Lawbolisted Powerful

ThrillMessage There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

rochesternypizzaguy Kim Stanley gives an appropriately over-the-top performance, but the story goes nowhere. The protagonist is nutso crazy from beginning to end. I kept waiting for something to happen, to take the story in a different direction, but it didn't. The movie seemed to be meant to make some point about the corrosive effects of stardom, but instead it just seemed like a slice of life of some nutjob who happened to be a movie star. I also never developed any sympathy for the lead character. It wasn't like, "Geez, I can see how she started out as a basically good person but turned out this way." Instead, I was more like, "Wow, I can see why everybody she comes into contact with wants to stay the hell away from her."

blanche-2 Paddy Chayefsky's "The Goddess" from 1958 stars Kim Stanley, one of the great actresses of our time, as a Marilyn Monroe type, a lonely, unloved girl who finds stardom in Hollywood but ultimately self-destructs. It should be noted that the movie predates Monroe's death by four years.Chayefsky is responsible for such screenplays as "Network," "The Hospital," "Marty," among others, and, frankly, "The Goddess" is one of his weaker works. There is very little in the way of character development - events happen very quickly, skipping over years, hitting the high points, with very little in between. For instance, Emily Ann (Stanley) talks about her nervous breakdown, but we don't see it. She makes reference to past promiscuity while talking to her second husband (Lloyd Bridges), but all we see is an invitation by a studio head to come to his house.The film is notable for the tour de force performance by Stanley who, despite the gaps in the story, creates a vivid characterization of a desperate, ambitious, easily influenced woman looking for someone to love her. Stanley absorbs all of Emily Ann's changes of mood as well as her temperament. When Emily Ann is recently home from the sanitarium, she receives a visit from a director (Werner Klemperer) and his wife. She's hyperkinetic, a ticking bomb; the next time we see them visit, she's found Jesus and acts calm and centered. One can see here that she must have been a magnificent Blanche DuBois, a role she performed early in her career."The Goddess" seems to have been made on a tight budget; it certainly doesn't look like a glossy Hollywood film. Stanley was 40 when she made it, and her role begins when the character is 19. There's no attempt anywhere in the film to make her look younger or like a starlet or a movie star. Yet she makes you believe the whole thing.It's a pity Stanley didn't make more films, but "The Goddess" gives us an excellent idea of Kim Stanley's magnificence as an actress.

jdmartin61 I saw this most memorable movie on television, late night, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I was drawn into it from that time. I saw it on only one other occasion.From the start, the story compels the viewer to keep watching to the end. The combination of real acting, directing, cinematography and the riveting story that spans many years is impossible to resist.I saw this fine film about 10 years after I first saw it. I was never given the chance to see it again. I would give anything to own a copy this unique film for my own benefit.John Martin, 46, Texas

rube2424 We have come, over the years, to venerate the famous, no matter how good the work they turn out. Paddy Chayevsky wrote some great works, MARTY, of course, for one. THE GODDESS is not one of the them. In order to make a "well made play", Chayevsky leaves out a great deal of much needed character development. Things happen quickly; too quickly in fact, to either have a semblance of truth or make us feel anything for any of the characters. Instead of agonizing over the rise and fall of THE GODDESS, we spend the whole time trying to piece things together to see if the main character IS based on Marilyn Monroe after all. Look...instead of a baseball player, she marries a boxer! "Is that supposed to be Joe Mankiewicz talking about her in that scene? Is that Daryll Zanuck inviting her back to his home? Is the film she's talking about supposed to be GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES? ALL ABOUT EVE? What should be a heart wrenching drama, turns out to be instead, a far from subtle, far too short and badly over written Hollywood guessing game.The wonderful Virgil Thompson did the musical score, but here it is totally out of sync with the rest of the film. His jaunty melodies put us in mind of the WPA films he did with Pare Lorentz instead of the background to a human drama. (To see how good a score can be in illustrating the images on the screen, go to Leonard Bernstein's amazing work for ON THE WATERFRONT.) But the acting IS good. Thank goodness we see what a fine actress Kim Stanley was. Some of her moments, especially the quiet ones, are breathtaking. Sometimes, alas, she is allowed to go over the top. At her best in this film she gives one of the screen's greatest performances; at her worst, and there are moments, she is a caricature of every Tennessee William's female character with a little Eunice from MAMA'S FAMILY thrown in for good measure. Happily, the good moments far out number the bad, and one should see THE GODDESS to see why Stanley is so justly venerated. (Lloyd Bridges and Elizabeth Wilson are also good.) THE GODDESS should have been a masterpiece. Instead what we get is nothing more than a fairly good film. No matter how good its pedigree, THE GODDESS turns out to be no more than a mixed blessing.