The Legend of Lylah Clare 1968

Bart Langner, Milton Selzer, an agent with a knack for chasing sensational stories, tracks Elsa Brinkmann, Kim Novak, a would-be actress who looks and sounds like Lylah Clare, Kim Novak, the flamboyant star who died under mysterious circumstances twenty years ago. He convinces the ambitious director Lewis Zarkan, Peter Finch, who had been married to Lylah, to meet her, and the two men persuade brash studio head Barney Sheean, Ernest Borgnine, to back a project with her in the lead role as Lylah.

Elsa’s Hollywood journey is fraught with hazards: meddling journalist Molly Luther, Coral Browne, and Rossella, the hard-edged acting coach, Rossella Falk, both ready to pull strings to shape a star. As filming progresses, Elsa’s immersion in the part grows deeper, and she finds herself drawn to Zarkan, who is eager to sleep with her but ultimately obsessed with delivering his film to the finish line.

By the final day of production, Elsa’s personality appears to fuse with Lylah’s infamous persona, a transformation that echoes the lethal history surrounding the original star. Jealous Zarkan, who played a pivotal role in Lylah’s demise, becomes the architect of yet another deadly moment. Elsa first exposes the truth by letting him walk in on her in bed with the gardener, then, during a circus sequence that requires nerve and balance, she plummets from a high-wire—seemingly seized by the same acrophobia that felled Lylah. The sensational publicity drives the film to astonishing success, yet Zarkan remains shaken by the double tragedy he helped cause.

The narrative keeps a chilling thread: Rossella, having watched two women she cared about fall to the consequences of Zarkan’s fixation, loads a pistol and stands at the ready, a decision that could spell final tragedy or emergency reprieve. In a closing meta moment, a TV dog-food commercial interrupts the movie itself, underscoring a brutal point: in Hollywood, the business often seems to run on a raw, dog-eat-dog logic.