The Lonely Lady

Robin Williams has a line in The Fisher King about how you sometimes can find good things in the garbage. And you know me, I love my trash. Case in point, 1983's trashtastic The Lonely Lady.

Based on semi erotic author Harold Robbins novel, The Lonely Lady stars Pia Zadora, the queen of these kind of films, as Jerilee, an innocent schoolgirl who dreams of being a Hollywood screenwriter. She thinks her dreams might be coming true when the son of a famous Hollywood screenwriter invites her to a pool party. But her dreams turn into nightmares when one of the guests, Ray Liotta, rapes her with a garden hose. Yeah, it's weird and rough.

The dad, Harold Bochner, arrives home and saves her from further attacks. He becomes smitten with Jerilee and before long, the two are married. There love quickly fizzles when she rewrites one of his scripts. I'm not sure if it's an actual rewrite since she only adds one word. But the director thinks its brillaint.

The two divorce as quickly as they got married, which leads Jerrilee down a seamy path of sleeping her way to the top, well the middle anyway. Her destructive life leads to an abortion and a mental breakdown.

This has a made for tv quality about it, with the exception of a lot of sex and nudity. I actually like Pia Zadora. Sure she's a B actress, but she brings a likable charm to the smutty films she starred in. At the film's premiere, the film was greeted with a lot of booing and unintentional laughter. Pia, being the trooper that she is, held her head up high and still was willing to sign autographs after the screening. What a pro!

This is an awful movie, but I can't help enjoying a film that wears it's trashiness on its sleeve.

It's not available on dvd or blu ray.