Eyes of Laura Mars on TCM tonight.

It's a great bad movie. With one of the best not-nominated for an Oscar Best Songs ever!

Darlanne Fluegel, the actress who plays Lulu (or Michelle) (whatever!), deserved a bigger career. She's also good playing Robert De Niro's mistress in ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA.

She died in January [bold]: (

that's terrible r3. Wikipedia says she got early onset Alzheimer's disease at 56 and then died at 64.

I've never been wrong...but you're the only one I trust to...show me the waaaaaayyyy...

Thank you, Op!

I've set my DVR; and I cannot wait to watch the studio scene with the models dancing/primpingto Michael Zager's "Let's All Chant"!

and Coma is on after it!!!!!!

They are putting people into coooomAAAAAS.

Faye's leg sticking out through her skirt as she shoots the photos deserved a special Oscar.

(and Streisand's song is really eerie and cool.)

[Answering Machine]: "This is LuLu and Michelle. If you're a 'Horny Creep,' Go to Hell!" (Giggles)

Laura: "No, LuLu! Nooooooooo!"

For viewers who were adults when the film was first released, do you remember seeing or buying a tie-in coffee table book which was styled to look like the prop in the film?

R12 That would have been GREAT, but I don't think such a thing was released. I believe it was just a prop.

If you search under REBECCA BLAKE, tho, you can find photos shot for the film that weren't used (at least not prominantly)

Thanks. I'm so burned out from watching the political shows. A couple of tokes and a good bad movie starring Faye is just the ticket.

Lisa Taylor ("Michelle") was a '70s 'Super Model' at the time she was cast in "EoLM." She was the face of 'Dior' during that period.

Dammit!

. . . anyways, her then modeling contemporaries were lovely Gia, Janice, Bitten . . .

She and Tommy Lee Jones met during the filming and had a long-term relationship. (He was much older than she was.) In 1989 she'd married a rich finance guy in 1989 (still married).

For R11 (I believe this was it)

(the answering machine message)

You've reached Lulu and Michelle

We're not home so go to hell

But if you're not a horny creep

Leave your message at the beep !

Yes, Lisa Taylor was in several fashion shots that have gone on to become very famous.

R13 , R14 , After seeing the film for the first time about three years ago, I wanted to know more about it, and in the process of researching , read a very short, undetailed blurb describing it. There was a small (very small) picture with it, which wouldn't enlarge. I saved it for future reference, but it's on a dead external drive, so no pics to share here. Since then I have found no other reference to it. It's noteworthy that the pic in the description wasn't a still from the film. It showed the purported book in a mundane setting, like the top of someone's kitchen table or desk, and the crappy lighting showed that it was obviously taken with someone's phone or camera.

R20/r21 I always thought she was one of the most gorgeous super models. She’s been all but totally forgotten. I was also first in line to buy that Michael Gross book - 1995 I think.

Interesting that Irvin Kershner's follow-up film was The Empire Strikes Back.

Wikipedia says the film was originally to be done on a low budget, with B movie actress Roberta Collins in the lead.

Can't say I've ever seen her in anything...

Even Faye had mousy brown frizzy hair in this movie. The late 70s was really such a deglammed time for movie stars.

It seems like the original Laura Mars, Roberta Collins, had a substance abuse problem, just like our little Faye.

Her son killed himself, and she herself later died from mixing alcohol and pills.

Faye, reading R26

[quote]Even Faye had mousy brown frizzy hair in this movie. The late 70s was really such a deglammed time for movie stars.

tommy lee was really good looking when he was younger......i mean, like, a lot. how his current face ended up morphing into what it is now is beyond me. he was REALLY cute tho he went thru a lot of phases. i couldn't find an younger/older pic of him.......

I like this photo of Dunaway and the director on the set. He's describing a shot to her, and she's like, "Shut the f#ck up, they're taking my picture!"

Streisand was going to star in it for Jon Peters.

She quit all the serious films she could have done at the time.

Someone has been prancing around in another thread talking about how this movie is a GAY ICON, I think he said.

Why? Because Faye Dunaway is in it? I saw it when it came out, and it wasn't anything special. I never felt the urge to see it again. What's the iconicity about?

In the DVD commentary track, I think the director says this little midget originally had a larger role. That's why Laura takes his hand when she hears the news of Doris Spencer's death.

[quote]R33 Someone has been prancing around in another thread talking about how this movie is a GAY ICON, I think he said. Why?.... What's the iconicity about?

