I don't think my comment is worth ten lines but I'll try, the little I have to say I want to say it because this is one of those really bad movies I like. The kind of bad movie with little treasures buried in it. Bette Davis and Susan Hayward as mother and daughter and let's stop right there for a moment. Two actresses who never took the easy way out. That, in itself, makes the movie a collector's item and, I guess it is. Then, based on a Harold Robbins best seller based on the Lana Turner, Johnny Stompanato's affair, remember? Lana's daughter stabbed Johnny Stompanato, her mother's lover and, it seems, her lover too That should be enough to make a classic melodrama. Unfortunately, a classic, this one, it ain't'. But a must for movie nuts, like me.
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littlemartinarocena24 April 2007
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mark.waltz9 March 2013You just better have a good elevator man! Or in the case of this film, it is a woman, the mother of all evil mothers, Bette Davis. Seemingly sweet and loving to everybody around her (including her former son-in-law), Mrs. Hayden is power hungry, strong-willed, domineering, bossy, and utterly charming. Daughter Susan Hayward has resented the lack of love she has gotten from her mother, having been treated like a prize calf at the county fair, made to look good in order for the family to keep their social standing. This old Nob Hill family in San Francisco has not had one scandal in their lives-until one night when Hayward's teenaged daughter Joey Heatherton goes berserk and stabs Hayward's lover to death. Hayward's ex-husband Mike Connors comes back as Heatherton is tried as a juvenile, and all of the family's skeletons are released.
Sound like an E True Hollywood Story? It should, 'cause novelist Harold Robbins based this upon the Lana Turner/Johnny Stompanato affair where Lana's daughter Cheryl allegedly killed him in self-defense to protect mama. Hayward's Valarie is not a high-powered movie star here-she's a talented sculptress, and one of her knives was used as the weapon in the murder. (Turner was only angry about this for a few years as she went to appear on a Harold Robbins based TV series, "The Survivors", which ironically didn't...) When you've got dynamic actresses like top-billed Hayward and featured Davis appearing together, sparks are going to fly, the melodrama is going to spill over the cauldron top, and there are going to be some genuinely amusing unintentional camp moments. This is a "Dynasty" type soap opera where the matriarch arranges a marriage between her heir and the army hero, controls their every move (even giving him a do-nothing Vice President job at her company and a portrait of herself to line the foyer of the house she bought for them), and smiles sweetly at all times. The two ladies are dynamic together, although the fact that every single major character in this remains exactly the same for the seemingly 18 years that it takes place. Hayward's sudden weakening at the end seems out of character and throws the whole film off balance.
The real acting comes from Mike Conners as the husband so de-masculinized that he turns to drink. He is the moral conscience of the family, fortunate not to be related to this brood by blood. The least comes from Joey Heatherton as the daughter, so unconvincing in her delivery in the pivotal dramatic scenes that she seems like she's too much in awe of the legends around her to create an interesting character. Jane Greer offers some sympathetic moments as the head of the juvenile detention center, an ironic choice in casting considering hers and Hayward's one time reign as two of the great femme fatals of film noir, both appearing in "They Won't Believe Me".
As long as you look at this as total cinematic soap opera trash, you can really enjoy this for what it is, maybe not horrid to be a fun bad movie, but certainly a delightful chance to be nosy inside another family's fictional horrors. -
On April 4, 1958, Lana Turner's daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Turner's boyfriend, underworld figure Johnny Stompanato, to death, in what was later deemed a justifiable homicide. This scandalous incident served as the inspiration for Harold Robbins' 1962 novel "Where Love Has Gone," his follow-up to "The Carpetbaggers." And this tawdry novel was given the A-list treatment by Paramount two years later, in a film that was critically lambasted but commercially successful. The picture featured the cream of Hollywood talent both in front of and behind the camera, but turned out to be a highly melodramatic affair, replete with florid dialogue and soap operalike qualities. But is it fun to watch today, almost five decades later? Oh, yes, indeed!
The film cleaves into two fairly discrete sections. In the first, we meet Luke Miller, an aspiring architect (played by Mike Connors) whose daughter, Danni, has just killed his ex-wife's lover in San Francisco. (Fifteen-year-old Danni, it should be mentioned, is played by future sex symbol Joey Heatherton, 20 here and almost unrecognizable as a redhead.) In flashback, we see how Luke first met Danni's mom, a sculptress and artist named Valerie Hayden (Susan Hayward), daughter of society matron Mrs. Gerald Hayden (Bette Davis, despite the fact that Bette was only 10 years older than Susan), and how their marriage soon dissolved due to alcoholism and infidelity. In the film's second half, we are witness to Danni's juvenile hearing and see the aftermath of the murder, including a short sojourn in blackmailing territory.
