Once Is Not Enough ** (1975, Kirk Douglas, Alexis Smith, David Janssen, George Hamilton, Melina Mercouri, Gary Conway, Brenda Vaccaro, Deborah Raffin) – Classic Movie Review 8710

Director Guy Green’s campy 1975 Once Is Not Enough is a bad enough adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s gossipy, sexy novel, in which struggling old Hollywood mogul Mike Wayne (Kirk Douglas) weds rich Deidre Granger (Alexis Smith) to solve his cash crisis.

But Deidre carries on with Karla (Melina Mercouri), while Wayne (Douglas)’s too-loving daughter, innocent January (Deborah Raffin), dallies with both aging playboy David Milford (George Hamilton), her new stepmother’s playboy cousin, and alcoholic Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tom Colt (David Janssen), a surrogate father figure.

Meanwhile Brenda Vaccaro has the best of what’s going (and earned an Oscar nomination as Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and won a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture) as a bitchy man-eating magazine editor, Linda Riggs.

The screenplay is by Julius J Epstein, based on Jacqueline Susann’s novel.

The movie hits the target. It is cheap, kitsch, trashy and blatantly showy. Is it cool trash or just a rotten tomato? The actors are all worthy of much classier work, though the movie is quite decently crafted by director Green and his talented crew. There are plenty of laughs to enjoy at its expense, but once is quite enough for this foolish farrago, thank you very much.

It is a shame about Kirk Douglas’s hair-style, but then it is 1975.

Also in the cast are Gary Conway, Lillian Randolph, Renata Vanni, Mark Roberts, John Roper, Leonard Sachs, Jim Boles, Ann Marie Moelders, Trudy Marshall and Eddie Garrett.

It is the third and final cinema movie adaptation of Jacqueline Susann novels, following Valley of the Dolls (1967) and The Love Machine (1971).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8710

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