It is clear you need to watch the film [italic]at least[/italic]100 more times.

As we have.

Anything with Miss Dunaway is iconic.

I would already have watched it again, maybe not 100 times, but some. I never found it that interesting, though. Maybe when I finish bingewatching Chance and Goliath.

R33 I would imagine it's due to its stylistic content - hot fashion, hot makeup, hot music, extreme subject matter juxtaposed against a background of glamorous photography, an innate campiness - I could go on, but it's either something you understand implicitly, or you don't.

It's like having to explain "The Women" to someone who doesn't get it.

The film is a touch awful, story-wise. Which is part of what makes it fun.

And Dunaway overacts all over the place, as was her wont.

In short, delicious.

Well, you've all made it sound like something I might enjoy now, in my dotage.

Life imitates art or art imitates are. I always felt these two were connected. Two years before the movie came out, Blonde posed for their first album cover in front of a real car accident they just happened to catch impromptu. If you watch the movie, a lot of the backdrops that Laura Mars uses is they same sudden accident theme. If you subtract for the production time, I wonder if it was a thing to do this or both artist just had the same idea around the same time.

I always liked her really dark moody penthouse. It must have made a big impression. 30 years later I live in a similar type building 30 stories in the sky. Thanks Faye.

Thanks OP I meant to start a thread and forgot.

Like Bette Jon Peters openlysaid Faye was very difficult to work with.

The director of this movie helmed the 2nd best Star Wars film. Fuck you JJ Abrams. He also directed the wrongly forgotten film Up The Sandbox where Barbra gives her best dramatic performance.

The audio book.

Rumor has it the cheap paperback novelization, released as a tie-in, made more money than the actual movie.

Linda Evangelista did a fashion shoot for [bold]V[/bold] magazine that was styled after LAURA MARS.

Also...did the makeup crew forget to put any blush on poor Faye?

[quote]R50 44% on Rotten Tomatoes

all LIES ! ! !

A bit of costume trivia:

The shoes you see Laura wearing at the [bold]01:40[/bold] mark in this clip are the same ones Dunaway wore in her Blackglama WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST? ad.

I don't know if they were originally hers, or if she stole them from the set.

Rebecca Blake did some of the shots for the movie. Helmut Newton did others. Some of Blake's shots are in the big coffee table book below. (There never was a book like the one in the film.)

I just finished watching it. Even worse than I remembered. Also better than I remembered,

Fun fact: Raul Julia's agent, Jeff Hunter, got into a big fight with the producers regarding Raul's billing. So he basically got no billing at all. He went by "RJ".

I remember Mad Magazine's takeoff was called "Eyes of a Lurid Mess"

[quote]R56 I just finished watching it. Even worse than I remembered. Also better than I remembered - -OP

Your eyes (of Laura Mars) have been opened....

If not for Mommie Dearest, this might have become Faye's albatross. Hard to imagine Streisand in the part. Other than Faye, the only actress I could see doing it would have been Meg Foster, because she had such outrageous blue eyes, (or maybe Susan Sarandon).

It would be [italic]so funny[/italic] with Shirley MacLaine.....playing it dead serious.

That was such a great period for great bad movies: Jagged Edge, Cat People, The Hunger.

Anybody remember the movie Stab? At the last minute it was released under a different title. Rumor has it that the leading lady hated her leading actor, (and this was an actress who got along with mostly everybody).

That is the one film M does not like to talk about.

(But I heard she also didn't exactly click with Charles Dance.)

It’s a terrible movie and one of its problems at the time was that it was purporting to reflect a zeitgeist that didn’t exist. Not in the mainstream. Therefore it appeared to be promoting violence against women. It was just off-putting. It never really had a moment. I remember it that summer. I heard Streisand’s single - which always sounded like a B-side, which peaked at No. 21, a disappointment amid such huge hits as Evergreen, You Don’t Bring Me Flowers and the veritable, sensual pop moment of My Heart Belings To Me - saw the soundtrack in the record bins and read the movie tie-in. But it was one of those movies that never seemed to get released. It was like did this come out or is it coming out? It never made much impact. The poster was interesting, if dour, and I think most people thought it was just called EYES. Streisand took the wind out of Dunaway’s sails by stating that she turned it down. It was a big non-event. When I finally saw the movie on HBO a year or so later, it was even more of a non-event.

A nice young gay guy on a FB thread recently suggested how amazing Elizabeth Taylor would’ve been in this. I admired his bonkers insanity.