"Where Love Has Gone" features some beautiful sets and makes excellent use of its S.F. locales. It also features a catchy Sammy Cahn/James van Heusen theme song, warbled by Jack Jones, and eye-catching costumes by famed designer Edith Head. Edward Dmytryk's direction (he had previously worked with Susan on 1955's "Soldier of Fortune," though never before with Bette, and had just directed the film adaptation of "The Carpetbaggers") is typically expert, and the supporting cast (including DeForest Kelley as a cynical art critic, here two years pre-"Trek"; the always hissable George Macready; Jane Greer, who had appeared with Susan in 1947's "They Won't Believe Me"; and Whit Bissell, who seems to have appeared in half the films ever made!) is just fine. But of course, the main selling point of this film has to be the first and only pairing of two of Hollywood's greatest actresses, Bette Davis and Susan Hayward (two of MY personal favorites, at least). These two supposedly didn't get along well on the set (surprise, surprise), but sure do have a cutting and nasty chemistry on screen! Susan's final courtroom speech may be the film's finest moment, thespianwise, although Mike Connors, here three years prior to beginning his eight-year run as TV's Mannix, provides the film with its most ingratiating performance. In short, "Where Love Has Gone" is certainly nobody's idea of a great film, much less "high art," but yes, it sure is fun to watch. And really, where else are you going to see the "Brooklyn Bombshell," Susan Hayward, handle a blowtorch? -
Poseidon-36 May 2003Fans of great "bad movies" should lap this up like a bowl of frosting. Loosely based on the Lana Turner-Johnny Stompanato-Cheryl Crane murder incident, Harold Robbins fashioned a novel to cash in on and exploit the gossipy tale. This resultant film carries on the tradition in high, campy style complete with hilarious "racy" dialogue, glamorously sanitized sexual shenanigans, concerned social workers, over the top sets and decor and signature Edith Head costumes. Velvet-voiced crooner Jack Jones (later to be immortalized as the pipes heard in "The Love Boat" theme song) kicks off the film with a yummy title song against dreamy shots of San Francisco. Hayward stars as a socialite sculptress who finds herself paired with WWII hero Conners. Her gorgon-like mother (Davis) steers them toward marriage, yet, when Conners doesn't do her bidding, pulls out all the stops to destroy the union and press for a divorce. The marriage does produce a daughter (Heatherton) who, years later, finds herself in juvenile hall after filleting one of Hayward's live-in lovers. Though the tale spans twenty years, Conners and Hayward (and Davis!) look exactly the same throughout. The hair, clothes and furnishings show no evolution, nor any feel for the period. (Hayward has her customary bouffant bubble 'do which she wore in virtually every film from the '50's on, no matter what the time, place or character!) Hayward frets and yells and suffers while draped in fur accented suits (or sometimes in her uproarious sculpting scarves) with her bizarre accent fully in place. Somewhat paunchy Davis sashays around in her pretty concoctions, wearing an intriguing grey wig and doling out orders. At times she resembles her old nemesis Joan Crawford and one could easily picture her in the part as well. Conners does all right, though no matter what histrionics he could come up with, there's no room for him in this film. The battle royale is between Hayward and Davis. Davis was already miffed at Hayward for just having remade "Dark Victory" as "The Stolen Hours". Then there were differences over the script with Davis reworking scenes until finally Hayward pulled her weight and demanded that the script be shot as originally written (which was no Pulitzer Prize winner.) Later, Davis had yet another battle (which she won) over how her character's fate should be played out. The animosity between these two women is palpable. Amid all the soapy trappings and turgid dramatics, there is some really hateful fire and some awesomely bitter moments between them, which are fun to behold. Anyone wanting to get plastered should do a shot every time one note Heatherton whines the word "Daddy". Nearly twenty belts of booze ought to do anyone in! She is hilariously bratty and annoying, though she does get some decent licks in, notably in a scene with Seymour. Greer shows up as a sympathetic and concerned case worker. She holds her own with dignity against the fire-breathing Hayward. The dialogue is riotous throughout with some lines actually eliciting guffaws. The lawyer has a great one about the deceased and his relationships with the mother-daughter team, "He wasn't any good at double entry bookkeeping, but he was great at double entry housekeeping". "Star Trek" fans will be startled to see Kelley in a film like this, referring to the bedroom habits of Hayward. In the source novel, Davis' character comes across far more sympathetically, though that may not have been as interesting for the cinema. Also, Conners' character had a devoted second wife who was carrying his child. Most of the novel's plot line made it to the screen, however, though the film's ending is far less happy. There's very little resembling reality in this movie, but thank God for it. It's a glossy, pseudo-sordid potpourri of theatrics and glitz with occasional verbal fireworks.
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bkoganbing5 February 2011The team of Paramount Pictures, author Harold Robbins, and director Edward Dmytryk scored a big box office success with The Carpetbaggers in 1964 at the box office and so Paramount decided to keep the team going and adapted another of Robbins's novels for the big screen, Where Love Has Gone.
Unlike The Carpetbaggers which employed a bunch of old Hollywood names for a story about an older era of Hollywood, this film was located in San Francisco. But the story is unmistakably modeled on the infamous Johnny Stompanato murder from 1958 where Lana Turner's daughter Cheryl Crane killed her mother's mobster boyfriend with a butcher knife. Although our protagonist here is a sculptress, no mistaking where Harold Robbins got his plot from.
Sculptress Susan Hayward the daughter of wealthy San Francisco dowager Bette Davis has her live-in boyfriend killed in front of her by her daughter Joey Heatherton. The boyfriend of Hayward who was living with both of them was also doing both of them. He was on the books as Hayward's manager, but he was better at double entry housekeeping than double entry bookkeeping. The arrest is a scandal and the family gathers to protect Heatherton, a call goes out to Phoenix, Arizona where her father Michael Connors has been living for years out there making a success at his profession of architecture. Lawyer George MacReady wants to see a supportive family in the picture.
