Recently, on his blog News From Me, writer Mark Evanier brought
this film to my attention. For years he has desired to rewatch it for the first
time since it premiered in 1970 but, because it's a hard to find title, his
attempts have failed. Mr. Evanier is a fan of Rod Taylor (as he should be) and
remembers this film as being made up of parts both good and bad. His wish to
revisit the film to see if, decades later, his memory and feelings would mirror
his initial reaction struck a cord with me. He states that what he remembers
is that, although the actors were very good, there was something about the movie
that just seemed a little off or that somehow didn't work. He made note of the
fact that Turner Classic Movies was screening the movie several months ago and,
being a Rod Taylor fan, I had the DVR grab it. Now that I've seen the movie I
can understand his mixed emotions.
There are almost no likeable characters in THE MAN WHO HAD POWER OVER WOMEN (1970). In a way I think this is good because we see both good
and bad aspects of a few of the characters but none of these people are folks
that I would like to spend any time around in anything other than a finite
feature-length slab of time.
Rod Taylor
plays a PR man or fixer for a music company and he spends most of his time
dealing with the problems and emotional upsets of the company's most profitable
music star Barry Black. Mr. Black is exactly the caricature of the nightmare egomaniac
we all fear highly successful music stars are in real life. He's vain, self-centered,
illogical, needlessly cruel, craven, quick to anger, twitchy and just generally
a miserable person striving to make all around him just as miserable and unhappy as
he is. The music company is currently in the process of dealing with the fact
that Mr. Black has gotten one of his teenage fans pregnant and once again the
company is arranging for an illegal abortion to make this unfortunate problem
go away. Rod Taylor 's
character is not happy about this situation and seems very upset that they're
pushing this girl to do something that she probably doesn't want to do. He also
seems upset that this is seen as just another budgetary line item for the
company in dealing with their profitable but unstable star. It's not clear just
how much his frustration with having to make Black's life smooth is playing
into his anger at this horrible situation but it's clear his disintegrating
marriage is adding to his problems.
This is a well done film and overall I liked it but I can
understand Mr. Evanier's conflicted feelings. I'm not someone that needs
likeable characters to enjoy a film but there is precious little light in the
dark world that this movie presents. Even the deserved comeuppance in the final
scene - while satisfying - seems like just another step down the descent into
hell for everyone concerned. It's a well made, well acted, smartly scripted
story that feels like there was a vital part missing. It might have been hope
or it might have been joy but I fear it could have been heart.
As a side note, this film is based on a novel by Gordon
Williams but it reminded me of Harlan Ellison's book Rockabilly a.k.a. Spider'sKiss first published in 1961. Ellison's story is about a very talented country
boy singer that rises to the top and uses his fame and power to lure any woman
he can into bed. He leaves broken hearts and nasty scandals everywhere he goes
all of which have to cleaned up by his greedy manager who doesn't want anything
to taint his cash cow. Eventually the singer's growing megalomania and paranoia
has him treating everyone around him like crap until he is caught in a scandal
that takes some serious criminal action to cover up. These two stories feel
like American vs British versions of the same tale although both of them owe a
huge debt to the classic Elia Kazan film A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957) with Andy
Griffith being the insufferable music star with a heart of black ice. Somebody
should write an article about these three tales and any others that fit the
template. Wish I had more time.