This was supposed to be a comeback vehicle for Lucy O'Ball but Gary Morton talked her out of it.

For anybody still up, a little deciphering of information. The movies discussed by R64 was Still of the Night costarring Roy Scheider. Plenty is the movie in which Meryl played opposite Charles Dance. Plenty was a decent film and it began Meryl's lifelong friendship with Tracey Ullman, (who stole the movie). Meryl didn't care for Dance, but I don't think she had an issue for the movie itself. She might have gotten nominated for it had she not gotten nominated for Out of Africa which was released two months later.

Still of the Night is the movie she doesn't like to discuss. I believe the had to change the ending at the last minute because Meryl slipped and gave away the original ending when presenting an award.

I'm sure M can correct anything I might have gotten wrong. Are you there, M ??

^^and feel free to correct my many typos. it's after 2am and I'm falling asleep as I type.

Spoiler Alert:

Saw this for the first time tonight—it was so bad it’s good (as has been said), but with a better script it could have been just plain good (I think)!

As far as the story goes: do we ever find out *why* Faye Dunaway’s charcter is psychically connected to the murderer/the Tommy Lee Jones character?

Why does she suddenly get this “gift” or special power to see when he’s going to kill?

TCM has got to move forward a bit with its programming and start putting this kind of campfest (wouldn't you imagine a large portion of their audience is gay men?) on a prime time. Right now their most interesting movies are shown at 3 in the morning. And I don't own a DVR or plan to get one.

Every character actor on the planet is in this film. Hey lady, move it!

watch for the scene off laura mars running in 5 inch spiked heels that miraculously change into huge white sneakers.

I remember Still of the Night tried and failed to be a Hitchcockian film. I love Meryl but she is no Eva Marie Saint or even Tippie Hedren.

Olivia Newton-John was the first choice, but she insisted John Farrar get to write two songs for her to sing, and everyone else in the cast must be at least 20 years older than the part should realistically be.

[quote]Faye's leg sticking out through her skirt as she shoots the photos deserved a special Oscar.

That deserves a link

R71, it was my first time watching it too. And, like you, I thought it was bad, and felt "cheated" at the end. They never explained why Laura Mars was seeing the killer's visions. Had she had this "gift" all along? I also kept thinking that this should be re-released on a double bill with "The Fan" for its giallo thriller awfulness or "American Gigolo" for its aesthetic.

Also, it's amazing what a little eye makeup can do to enhance one's looks. In "The Towering Inferno" just a few years earlier, Dunaway looked stunning with those big, brown eyes framed by long, fake lashes and mascara. In "Eyes" with scant makeup, she looks so wan and plain.

R67 One of the inspirations for the film was a controversial Vogue spread portraying a young couple in vacation, perhaps honeymooning. In some of the pictures the Male model is slapping the shot out of the woman, throwing her down stone stairs, etc. It really wasn't a trend but was much discussed by certain feminists like porcine Andrea Dworkin.

Another influence was the violent, glamorous work of Chris von Wangenheim (below).

The script was written by John Carpenter. Between Laura Mars and Halloween, 1978 was certainly a huge breakout year for him.

This is one of those movies that could never be made today, like Dressed to Kill, Body Double, American Gigolo and Cruising. The late 70s-80s was a dangerously erotic time for films. It was the transition from the Sexual Revolution into the Reagan years of money and excess. I loved it!

I think even without Minnie Dearest this film kind of finished her leading lady career.

She’s lucky for Minnie Dearest actually because it gave her a convenient scapegoat.

I thought Laura Mars the photog was based on Helmut Newton.

[quote]I think even without Minnie Dearest this film kind of finished her leading lady career.

Hard to believe that it was barely more than a decade earlier when she made such a big splash with Bessie and Clyde.

R82 haha didn’t catch my autocorrect in time you’re hilarious.

nyc personality Bill Boggs has a small part. "Let's All Chant" was a big hit at Studio 54.

r72, it's available for free on demand at tcm.com for a few days (you have to log in to your cable provider first or some nonsense.)

R3, I had no idea she passed away! This made me teary. She was in To Live And Die in LA, one of my favorites! One of those long forgotten actresses who never really "made it". Obscure in a good way. Rest in peace, sweetheart.

I went on IMDB and looked for pics of Darlene, I figured she aged horribly. She was BEAUTIFUL to the end. Even after she was diagnosed !