It's a pretty sordid story and Where Love Has Gone has a long flashback detailing the marriage of Hayward and Connors and the constant meddling of Davis in their lives. He took to drink and she went back to her former hobby of promiscuity.
The story sticks pretty close to the events as unfolded in the Stompanato homicide, but the ending that Harold Robbins has for his characters is all his own.
The main attraction of Where Love Has Gone is the one and only teaming of screen divas Bette Davis and Susan Hayward. In fact way back when Hayward had a small bit in Davis's film The Sisters, but now they were both legends. And like David and that other legend Joan Crawford, she and Hayward didn't become bosom buddies and there were some flareups according to books about both actresses, but nothing on the line of the grand feuds that Davis had with such folks as Joan Crawford and Miriam Hopkins back in the day.
As for Lana Turner she remained closemouthed about the book and movie of Where Love Has Gone, but you have to believe there were some hurt feelings there.
Where Love Is Gone is trash, it doesn't pretend to be anything else. And the chance to see Hayward and Davis sharing a screen and spitting fire should not be missed. -
If you're up on your old Hollywood gossip, you probably remember when Lana Turner's daughter stabbed Lana's boyfriend to death in the 1950s. If you didn't know that, there's no need to read up on it; Hollywood made a movie about it seven years later! In Where Love Has Gone, a teenage daughter is arrested for murdering her mother's boyfriend and is put on trial. While the names were changed, Susan Hayward plays the Lana Turner part, Joey Heatherton plays the daughter, and Mike Connors plays the ex-husband, puzzled by his daughter's behavior.
Bette Davis joins the cast as Susan's mother, and when the two powerhouse actresses share the screen together, they practically tear each other apart! The gloves are off and the two women spit fury, snap one-liners, and give their all in emotional outbursts. Regardless of the scandalous plot, it's worth watching the movie just to see the two strong legends act together. If you like courtroom dramas, dysfunctional families, or emotional soap operas, rent Where Love Has Gone over the weekend with a bunch of your girlfriends. In the supporting cast, you'll see Jane Greer, DeForest Kelley, Anne Seymour, Walter Reed, and Whit Bissell. -
AlsExGal30 July 2017...when films of 1960-1965 had one foot in the demure production code era and one foot in the budding sexual revolution.
After the credits open with some horrid MOR song over idyllic shots of San Francisco, we cut to the action. Joey Heatherton stabs Rick Lazich in the presence of her mother (Susan Hayward), who had him as her latest boyfriend. Heatherton's dad (Mike Conners) flies in for appearance's sake, since he's there at the sufferance of Grandma (Bette Davis in another of her juicy later career roles) who controls everything.
We get a flashback to how Conners and Hayward married and divorced. Although, this is a flashback to some alternate-universe 1944 in which the US is still at war but everybody wears 1960s fashions and hairstyles. Conners is a war hero; Hayward a sculptress; Davis interferes in their marriage and gets all of the bankers in Frisco to make it so that Conners can only go back to her family business rather than start his own architecture firm. Hayward sleeps around (presumably) with her models while Conners drinks himself into a divorce.
Back in the present day, the killing is deemed a justifiable homicide, but Heatherton is kept in juvie while the courts can figure out who, if anybody should get custody of her. George Macready plays Davis' lawyer; Jane Greer comes from out of the past to play a social worker; and DeForrest Kelly plays Hayward's art dealer (Jim, I'm a doctor, not an art critic!).
Davis overacts and delivers pointed bons mots; Hayward wears big hair and recites some terribly overripe lines; Conners gets to be wooden; and Heatherton cries "Daddy!" all the time; you almost expect her to break out into the "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" song that appears at the beginning of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? And then there's an ending that makes no sense.
If you're looking for a serious movie, I'd rate it a 3/10. But if you're looking for the sort of turgid, over-the-top potboiler where you yell back at the screen and laugh at the absurdity of it all, I'd give it an 8/10. It's not quite as "so bad it's good" as Valley of the Dolls or Torch Song, but it's an eminently entertaining disaster nonetheless. I split the difference to give it a 6/10.
Just one more thing. Bette Davis is only nine years older than Susan Hayward, but very credibly looks like her mother. Part of that was that Bette Davis, dish that she was when she was young, aged very poorly for whatever reason. The other part is makeup. In contrast, Susan Hayward aged very well, as short as her life was, and she looks nowhere near 47 here, which was her actual age. -
Isaac58558 December 2005One of my favorite guilty pleasures from the 60's is WHERE LOVE HAS GONE, a turgid 1964 soap opera loosely based on the events surrounding Lana Turner when her daughter Cheryl was accused of murdering her then boyfriend Johnny Stompanato. In this story, the actress becomes a sculptor named Valerie Hayden-Miller and Mike (Mannix) Connors plays Luke Miller, her no good husband. Joey Heatherton is amusing as the daughter and Bette Davis does her fair share of scenery chewing, sitting in the world's ugliest chair, as Valerie's mother. The movie holds a certain morbid fascination since it is loosely based on fact but everyone involved is either overacting or not acting at all which can be quite fun to watch. Hayward is an appropriate hand-wringing heroine from the 60's and Davis just looks embarrassed. I remember reading somewhere that Davis agreed to do this movie so that she could pay for her daughter's wedding. Need I say more?
