MOVIE OF THE DAY: "AT LONG LAST LOVE" (1975)

 Legendary as the movie that derailed the career of its director, At Long Last Love was
Peter Bogdanovich's tribute to the 1930s screwball comedies/musicals he loved so much, with a cast that promised great things. Burt Reynolds was the hottest leading man of 1975, possessing the rare talent of being fully aware of his good looks and charm with a dash of self-depreciation. 

And having made a splash in The Last Picture Show, Bogdanovich's girlfriend Cybill Sheperd was making her mark as the Next Big Thing. With those stars, along with 16 Cole Porter songs, and the then-astronomical budget of $6,000,000, At Long Last Love was the most ambitious, anticipated movie of 1975.

Until people saw it.

You'd be so easy to loathe...

While I missed it upon its original release, I had long been suspicious of the bad reviews accorded the movie. Plenty of people had gotten sick of Bogdanovich and Sheperd shoving their success, youth, good looks, and wealth in their face at every turn. Surely, that could have unfairly colored views of what was nothing more than a wacky musical. 

Of course, no one in the cast other than Madeline Kahn had any musical experience -- quite the challenge when Bogdanovich decided they would sing live rather than lip-synch, and dance in long takes whenever possible without any edits. But that kind of artistic danger could be charming and ultimately successful, as James Stewart proved in 1937 opposite Eleanor Powell in Born to Dance.

The cast knows how the audience feels.

Art deco design, 1930s setting, Cole Porter songs, a daring director -- I should have been a 14-karat sucker for a movie like this. So you must believe me when, having now seen it, I concede to the critics of five decades ago that At Long Last Love is terrible beyond belief, a movie that the word "fiasco" would have been created for if it didn't already exist, and a warning to male directors not to use any body part other than their brains when it comes to casting leading ladies.

At Long Last Love's plot is negligible: two oh-so sophisticated couples switch partners before coming to their senses. Plenty of actors could pull off this kind of thing off -- in the 1930s, that is. You can figure out Bogdanovich's thinking regarding the 1970s' versions: Burt Reynolds = William Powell, Cybill Sheperd = Jean Harlow, Madeline Kahn = Ginger Rogers, Duilio Del Prete = Ralph Bellamy (with an indecipherable Italian accent), Eileen Brennan = Una Merkel, John Hillerman = Franklin Pangborn. 

I'm glad somebody's having fun.

And as with the '30s comedies, it's the character actors -- Brennan and Hillerman -- who steal every scene they're in. As with their '30s counterparts, they didn't have to be great singers or dancers. Just set them loose for a few minutes before getting back to the story. Outside of Madeline Kahn, they're the best things in the picture. 

Madeline Kahn realizes how stupid her co-stars
look.

Too bad that makes everybody  else the worst things. Not that it's entirely their fault. Bogdanovich has not only given them substandard material, his insistence on shooting every scene in very long takes is reminiscent of the static look of early talkies. (At least the camera moves around.)

As for the dancing...  well, while real dancers like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made it look effortless, Reynolds, Sheperd, and Del Prete appear to have practiced really, really hard. But even as they succeed in not tripping over their feet, the rest of their bodies are distractingly clumsy. Musicals are where songs make the scenes soar; here they stop At Long Last Love dead in its art deco tracks. (Which reminds me -- why shoot a movie in color when all the clothes and sets are black and white?)

Cybill hides her face in shame.

Cybill Sheperd got the worst of the brickbats, and for good reason. As an actor, she seems drugged. As a singer, she doesn't have the good sense to talk her way through the songs as Reynolds often does. As a dancer, she's as graceful as a rhino who's been shot with tranquilizer darts. Sheperd is the Madonna of her day -- a celebrity whose greatest talent was a sexual skill blinding movie directors to the sorry fact that she has the screen presence of a galosh and the acting skills of Robby the Robot, only with less human emotion. 

I wouldn't brag about it.

It took me three days to sit through At Long Last Love. While I understand the theory that critics hated it because Bogdanovich was a former movie critic himself (jealousy being a real thing in show biz), it doesn't hold water here. No matter how well-intentioned or what the director's previous profession, At Long Last Love is awe-inspiring in its dreadfulness, astounding its ineptitude -- a $6,000,000, two-hour Technicolor home movie that exists only because the director was schtupping the female lead. 

And the punchline? Third-billed Madeline Kahn is pettier, sexier and more talented than her! 

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