The Love Machine (1971)

Jacqueline Susann's reputation rests upon three best-selling novels which were essentially trashy soap operas.  All three were filmed, with varying degrees of success.  While the movie version of Valley of the Dolls (1967) became a huge success, the adaptation her second novel, The Love Machine (1971) pretty much sank without trace, failing to find favour with either critics or audiences.  (The film version of her third novel wasn't released until after Susann's death - while Once is Not Enough (1975) was dismissed by critics, it still became a commercial success).  It was such a flop that its producer, Columbia, pretty much buried it for many years, with the film becoming very difficult to see.  I finally managed to catch up with it this past weekend and the reasons why it failed, whereas Valley of the Dolls became a success, quickly became apparent.  While Valley of the Dolls found ways to replicate its source novel's trashiness in cinematic terms, The Love Machine is simply too restrained.  Sure, there's plenty of sex, scandal and back stabbing in high places and provides the audience with a constant parade of semi-naked women, outrageous gay stereotypes, prostitutes and sex parties, it is presented far too tastefully, so that the sleaziness audiences expected from a Jacqueline Susann story never really takes flight.  At the root of these problems lies Samuel A Taylor's script, which pares down the novel's sub-plots to leave us with a fairly convention rags-to-riches-to-rags story, chronicling the rise of an attractive, but ruthless and unprincipled, leading character from local TV journalist to TV network chief and his inevitable fall from grace, as his hedonistic lifestyle overwhelms him.  

No cliche is left unturned in The Love Machine: we have the younger wife of the ageing network chief who uses her influence over him to have junior staff promoted so as to pursue affairs with them, the disgruntled executive feeling threatened by a younger rival, so tries to undermine them, the fragile, neurotic girl friend who can't accept her boyfriend's philandering, the jealous mistress, the outrageously camp photographer-cum-best friend, an even more stereotyped closet gay actor.  They're all there, yet seem to entirely materialise as fully developed characters.  Despite Taylor's paring down of the source novel, there still seems to be too many characters vying for limited screen time, to the extent that we never really get to know most of them.  Some significant characters from the novel have their parts reduced so much, as a result of their main sub-plots having been eliminated, that they seem little more than glorified walk-ons and the casual viewer is left wondering what purpose their presence is meant to serve.  Most of all, the central character of Robin Stone, local TV reporter promoted to Head of Network News and then acting network chief, is not only unsympathetic, but, worse than that, he simply doesn't come over as decadent enough.  We keep hearing from others about hos decadent, ex-fueled lifestyle, but ultimately he does little on screen to justify his nick name of 'The Love Machine'.  Sure, we see him in various states of undress with various beautiful women, he even has a three-in-the-shower tryst with the Collinson twins, but it is all presented in such a tasteful and chaste fashion.  We see no evidence of his sexual prowess or his implied sexual vices.  When his mistress, the network chief's young wife, becomes jealous enough of his sexploits that she sets fire to his bed while he's in the shower with the twins (although they don't seem to do anything other than, well, shower), we're left mystified as to exactly what she's so jealous about.

The film also falls down in its failure to properly exploit its milieu - seventies network TV, a potentially fascinating backdrop in itself.  But its portrayal of the behind-the-scenes machinations of a network is, at best, sketchy, giving little insight into the entire business of sponsors, scheduling and production beyond the most broadly drawn inter-departmental rivalries.  The film's utter contempt for the TV industry is obvious throughout - it is reminiscent of those early fifties movies which would decry their deadly rival for audience attention as being cheap, shallow and derivative.  But by the time The Love Machine was made, the battle had been lost, with the film's vituperative attitude to the medium perhaps reflecting the bitterness of cinema's defeat at the hands of TV in the battle for audiences.  Yet the criticisms aren't entirely unfounded and resonate to this day.  As Stone himself notes, most of what is broadcast on network TV is lowest-common-denominator crap, designed solely to appeal to the widest possible audience in order to sell advertising and attract sponsors.  (The same, of course, is equally true of cinema, where the majority of films produced are similarly mass-market would be audience pleasers).  He even dubs the television set itself 'The Love Machine' (thereby giving the film's title a double meaning), in that it invites viewers to love not just the celebrities it brings into their homes, but also the products that they advertise.  Again, nothing really changes.  Interestingly, one aspect of the film that might, at first glance, seem dated is, in reality, still pertinent today.  Stone's downfall is precipitated by unfounded allegations that he's gay, due mainly to his friendship with a gay fashion photographer, who harbours an unrequited love for him, something we'd like to think wouldn't happen nowadays.  Yet TV personalities continue to be tarred with this brush, with implications of same sex relationships touted in the press with the implication that they might, somehow, be 'inappropriate'.  Even without substance, they can still do irreparable damage to a career.  Nothing changes, it seems.