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Society sculptress in San Francisco marries a war veteran, a man who quickly turns to the bottle after failing to carve out his own niche away from the realm of his domineering mother-in-law; sometime later, the daughter they share apparently kills mom's lover in a jealous rage. Harold Robbins' best-selling roman à clef lifts its subplot from the real-life Lana Turner-Johnny Stompanato case, and those bits and pieces are rather interesting. However, much of the movie is spent with bickering marrieds Susan Hayward and inert Michael Connors trading barbs, and the promising idea loses its impetus and becomes a stillborn soaper. Connors, heavily made-up and with lacquered black hair that never changes during the story's many years, twitches and twists his mouth into a grimace throughout the entire picture, only coming to life while tipsy in a brief dinner scene. Hayward fares better, but her slurpy, silly lines are pure camp ("You're a kept-man, not a war hero! And a drunk! A drunk! A DRUNK!"). Bette Davis is pretty much wasted as Hayward's mother (who would've thought a film co-starring these two high-powered ladies could be so dull?) and Joey Heatherton scowls continuously as the teenager in trouble (I loved her retort. Though, about how she lost her virginity: "It happened horseback riding!"). Tatty-looking picture has some fun trappings--Susan's round bed, Princess telephones, fashions that often match the room décor--but the plot is lazy and Edward Dmytryk's direction is completely rote. One Oscar nomination: for the cheesy title song composed by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn. *1/2 from ****
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wendellfountain25 January 2011Since this is 2011, one can tell the quality of the film has deteriorated significantly; however, the terrific cast made it worth watching. After writing, starring, directing, and producing a low budget movie (Grazia) myself, I have a true appreciation of the challenge. One can easily see why this is an American movie classic, because Susan Hayward, Bette Davis, Mike Connors, and even Joey Heatherton made the movie an unforgettable work of art. For me, Susan Hayward has always been one of my favorite actresses. Mike Connors, later to be Mannix on TV, is a fine actor in his own right. The fact that the film was based on actual incidents lends credibility.
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mrsastor16 June 2008I'm going to side-step the whole Lana Turner murder plot and just address the big flaming hole in this film.
About ten minutes into the film, we flashback about twenty years to approximately 1944, where we remain for at least an hour. No one changes. Not one bit. Everyone looks exactly the same, even wearing the same 1964 costumes and hairstyles. Someone was thoughtful enough to give Luke a 1940s automobile, which he drives down a street full of 1960's cars! (In 1944, there shouldn't be a Corvair parked across the street). Besides the hair and clothes, all the homes are decorated in the same 1964 decor they had prior to the flashback (oh, those AWFUL grays that just ruin Hayward's "studio"...!) It doesn't really matter what redeeming qualities the film might have outside of this, and I didn't really see much, you can't just insult the hell out of your audience with a lousy flashback that is only twenty years earlier because the characters say it is, and expect them to respect the rest of the film. This is really, really bad; the so-called flashback is the worst art and set direction I have ever seen. -
phillindholm26 October 2010And that's not ALL poor Joey Heatherton's lost, in this lurid melodrama adapted from the Harold Robbins novel. Produced by Schlockmeister Joseph E. Levine (''The Carpetbaggers'') ''Where Love Has Gone is a VERY thinly disguised dramatization of the Lana Turner/Cheryl Crane/Johnny Stompanato case in which he was supposedly stabbed to death by Lana's daughter Cheryl. Here, the central figure is a famous sculptress (Susan Hayward) who resents her domineering mother (Bette Davis) and spends most of her time in the sack with various low-life lovers. Heatherton is her neglected teenage daughter, whose estranged father (Michael Connors) flies to her defense when she is accused of the murder. This leads to a lengthy flashback which shows, in detail, the courtship, marriage and eventual divorce he and Hayward endure.And, back in the present (where no one involved looks a day older, let alone wiser) things get worse, as one sordid revelation after another leads all of this to it's laughably melodramatic conclusion. Davis, who reputedly didn't like the script (or Hayward either, for that matter)and sporting a white wig and very thick eye makeup,reads her lines like an elocution school teacher, while Hayward bellows hers so loudly that people who saw this in a theater could probably hear them in the bathroom.And it's Hayward we have to thank for this exercise in excess, because she insisted the script be filmed as written-refusing any changes. Heatherton, trying (and failing) to look 15 yeas old, does little more than pout her way through her part, while occasionally delivering some howlers: ''Oh, Daddy, what's wrong with me? I love all the wrong people-and I HATE all the right ones!''. Oh Yes, and blaming the loss of her virginity on ''Horseback Riding''?. Connors, a few years away from ''Mannix'' is just there. ''Star Trek's'' DeForest Kelly is around as a sleazy art critic, while Film Noir bad girl Jane Greer (making a comeback after a heart operation)is a reserved, but concerned probation officer.And it's Greer, along with Anne Seymour (''All The King's Men'')as a psychiatrist, who give the best performances.This was pretty Hot Stuff for 1964, though less so these days. Despite the box office success it had, it's largely forgotten now.A new DVD has just been released by Olive Films, And the plush Technicolor production is something to see-remastered for the first time in all it's Widescreen Glory. And in spite of (or ,maybe because of) it's Producer attempt to cash in on what was really a very seamy incident in Hollywood History, the film is very entertaining, and a time capsule from a bygone era.
