Soap Gets In Your Ears: Part I

Showgirls and Wild Things notwithstanding, Hollywood has been really slacking off in its delivery of lurid, overwrought soap opera trash on the big screen for the past decade. Just take a look back the '60s and '70s, which were filled with glossy, howlingly trashy adaptations of books by writers like Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, and that tragic queen to rule over them all, Jacqueline Susann. She'll always be remembered for that catfighting classic, Valley of the Dolls, but the screen was also blessed with other Susann stories as well -- namely 1975's Once Is Not Enough and 1971's sadly neglected The Love Machine. Diabolik himself, John Phillip Law, stars as the titular "love machine," a local TV news anchor (they were once considered celebrities, believe it or not) who decides to sleep his way to the top and winds up tangling pyromaniac exec spouse Dyan Cannon and outrageously "flamboyant" photographer David Hemmings. Sony's really overdue with a DVD of this one. Composing duties here are handled by first-timer Artie Butler, a songwriter who went on to score The Harrad Experiment and The Rescuers. His work here has a surprisingly groovy edge, especially the two-part "House Party" cues, but most folks remember this for the two songs by Dionne Warwick (or "Warwicke" according to the album cover), "He's Moving On" and "Amanda."