I was shocked to learn that Rene Aubergine is straight. I'd always assumed that he was gay by the roles that he plays.

[quote]nyc personality Bill Boggs has a small part.

But that wasn't his voice. He was obviously dubbed by someone else for some reason.

[quote]I was shocked to learn that Rene Aubergine is straight.

He's straight?! Now THAT's funny!

Didn't Rene Aubergine have a cameo in Minnie Dearest?

What the hell is wrong with you bitches? You had some dangling fruit, and you ignored it! Barbra did the fricken theme song!

R36 Have you ever seen "The Arrangement"? Ouch. Even Faye can make that pile of crapola iconic.

One of my favorite films to watch for fun.

My absolute fave Babs song, too. Tommy Lee was so ugly sexy.

When Faye was on Twitter a few years she actually responded to me. I had initially asked about a film that I absolutely adored her in but that she never ever discusses. This was amid everyone kissing her ass in regards to B&C, Thomas Crown, Chinatown, etc... She had initially said she was cool with people asking about MD (so long as people were respectful) but I could sense the ire rising up in her as her response was very curt.

I then said, "Eyes of Laura Mars" and she instantly became chatty and kind. Shared lots of info about behind the scenes battles with Peters, Newton contributing photos and the film didn't achieve what it had set out to do but was still stylish.

R93 Great story. Feel free to elaborate, especially if you recall what she said about battling Jon Peters.

Had I been you, I would have said Barfly. I think it's one of her best and most underrated performances. I bet she would have loved the mention.

Warhol's diary talked about how Faye partied until very late, even when filming. Maybe that's one reason Bette Davis considered her unprofessional. Bette drank scotch heavily but eased up while filming.

Warhol quoted Peters as saying Dunaway's eyes took hours to light properly. I should think they were referring to this movie as there were so many close shots of her eyes.

R91, it's been mentioned a few times already in this thread. You're late to the party.

Here's a Helmut Newton shot from the movie. It was hanging in the exhibition gallery of Laura Mars' work at the beginning of the film.

I love it for its cool, bizarre chic. WTF !? A beautiful, nearly nude model straddling (fucking?) a bear or a guy in a bear mask. Great stuff.

Whatever happened with the sequel, The Ears of Lenny Moon?

Why did Faye’s eyes look blue (or blue/green) in Bonnie and Clyde and brown (or maybe brown/hazel) in all her 70s movies? What color are her eyes really? They didn’t have colored contacts then so wtf?

Just to clear up the confusion regarding Still of the Night originally titled Stab.

I am not averse to discussing it. In fact it is my stock answer for when I'm asked if I don't like any of my films or if I didn't think I was good in a film. I always say Still of the Night. Then I add that the reason I don't like it was because all I was called upon to do was look beautiful and that is not my thing. They should have got Jessica Lange but you know Robert Benton gave me a big boost with Kramer and Oscar number one so I owed him. Luckily Sophie's Choice opened at the same time as Still of the Night and people forgot about it.

^^ The two movies you looked most beautiful in were also the worst performances you gave. The other being Mamma Mia.

Link to a review of the initial release of the film. The reviewer was deadly serious about how much he disliked the film ( probably for some of same the reasons it has a small following today) , but his review still made me cackle.

Highlights include : "It's conceivable that the film could generate a kitschy popularity on the basis of its most ludicrous feints and dodges."

"Dunaway's hopelessly waxen and stilted performance seems to be crying out for deliverance in the form of a Carol Burnett take-off. "

" "Eyes of Laura Mars" doesn't even look attractive or insinuating"

If only there really had been a Carol Burnett Show parody. Vicki could have done a series of quick changes and played every shrieking victim....

From R102

[quote]"Eyes of Laura Mars" doesn't even look attractive or insinuating, a startling lapse in the work of Kershner, a former photographer and teacher of photography

This is where the reviewer gives himself away as someone determined to trash the movie.

It's a movie about a photographer and her shocking photographs. If the film wasn't visually arresting we wouldn't be talking about it now, 40 years later. At times reviewers can be so follow-the-leader, they're afraid to admit they enjoyed a bit of silly fun.

It's one reason I love Pauline Kael's 3-page 1978 rave in The New Yorker for Brian De Palma's The Fury..

Your friends say you are overworked

Overworked? OVERWORKED?!

MD is a good film. Her career might have been hurt because of The Oscar Curse TEOLM was her first film after her win for Nerwork Unless you are Meryl Streep when a female gets close to 40 you need to start producing. More than one person has called Faye the worst person they ever worked with.