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If you can't draw the parallels between this film and the 2 I mention then you need to do some research and see this film (from a book) is ripped right from the the news of the day with a pinch of an old Hollywood classic thrown in.
An aspiring artist from a well to do family is always being told what to do by her domineering mother. She loves men and and isn't ashamed of showing it. One day she meets a war hero at her gallery opening and takes a liking to him. He meets the mother and she likes him but his impression of her quickly changes as she shows her true colors. Instead of the big wedding the mother wants, they both sneak off and get married. The next day he's off to the war for a year. She has a baby and from this he has to work somehow. He's idealistic and wants no help from the mother but she intervenes without him knowing so he'll work for her...something he doesn't want. Years of this life of alcohol and getting whatever you want has wore him down and his wife feels the same. She goes back to her sex with other men ways and he's had it. The daughter they have is impressionable and it affects her greatly. Segway to the crux of the film...the daughter murders her mothers boyfriend. Of course there's more to it than that. Turns out this 15 year old was sleeping with her mother boyfriend all along.
This film was a soap opera all the way though. It wasn't badly made but it should or could have just been a TV movie. The content is shocking to me for it's day. A 15 year old girl kills her mother's boyfriend who she was sleeping with also. Sound Familiar? A mix of Mildred Pierce and Lana Turner's real life.
With the exception of the redone story, my main issue is Mike Conners. He was made for TV, and in this, it shows. He's just not movie material to me. It's obvious why he was more successful in TV and not in film. Bette Davis plays a character she's done before. A mother figure or leading lady figure who dominates everyone in the house. Susan Hayward does a grand job but it was all for naught in this rehash from the past.
Not a bad film folks, it's just that I've seen it before in other incarnations. Watch it to see how similar it looks and feels to a modern day Soap Opera. -
Blooeyz200118 October 2003This film wanted to cash in on the Lana Turner scandal involving her daughter murdering her boyfriend. Susan Hayward (somewhat of a hambone, but still great!) plays a San Francisco sculptor (with a thick Brooklyn accent) who's work is good only when she's sexually promiscuous. Bette Davis (just 10 years older than Hayward) plays Hayward's domineering, buttinsky mother. She's got a pot belly & wears a "white" George Washington wig that starts turning green as the film progresses. Mike ("Mannix") Connors plays Hayward's boozehound husband who wears more makeup than Hayward & Davis combined (it's disturbing because he looks like a corpse)! Joey Heatherton (20 at the time) plays the murdering "15" year old daughter of Hayward & Connors. She plays the part squinty-eyed, whiney, & child-like one minute, & sassy with a smart-mouth the next while smoking. This is an annoying, unlikable character! Part of the film is told in flashback, yet there's no difference anywhere to be seen from 15 years prior, or the present. Absolutely nothing changes, clothes, hair styles, the sets, etc. This is a great film for Susan Hayward & Bette Davis fans, & soap opera lovers, but I doubt anyone else can sit through this.
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carol-sparks1 February 2015Did anyone else think that that Susan Heyward was a little old to play this part, having babies, etc? Aren't she and Bette Davis close in age? I will say that Bette Davis has never looked better. She always had those beautiful eyes but she made an awesome silver haired fox in this movie. And how handsome the man playing the "husband" role. I've always liked that actor (name escapes me) but didn't realize what a wicked handsome man he was in those days!
I love the female players and love watching these classic movies, no matter how camp. But the selection of "Mother/daughter" struck me as odd.
I gravitate to the movies with these two actors. Strong women both. And I loved the fireworks in the movie. -
. . . deals with one of the most dreaded afflictions of the previous century, Hereditary Nymphomania. "You're not a woman--you're a disease!" Congressional Medal of Honor Winner Luke is forced to yell at his tart Rich Wife Valerie, who's indiscriminately Open Nightly. As Val takes on all comers in front of her impressionable young daughter Danny, the pivotal Bruce Dern-style scene from director Alfred Hitchcock's MARNIE is repeated. However, WHERE LOVE HAS GONE is far more explicit that Hitch's pulled punch, and also dispenses with the subsequent Reign of Boredom featuring red-tinted camera lenses. LOVE makes it clear that most if not all American men would stand in a line stretching around the block to have a go at Susan Hayward's Valerie, while MARNIE's Tippi Hedren would be lucky to attract ANY Yank to join Britain's Weird Al on his casting couch.
