouTube.

[beautiesonthescreen3]

' The Lavender Blonde ' Kim Novak,

photographed by Richard Avedon for

' The Legend of Lylah Clare ' ( 1968 ) .

[lobbycards]

The Legend of Lylah Clare, Italian lobby card (fotobusta), 1968

[oldshowbiz]

Robert Aldrich's Hollywood Boulevard as seen in The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968)

[annoyinglyperfectartisan]

The Legend of Lylah Clare, 1968

[flapperdame16]

1960s Movies Id on't care for

1960

Home from the Hill             Robert mitchum, Eleanor Parker

Inherit the wind                    Spencer Tracy

Midnight Lace                      Doris Day, Rex Harrison

Let’s make love                   Marilyn Monroe,

Ocean’s 11                            the rat pack

The Grass is Greener     Cary Grant, Robert Mitchum, Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons D: Stanley Donen

The Unforgiven               Audrey Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, John Saxon D: John Huston

1961

The Children’s Hour           Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner D: William Wyler

The Deadly Companions   Maureen o’hara brian keith

1962

The Lion                                William Holden, Capucine

Mr. Hobbs takes a vacation   James Stewart, Maureen O’Hara

Boys’ night out                                    Kim Novak, Tony Randall, James Garner

1963

Irma la Douce                      Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine D: Billy Wilder

Spencer’s Mountain            Henry Fonda, Maureen O’Hara

The VIPS                               Maggie smith, Richard burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Rod Taylor, Orson welles

Toys in the attic                   Dean Martin, Gene Tierney, Geraldine Page

1964

A Hard day’s night (CC)                    beatles

Father Goose                                        Cary Grant, Leslie Caron

My fair lady                                         Audrey Hepburn, rex Harrison

Night of the iguana                             Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, Deborah Kerr

The Americanization of Emily         James Garner, Julie Andrews

1965

The Great Race*                                 Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon

The Rounders                       Henry Fonda, Glen Ford

The Art of Love                   Dick Van Dyke, James Garner, Angie Dickenson

36 hours                                                Eva Marie Saint, James Garner, Rod Taylor

The nanny                            bette davis

1966

7 Women                              Anne Bancroft JOHN FORD

A man for all seasons        

Any Wednesday                 Jane Fonda, Jason Robards, Dean Jones

Arabesque                             Gregory peck, Sophia Loren

Blow up (CC)

Penelope                                Natalie Wood

The Chase                             Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Marlon Brando

Torn Curtain                         Julie Andrews, Paul Newman HITCHCOCK

The sand pebbles                 steve mcqueen

1967

Thoroughly Modern Millie                 Julie Andrews, Carol Channing, Mary Tyler Moore

Guess who’s coming to dinner          Katharine Hepburn spencer Tracy

The graduate. Katharine ross, Dustin Hoffman, anne Bancroft

1968

Madigan                                                Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark

The lion in winter                 Katharine Hepburn, Peter O’Toole

The Thomas crown affair  Faye Dunaway, Steve McQueen

Bullit                                                      Steve McQueen

The legend of Lylah Clare                 Kim Novak,

Romeo and Juliet (CC)

Bandolero!                                            James Stewart, Dean Martin, Raquel Welsh

1969

The wild bunch                    William Holden, Ernest Borgnine

The prime of miss jean Brodie          Maggie smith Robert stephens

[schlock-luster-video]

On August 21, 1968, The Legend of Lylah Clare premiered in Hollywood, California.

[sala66]

La leyenda de Lylah Clare (The Legend of Lylah Clare), de Robert Aldrich, 1968

[hollywoodhandwriting]

From The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) (TCMdb)

[cinemotions]

animated Kim Novak in The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968) dir. by Robert Aldrich gets an intimate kiss from Gabriele Tinti

A shy actress (Kim Novak) named Elsa is recruited by a reclusive and dictatorial director, Lewis Zarkin (Peter Finch) to play the lead role in a biopic about his ex-wife, Bavarian movie star “Lylah Clare”, who died mysteriously some 20 years earlier. Soon Elsa begins acting more and more like Lylah, even imitating her deep, gravelly voice — but is she doomed to repeat Lylah’s fate? 

Gabriele Tinti, Kim Novak and Peter Finch

“She was the most remarkable woman I’ve ever known. So what do you do? You spend the rest of your life trying to find her again.”

[recycledmoviecostumes]

This spectacular red gown was designed by Adrian for Joan Crawford in the 1938 film The Bride Wore Red. The gown, which supposedly weighs around 30 pounds due to the weight of all the beads. It is still in existence and in extremely good condition considering its age.

The movie The Bride Wore Red was in black and white and the full beauty of the color of the dress was not able to be fully appreciated until later. The dress made its second appearance in The Big Store in 1941 in a fashion show scene, where it was worn by an extra. Though this film is also in black and white, Groucho Marx does explain "This is a bright red dress" because "Technicolor is sooo expensive!"  In 1943 gown appeared in Du Barry Was A Lady, sans the cape on Inez Cooper as Miss December. This time the dress is seen in color. The gown appears to have been worn by Angela Lansbury for a promotional photo shoot around 1945, and the 1968 film used the dress for promotional imagery for The Legend of Lylah Clare, with Kim Novak as Lylah Clare. 

Costume Credit: Michael, Norman, Tom

E-mail Submissions: submissions@recycledmoviecostumes.com

Follow: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram

[lobbycards]

The Legend of Lylah Clare, Italian lobby card (fotobusta), 1968

[gnirrednow]

robert aldrich, the legend of lylah claire