The Female Animal

1958
Approved
1h 24m

IMDb RATING

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Hedy Lamarr, Jane Powell, and George Nader in The Female Animal (1958)

An aging film star and her alcoholic daughter compete for a handsome extra.An aging film star and her alcoholic daughter compete for a handsome extra.An aging film star and her alcoholic daughter compete for a handsome extra.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.1/10

651

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos7

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
Final film of Hedy Lamarr although she would live until 2000.

Goofs
Chris Farley (George Nader) suffers a nasty cut on his right arm after saving Vanessa Windsor (Hedy Lamarr) from a falling light. Shortly afterwards on their first date, while having a moonlight swim, the cut is nowhere to be seen. Then days later Vanessa visits Chris at his bungalow court apartment and he has a very visible bandage and tape covering the cut on his arm.

Quotes
Lily Frayne: [Lily Frayne and her date, Pepe, are at the restaurant bar; Pepe looks troubled as he examines a bracelet on his wrist] I don't know why you're objecting to that slave bracelet. I buy one for all my friends. I used to wear two or three of them myself around my ankle in the old days. Everybody wears them.
Pepe, Lily's Gigolo: Mon cher, please, I'm bored hearing about "The Stone Age."
Lily Frayne: [shakes her diamond-covered hand at Pepe] That's where these rocks came from, lover, and don't forget it.
[turns to Bartender]
Lily Frayne: Darling, give Lily a shot for her bronchitis.
Bartender: Of course, Miss Frayne.
Lily Frayne: It's the sea air. I don't know why I live here.
Bartender: I thought you liked the beach.
Lily Frayne: Oh, I do, darling, I do.
[glances at Pepe]
Lily Frayne: But it's so boring. Nothing to do night or day but go to bed.
Bartender: Why don't you make another picture, Miss Frayne? I thought you were great in "Salammbô."
Lily Frayne: Lubitsch did, too, darling. Lubitsch did, too. We were giants in those days. Now you could put the whole bunch under a card table and nobody'd muss a hair.
[glances at Pepe]
Lily Frayne: Did you ever see me in "Salammbô," darling?
Pepe, Lily's Gigolo: Sorry, I wasn't born then.
Lily Frayne: [angry] Well, I was only eleven myself! They called me "Little Lily Frayne." I was the first child star ever to be chased around a desk.

Connections
Referenced in The Hollywood Miss Sapientia: Hedy Lamarr, Actress-Inventor (2012)

User reviews32

Review

Featured review

7/10

Badly cast

This was not cast well at all. Hedy Lamarr was 44 and still ravishingly beautiful; her daughter is played by 29-year-old Jane Powell who does NOT look like a teenager with her bleached blonde hair and worldly air. George Nader at age 37 looks totally appropriate for Hedy! He does not look like a "boy toy" as the role calls for. He looks mature, weathered, tan, sort of like a Marlboro Man.

Since Jane's character is supposed to be a teenager, he is way too old for her! He looks like a teenager's dad!! The script is meant to make us think the boy toy character is more appropriate as a teenager's love interest, but the casting is wrong.

Hedy does what she can with the script and always seems warm and loving. Jane's character does not have any charm. It's hard to see why the male lead would be torn between the two.

Poor George Nader is also very wooden. When his agent says "You can't act yourself out of a paper bag" it's easy to believe, but we should believe the MAN in this role even if we couldn't believe him as an ACTOR. His face and voice are without variety. The role must have been cast by just asking actors to take their shirts off.