As the spawn of Corrupt Capitalist Plutocrat Bette Davis, Valerie's morals are as Deplorable as Iwanna Rump's. With Val's daughter Danny given over to Demonic Debauchery by Age 15, LOVE proves the necessity for a U.S. Constitutional Convention to REPEAL AND REPLACE that Rancid Racist 1700s Suicide Pact currently terrorizing all of us. This will allow the Red Commie KGB-controlled Rich People Party to be permanently outlawed and eradicated, just as Germany's Fourth Reich booted out the Nazis after World War Two. Lucifer's interchangeable Three C's--Communism, Capitalism, and Conservatism--will be banned in our New Constitution, as well as all Job-Killing Corporations (the Devil's Tools). Folks like Mrs. Hayden, Valerie, and Danny no longer will be allowed to corrupt or slay True Blue Loyal Patriotic Normal Union Label American Heroes such as Luke. If these Fat Cat One Per Centers fail to Self-Deport (taking a maximum of $16,000 Per Capita with them), the USA's New Founding Fathers will have to PURGE the laggards by Any and All Means Necessary. After a Seven Generation Cooling Off Period Up North, perhaps the weak genes Hot Pants Problem of Val and Danny will resolve itself. -
(Some Spoilers) Old money and high society sleaze make "Where Love Has Gone" one of the best of it's kind in how the other side lives loves and cheats on each other. War hero and USAAF fighter ace Major Luke Miller, Mike Conners, gets caught up with a world that even the trials and tribulations of the Second World didn't properly prepare him for.
In Phoenix Arizona discussing an upcoming project for the city Luke gets a call from San Francisco for him to fly right over in that there's trouble brewing for his fifteen year old daughter Daniell, or Dani, played by Joey Heatherton the real life daughter of TV's popular "Merry Mailman". It turns out that Dani was involved in a free for all between her mother Valerie Hayden Miller, Susan Hayward, and her mothers lover Richard Lazich. During the wild and hysterical slug-fest Dani ran through Richard with a knife killing him.
We soon realize that both Luke and Valerie have been divorced and it's their separation that caused Dani to drift into very wild and dangerous company that has caused her to lose control of both her emotions and actions. Valerie who had a strict upbringing by her mother Mrs. Gerald Hayden, Bette Davis, had let her daughter Dani grow up wild and free. This caused Dani to lead a life of wild sex as well as partying with much older men losing her virginity before she was 15 years old!
We get a long flashback of how Luke met Valerie, a world famous artist and sculptor, during WWII and how her mother Mrs. Hayden practically forced Valerie, even though she was in love with him in the first place, to marry Luke. Mrs. Hayden was the epitome of a nosy and intrusive mother-in-law making Luke's life a living hell controlling both him and his means of making an honest living. Mr. Haydens actions kept Luke from his love of building buildings for the state by having him blackballed out of the real-estate and architecture business.
Forcing a helpless and unemployed Luke to work for her building company Mrs. Hayden had the once proud and independent Luke Miller broken down to nothing more then an leach and moocher where he had to live off both his wife's and mother-in-laws money in order for him to survive. All this didn't help young Dani who growing up had no father to look up to with her dad Luke turning to the bottle for comfort and at the same time help make him forget what a failure he really was.
As we get back into the present, 1964, we see that Dani who's charged as a juvenile in Richard Lazichs death knows a lot more then she, and her mother, are willing to let out. It's the last ten or so minutes of the movie at Dani's trial that the awful and devastating truth comes out of what really happened that evening when Richard Lazich was stabbed to death. This shocking revelation that was so x-rated back then, we weren't even given the benefit to see it in a flashback, that it completely blew away Valerie as well as her mother Mrs. Hayden. This all lead ***SPOILER ALERT** the poor and emotionally destroyed Valerie Hayden Miller to rush back to her studio and do herself in the very same way her lover Richard Lazich was.
Too shocking and outrageous to mention even now some 40 years after it's release the movie "Where Love Has Gone" indescribable ending will leave you, like every one in it, sputtering with disbelief. In that something as shocking like that, the goings on between Valerie Dani and Richard Lazich, was even considered to be put into a film, as sleazy as it was, way back then.
The movie is actually based on the Lana Turner Johnny Stomponato affair back in April 1958 where Lana's 14 year old daughter Cheryl was convicted in Stomponato's, a notorious Los Angelas gangster, justifiable killing. In the movie "Where Love Has Gone" the final few minutes totally outdoes and eclipses whatever happened in real life between Lana Johnny and Cheryl by a wide country mile! -
vincentlynch-moonoi25 January 2011If evaluating a film were a question of a scales with the positives on one side, and the negatives on the other, on the positive sides of the scales you'd have the acting abilities of Susan Hayward and Bette Davis. On the negative side you'd have a potboiler of a script and the performance of the leading man -- Mike Connors, and the teen-aged Joey Heatherton. I was not familiar with this film, and within just a few minutes I thought how much the story reminded me of the true story of Lana Turner's daughter killing her mother's lover...then, after watching the film and reading about, I found out most people at the time assumed the same thing. There are a handful of actors -- Jack Nicholson is another example -- who I can watch and enjoy even in a lousy movie, just because I know their performances are going to be so interesting. Bette Davis and Susan Hayward have always been in that group, for me. So, I suffered through this film, just for the joy of their acting. In their confrontational scenes together, they sizzle! And can't you imagine Davis and Hayward being mother and daughter?
