Did Stephen Boyd, who plays an opportunist so repellent he doesn't get one sympathetic line, and he's the lead? Did Tony Bennett, attempting a singer-who-can-also-act (and he can't) transition with dialog so ripe that he actually gets to utter "You lie down with pigs, you wake up smelling like garbage," or whatever the exact howler line is, twice? Did Joseph Cotten, who plays a Hollywood mogul not only uncharacteristically boring but also uncharacteristically sympathetic (the only other instances I know of this are Adolphe Menjou and Charles Bickford in their respective versions of "A Star is Born")? Did Eleanor Parker, as a middle-aged woman pathetically in love with a younger stud (Boyd wasn't actually much younger than she) who must impart terrible sarcastic-bitch lines, then sob into her pillow? Did Elke Sommer, whose character makes no sense whatever? Did Ernest Borgnine (well, glance at his filmography and it's evident he probably doesn't read scripts)? Did Edie Adams, got up as unattractively as possible and having to wiggle her ample behind right into the camera? Did Jill St. John, whose character is ruthlessly used by Boyd and still is too stupid and hysterical to elicit any sympathy? This pseudo-tell-all Hollywood melodrama wants to be "The Bad and the Beautiful" (which itself didn't aim too high) but is made with such breathless incompetence that it approaches Ed Wood levels. As such, it's great fun, with a Percy Faith score so lush and overemphatic that it sounds like self-parody.