FD is never less than watchable.

[quote]FD ??

That's Fran Drescher, R108. This is a thread about Fran Drescher and her movie "Eyes of Laura Mars' Nanny."

Here I thought the film was noteworthy for that song?

[quote]R99 What color are her eyes really?

They are usually called green....but green eyes are hardly ever pure green; they have blue or gray and often a little hazel/amber in them, which is picked up depending on the light, surrounding colors, etc.

In CHINATOWN, Jack Nicholson says, [italic]"There's something black...in the green part of your eye."

GODDAMN IT! That's in Spanish.

Try this:

R43 Jon Peters was difficult to work with. Read Frank Piersons article about working with Peters and Barbra on A Star is Born. Not that Faye isn't difficult, but Peters was worse.

Irvin Kershner didn't have a problem with Faye while making it.

I always wondered if Jon Peters tried to fuck Faye during filming (Streisand reportedly would visit the set often to keep an eye on him) and she turned him down. She was already cheating on Peter Wolf with Terry O'Neil at the time.

And apparently COCAINE was everywhere on the set.

My memory of it's release is different. It was very popular and even Pauline Kael wrote an article at the time defending it from those who called it too violent. She said it was the movie she was most recommending to friends at the moment and then wrote a article called Fear of the Movies calling out how frightened moviegoers had become of edgy movies. I remember her calling Dunaway's performance as being both Death and the Maiden and commenting on how Faye's hair was the color of dried blood. Here's a short excerpt from her much longer favorable review:

This New York-set thriller operates on mood and atmosphere and moves so fast, with such delicate changes of rhythm, that its excitement has a subterranean sexiness. Faye Dunaway, with long, thick, dark-red hair, is Laura Mars, a celebrity fashion photographer who specializes in the chic and pungency of sadism; the pictures she shoots have a furtive charge-we can see why they sell. Directed by Irvin Kershner, the film has a few shocking fast cuts, but it also has scabrous elegance and a surprising amount of humor. Laura's scruffy, wild-eyed driver (Brad Dourif) epitomizes New York's crazed, hostile flunkies; he's so wound up he seems to have the tensions of the whole city in his gut. Her manager (René Auberjonois) is tense and ambivalent about Laura-about everything. Her models (Lisa Taylor and Darlanne Fluegel), who in their poses look wickedly decadent, are really just fun-loving dingalings. As for Dunaway, constantly kneeling or sprawling to take photographs, her legs, especially her thighs, are far more important to her performance than her eyes; her flesh gives off heat. Tommy Lee Jones is the police lieutenant who represents old-fashioned morality, and when the neurotically vulnerable Laura, who has become telepathic about violence, falls in love with him, they're a very creepy pair.

R98 shut up! i am still waiting for Netflix to grab “Shecky Crockett, Frontier Moyle”

R114 Are you also a fan of Steel Magnolias?

René Auberjonois' hair needed it's own separate credit.

R117 -

I thought the same about Tommy Lee Jones' bell bottom pants.

Did anyone pick up the recent Blu-ray? I want to get it but it's very expensive.

Why haven't you talked about Barbra Streisand's theme song for the movie? It's so fabulous.

"Get my agent on the line..."

[quote]For a fashion shoot in Columbus Circle that features lingerie-clad models in fur coats fighting in front of burning, overturned cars (right?), Laura sports knee-high boots, a plaid camping blanket around her neck, and gaucho pants that flap open at her hips. It's that amazing.

I never noticed that Laura wears an ornate pendant in her décolletage before....

I had the love theme as a single and I was also fond of the B side - Laura & Neville.

I let Irvin direct it, because he did Up the Sandbox with me. I thougth Theoni V. Aldredge, who dressed me in my first Broadway-show "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" , would be fine for the costumes. I used her again for The Mirror Has Two Faces- her last movie to work on.Faye had worked with her before on Network and Condor, so she could handle *artistic temprament*.

I knew Karen Lawrence who wrote "Prisoner", from the A Star Is Born concert in Arizona , where she opened the show,and tried to teach me some rock moves before the concert. Despite her failure to succeed on that, I felt the song would make a nice torch power-ballad for me.

Barbra Streisand - soft S like Svengali

Production Designer Gene Callahan did a great job on "Funny Girl" and "For Pete´s Sake" and so i felt secure in hireing him for this one.