Drive-in movie director and TV grad Arthur Marks teamed up with a one-time big name screenwriter Robert Blees (some classics in the '50s) to produce A WOMAN FOR ALL MEN, an interesting case study in movie failure.
Before the advent of video I used to see a lot of unreleased (and unreleasable) movies: never acquired by a distributor; stuck in a lab due to non-payment of fees, or unfinished in some way. It was fun to analyze what went wrong -here is a similar case (typical of the video era where old films are resurrected rather indiscriminately) of a complete film that just isn't hitting on all cylinders.
Blees' overwritten script is the main problem -it has dubious plot twists, especially in the later reels, that would have been blue-penciled at an early stage by some staffer at a major studio. But this was produced by Blees with director Arthur Marks at the tail-end of the life of latter's home base General Film Corp., and emerges intact, warts and all.
I never liked the Marks films I saw in cinemas 40 years ago: specifically I went to every Pam Grier and Fred Wlliamson release, even amateurish ones like Fred's "Adios Amigo". Marks directed my two least favorite (out of dozens), both very disappointing when brand-new: Friday FOSTER (Pam's first "clean" and thereby pointless movie, lacking her requisite nudity); and BUCKTOWN, utterly old-fashioned and lame despite teaming the two greats. In both cases production value was substituted for gutsiness.
In this completely different movie he makes the same mistakes: no edge, no sleaze (the film seems made for TV with only minor cuts warranted) and a misguided quest for respectability. Casting is awful: on the DVD as bonus, Marks in an interview regrets not having a star, and it really shows, as attractive Judy Brown in the femme fatale leading role is miscast -she's an Eve Arden type (as styled here), not a leading lady. It would be like putting Eve Plumb or the great Amy Madigan in as a sex symbol -they're character actresses.
Similarly Andy Robinson, fresh off a career peak as Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY nemesis, is unappealing from the git-go, in a leading role where he's supposed to start off somewhat sympathetic before becoming the baddie. As his dad, Keenan Wynn is embarrassing, overplaying the already domineering (as written) role as the 100% mean patriarch so as to ruin the film early on - I missed him twirling his white mustache as Snidely Whiplash. Peter Hooten as Andy's brother is literally lost in the shuffle as Blees' script has way too many characters.
Marks is proud of his repetitious use of a grandfather clock - a hoary and cornball device that sticks out like a sore thumb in later reels -he lectures us in his interview on suspense but doesn't have a clue. The grade-Z resolution of the drama with twist ending is horrendous, as the script's (almost) only sympathetic character (I'm leaving out Wynn's daughter, whose role also gets lost) turns out to be a deranged murderer.
It's a case of handing in merely adequate (technically - in-focus, no bloopers) dailies, proper coverage, but forgetting to put some life into a picture, resulting in a dull, stillborn product that no reasonable sub-distributor or regional exchange would want to book back in the day. With the advent of VHS and now DVD (plus streaming soon to take over completely), any old artifact is deemed potentially interesting to viewers with low (or no) standards. That perhaps 95% of what is euphemistically put on a pedestal as new "independent" features is crap doesn't help matters.
Before the advent of video I used to see a lot of unreleased (and unreleasable) movies: never acquired by a distributor; stuck in a lab due to non-payment of fees, or unfinished in some way. It was fun to analyze what went wrong -here is a similar case (typical of the video era where old films are resurrected rather indiscriminately) of a complete film that just isn't hitting on all cylinders.
Blees' overwritten script is the main problem -it has dubious plot twists, especially in the later reels, that would have been blue-penciled at an early stage by some staffer at a major studio. But this was produced by Blees with director Arthur Marks at the tail-end of the life of latter's home base General Film Corp., and emerges intact, warts and all.
I never liked the Marks films I saw in cinemas 40 years ago: specifically I went to every Pam Grier and Fred Wlliamson release, even amateurish ones like Fred's "Adios Amigo". Marks directed my two least favorite (out of dozens), both very disappointing when brand-new: Friday FOSTER (Pam's first "clean" and thereby pointless movie, lacking her requisite nudity); and BUCKTOWN, utterly old-fashioned and lame despite teaming the two greats. In both cases production value was substituted for gutsiness.
In this completely different movie he makes the same mistakes: no edge, no sleaze (the film seems made for TV with only minor cuts warranted) and a misguided quest for respectability. Casting is awful: on the DVD as bonus, Marks in an interview regrets not having a star, and it really shows, as attractive Judy Brown in the femme fatale leading role is miscast -she's an Eve Arden type (as styled here), not a leading lady. It would be like putting Eve Plumb or the great Amy Madigan in as a sex symbol -they're character actresses.
Similarly Andy Robinson, fresh off a career peak as Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY nemesis, is unappealing from the git-go, in a leading role where he's supposed to start off somewhat sympathetic before becoming the baddie. As his dad, Keenan Wynn is embarrassing, overplaying the already domineering (as written) role as the 100% mean patriarch so as to ruin the film early on - I missed him twirling his white mustache as Snidely Whiplash. Peter Hooten as Andy's brother is literally lost in the shuffle as Blees' script has way too many characters.
Marks is proud of his repetitious use of a grandfather clock - a hoary and cornball device that sticks out like a sore thumb in later reels -he lectures us in his interview on suspense but doesn't have a clue. The grade-Z resolution of the drama with twist ending is horrendous, as the script's (almost) only sympathetic character (I'm leaving out Wynn's daughter, whose role also gets lost) turns out to be a deranged murderer.
It's a case of handing in merely adequate (technically - in-focus, no bloopers) dailies, proper coverage, but forgetting to put some life into a picture, resulting in a dull, stillborn product that no reasonable sub-distributor or regional exchange would want to book back in the day. With the advent of VHS and now DVD (plus streaming soon to take over completely), any old artifact is deemed potentially interesting to viewers with low (or no) standards. That perhaps 95% of what is euphemistically put on a pedestal as new "independent" features is crap doesn't help matters.