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planktonrules3 October 2011"Where Love Has Gone" is a bad movie. The characters are pretty much one-dimensional, the acting is about as subtle as a baseball at upside your head and the script is salacious and sleazy...yet, this film is incredibly entertaining because it's so over-the-top! Subtle, this movie ain't!! The film begins with a killing that I am sure was modeled after the true-life killing of Lana Turner's husband by her daughter from a previous marriage. Though the details aren't 100% certain, it sure bears a lot of similarity to the start of this film. It was a HUGE and very sensational story back in the 50s--and now the tale is being brought to the screen--in a story that has many, many changes from the original true tale.
The next portion of the film is a long flashback. Susan Hayward lives with her very rich and extremely controlling and manipulative mother (Bette Davis). She's very unhappy yet she doesn't leave...though she longs for change. When a guy comes into her life (Chuck Connors), Hayward is smitten. Why? Because when Davis tries to wrap him around her finger, he tells her to take her money and stuff it! However, he has no idea that this is what made Hayward love him.
Shortly after they marry, Connors' self-esteem is in the toilet. Behind his back, she made sure he'd fail in business and would be forced to work for her company. As a result of this, Connors is disheartened and starts to hit the bottle. And, because he's no longer the virile man who stood up to Davis, Hayward has contempt for him and his weakness--and their marriage fizzles. Soon, he's drunk all the time and she's whoring about with one boy-toy after another. Not surprisingly, they divorce--and the rest is history. These jerks apparently created the poor girl killer (Joey Heatherton) and the rest of the film is about the family trying to pick up the pieces. Who is best to raise this teen killer--the highly unstable and oversexed mother, the ex-alcoholic or the evil controlling mother? How it all ends is,....well....incredible! The plot idea isn't terrible. The problem is that the writing NEVER approaches subtlety or grace-and the ending is just WAAAY over the top!! It's full of screaming, sleaze and, well, a few more doses of sleaze! It's also hilariously preachy. The PRETENDS to be a morality tale to teach parents not to neglect their poor kids, but it's a very, very thin sort of veil for a bucket of steaming..., um,...soap. But it's also very entertaining and you can't keep your eyes off it--like a funny train wreck (if there could be such a thing). And, a lot like "Peyton Place".
By the way, if you care, DeForrest Kelley is also in the film in a supporting role. And, oddly, he comes off the best of any of them--playing the role like he's NOT a combination of constipated and intensely mad! -
williwaw24 April 2011Paramount Pictures assigned star Producer Joseph E Levine to bring the torrid best seller roman a clef of the Lana Turner Johnny Stompanato murder to the screen. Levine cast surefire box office queen Susan Hayward to play "Lana, and to play the other strong female role, the one and only Ms. Bette Davis. There was a long time interest to see these two great stars in a film. Directed by Edward Dymtryk the film is a powerhouse with great acting by Susan Hayward and Bette Davis. I wish they had cast another actor other than Mike Connors in the role of Hayward's lover and Ann Margret rather than Joey Heatheron. Ms. Hayward got top billing over Ms. Davis--the first time in her great career Bette Davis was billed under another great female star!-- and wore great stylish outfits by Edith Head. It is now well known that Bette Davis and Susan Hayward did not get along at all during filming. Susan Hayward was afraid of Bette's well known use of tricks and since Susan Hayward had both cast approval and script approval and top billing, had Bette Davis boxed in. No changes were allowed. In fairness, the script did need more juice and a tougher script would have benefited the talents of Susan Hayward nd Bette Davis. Bette Davis carped about Susan Hayward until her death, and Susan Hayward joined Joan Crawford, Miriam Hopkins on Bette's "hate list". (Soon to be joined by Faye Dunaway and Lillian Gish. Where Love Has Gone with top notch Paramount production values is an old fashioned film and is best seen to see two great movie stars Susan Hayward and Bette Davis!
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ma-cortes2 December 2020An adolescent , Joel Heatherton, is arrested for killing of her wife's current lover . As her divorced parents : Susan Hayward , Mike Connors, end up dragging the ordeal out in a murder and subsequent custody battle , as well as a lot of skeletons come out of their closets . Along the way a series of flashbacks are developed in which her mother called Valerie Hayden : Susan Hayward recalls her distressed marriage to a prestigious and upright army officer named !uke Miller : Mike Connors . As the teen stands trial for slashing her mummy's latest lover . While grandmother : Bette Davis and her daughter : Susan Hayward suffer a strong antagonism and intense dislike between them due to the rebel daughter accused for killing. "Where Love has Gone" goes where no motion picture has ever dared go before !
This soapy picture is based on a popular best seller by Harold Robbins and adapted by notorious screenwriter John Michael Hayes, as the novel as the movie are based on the infamous case Johnny Stompanato/Lana Turner happened in 1958 . From the team that brought you "The Carpetbaggers" , made in similar style , dealing with an explosive and surprising story of the violent World where a mother and her teenage daughter compete for the same lover . This twisted story seems to be been suggested by the real life Lana Turner , Johnny Stompanato and her daugher who stabbed her mum's fiance to death in the bedroom of Turner's Beverly Hills home . Main cast is pretty good . Susan Hayward is nice as the nymphomaniac mother , she gives a fine performance , though overacting at times. From her Oscarized acting in "I Want to Live ¡" Susan was deemed to be one of the best Hollywood actresses . While Mike Connonrs performs decently the unfortunate husband , an Army Major who becomes involved in problems due to his ex-wife and the troublesome daughter . Joey Heatherton plays a teenager daughter who kills her nympho mother's current boyfriend . The great Bette Davis is the manipulative grand dame grandmother . They are well accompanied by a familiar plethora of secondaries , such as : DeForest Kelley, Jane Greer , George Macready , Anne Seymour , Willis Bouchey , Walter Reed , Whit Bissell, Anthony Caruso, James Bell , among others .
