Tom Lisanti

Saw The Love Machine based on novel by Jacqueline Susann on the big screen recently. Trashy tale of handsome vile local newscaster with model thin good looks Robin Stone played by stiff John Philip Law from Barbarella fame filling in at the last minute for Brian Kelly the dad from Flipper injured in a motorcycle accident. Robin has his own Dionne Warwick theme song “Movin’ On” played throughout the movie as he rises to national newscaster, head of news division and finally network head.

For me the unappealing Dyan Cannon (in looks and acting) is the network president’s bored trashy wife who has the hots for Robin and the over wrought Jodi Wexler is the model who falls in love with Robin after a one night stand where he slaps her around. When he rejects her she takes the blue pills. It is that kind of movie. Thank goodness for the overtop hairstyles and fashions and the supporting cast: David Hemmings hams it up as a flamboyantly gay photographer (I lost count how many times they call him a “fag”); Maureen Arthur as slutty gold digging secretary who lands abrasive comic Shecky Greene; and lovely Alexandra Hay in too brief a role as one of Robin’s many bed partners.

Not nearly as campy fun as Valley of the Dolls due to stilted dialog and clumsily edited. Movie seems it was cut with a meat cleaver and sure director Jack Haley, Jr. must have delivered a longer more coherent cut.