Despite its inadequacies in scripting and characterisations, The Love Machine is still a very smooth and slickly produced film, presenting a sharply filmed slice of seventies jet set life amongst the beautiful people.  The trappings of success are everywhere - characters live in opulent New York apartments or Los Angles mansions, wear designer clothes and expensive jewellery and are seen in all the most upmarket venues.  Success is measured purely in materialistic terms: not just how many 'things' you owned, but also how many people, be they women or subordinates and rivals whose fate your position of power could influence.  By accident or design, though, the film manages to transmit the ultimate emptiness of this existence.  Everyone is scrabbling to accumulate power, but to what end?  To control a TV network putting out crap?  The material evidence of their success is simply an attempt to mask the essential emptiness and pointlessness of their existences.  Unfortunately, the script's excising of large parts of the source novel means that we get no insight into what it is these people, particularly Stone, are using these trappings of success to substitute for.  We get hints, but these are never followed up.  Most crucially, Stone's sudden outbursts of violence against women are never explained.  His photographer friend suggests he sees a psychoanalyst, but this thread is then dropped, unlike in the novel where psychoanalysis eventually reveals the source of his behaviours.

Being a big budget studio production, The Love Machine musters a decent enough cast, who do their best against an unyielding adaptation.  John Philip Law taking the lead as Robin Stone, brings the sort of bland handsomeness you's expect of a seventies TV reporter turned executive.  Never a great actor - although possessed of considerable screen presence and charisma - Law's limited range are to his advantage in the role, putting Stone over as just the sort of superficial, self-regarding, chancer who you'd expect to succeed in the world of network TV, displaying so little character that he succeeds in being all things to all men (and women).  His surface charm carries him through most situations and human interactions, but disguises his essential emptiness and lack of empathy.  Law wasn't the first choice for role, though, coming into the film at very short notice after original star Brian Kelly was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident.  (So short notice that he had to wear much of Kelly's wardrobe, despite being significantly taller than his predecessor, with the result that his designer suits often look ill-fitting).  Dyan Cannon does what she can in an entirely stereotypical role as the network chief's wife, while Robert Ryan lends his considerable presence to the role of her husband, but is clearly only there for the cheque.  The most notable performance in the film comes from David Hemmings as Jerry, the gay photographer.  Hemmings had clearly decided not to take the the film remotely seriously and delivers a performance of outrageous camp, complete with a bizarrely coiffured beard.  His scenes are universally hilarious and a highlight of the film.

As mentioned, The Love Machine is a very good-looking film, presenting a vivid picture of early seventies New York and boasting a catchy theme song performed by Dionne Warwick.  But the presentation is just too classy for the subject matter.  It is one of only two feature films directed by Jack Haley Jr, who was better known for his entertainment industry documentaries and compilation pictures like That's Entertainment!.  His direction ultimately fails to engage with the fundamental trashiness of its source, leaving the film feeling insubstantial and superficial.  One can't help but feel that a better choice of director might have been Russ Meyer, whose parody of Susann's first novel, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) - which had actually originated as Twentieth Century Fox's attempt at a direct sequel to their adaptation of that novel, but became a parody when Susann wouldn't give approval for an actual sequel.  Certainly, his film better encompasses the trashy sleaziness and underlying absurdity of Susann's work than Haley's The Love Machine managed.  While a Russ Meyer version must remain an unrealised dream, the existing adaptation of The Love Machine isn't entirely without merit, not only is it well produced and captures its era well, but it is also, in its shallow way, pretty entertaining.  It just isn't as gloriously and unashamedly trashy as you'd expect from a Jacqueline Susann adaptation.