This Soap Opera motion picture was regularly directed by Hollywood craftsman Edward Dmytrick . He was a good artisan who made a large number of films in a long career and some of them considered to be classic movies . However , Edward's later movies tended to be on the sluggish side and had little success . Edward was a member of the communist party and he was denounced before HUAC . He was one of the so-called Hollywood Ten , though , eventually he became an informer and was panned by the establishment . Dmytryck made films of all kinds of genres as Thriller , Western , Drama , Wartime , outstanding in Noir Film . As he directed Western : Shalako , Alvarez Kelly , Broken Lance, Warlike : Anzio , The Caine Mutiny , Hitler's Children, Young Lions , Back to Bataan , Drama : The Carpetbaggers , Mirage , The Human Factor , The Left Hand of God , The Mountain, Till the End of Time , Crossfire , Her First Romance, Blue Beard Tender Comrade , End of affair , Cornered , and several others . Rating 5,5/10. Average but passable . The picture will appeal to Susan Hayward and Bette Davis fans . -
Some plush technicolor photography and a halfway decent song sung over the opening credits by Jack Jones, are the only compensations you get for watching this lurid soap-opera. That and the spectacle of watching SUSAN HAYWARD and BETTE DAVIS debase themselves for even agreeing to appear in this tabloid Harold Robbins mess based loosely on an incident in Lana Turner's life (the stabbing of her gangster boyfriend by daughter Cheryl).
It evoked some of the wittiest putdowns when reviews blasted it mercilessly. One in particular went something like (paraphrasing): "Sitting in the ugliest chair in Hollywood, Bette Davis raises her teacup and says, 'Somewhere along the way the world has lost all of its charm and good taste'." A good quote to sum up the qualities lacking in this film version of the best-seller.
The movie also features JOEY HEATHERTON, JANE GREER and MIKE CONNORS, but they are relegated to the background whenever Hayward and Davis share a scene.
As potboilers go, this is one of the worst of its kind. -
This movie is regarded today as an unintentional camp classic. Having seen Edward Dymitryk's black comedy "Bluebeard", I think the director might have been in on the joke, but I'm not so sure anybody else was. As others have said, this is loosely based on the real-life Hollywood scandal where Lana Turner's teenage daughter Cheryl Crane stabbed Turner's gangster boyfriend Johnny Stompanato to death in a domestic violence incident. Somehow this movie manages to make the real incident even sleazier by positing an actual sexual relationship between the daughter and the gangster. Susan Hayward gives a very earnest (and, thus, unintentionally campy) performance as the Lana Wood character. She's made a scupltress here rather than an actress, which is hilarious because, while a vapid bimbo can be an actress, it usually takes some depth to be a sculptor. But even more hilarious her manager (Dr. McCoy--I mean DeForrest Kelley) claims that her "talent" is based on her behaving like an "alley-cat". Well, the real Lana Turner could reportedly alley-cat with the best of them, but it never seemed to do much for her acting.
Speaking of alley-cats though, Joey Heatherton is severely miscast as the daughter. Even if she could act, Heatherton was 20 then and looked even older. (They should have cast Tuesday Weld, but a good performance would have stuck out like a sore thumb here). Heatherton was a minor sex symbol of the era, who could fill out a mean sweater and reputedly slept her way through the entire Rat Pack. I did find her kinda sexy, but I also kinda wanted to strangle her (OK, not just kinda) because she has a horrible screechy, petulant voice that make nails on a chalkboard seem sonorous (she's slightly better in "Bluebeard" where she at least busts out her bust after aurally torturing the poor viewers for the entire movie). And speaking of torture, Betty Davis gives a performance as Hayward's domineering mother that somehow manages to seem both incredibly hammy and lethargically phoned-in.
The male actors really don't have a chance against three generations of scenery-chewing harpies, but they try. DeForrest Kelley gets to earnestly deliver some real unintentional howlers (between this and "Night of the Lepus" maybe he should have stuck to the small screen). Mike Connor's plays the nice-guy father/ex-husband--a character who was conspicuously absent in the real-life Turner tragedy. This is not as enjoyable as "Bluebeard" (Heatherton and her sweaters really don't make up for a whole bevy of naked Europe-babes), but if you like unitentional camp look no further. -
NeelyO22 October 1999A thinly-veiled retelling of the sordid Lana Turner / Cheryl Crane / Johnny Stompanato affair, this potboiler features a bevy of hilarious performances (Susan Hayward as a nympho sculptress leads the pack, but Bette Davis and Joey Heatherton are certainly in the running).
Worth viewing just for the scene where DeForest "Bones" Kelley calls Hayward "Sculptress! Pagan! Alleycat!" -
edwagreen28 March 2006Danny has some very serious emotional hangups. Seems that she plunged a knife into her mom's boyfriend. Was it to save her mother? Was it out of a jealous rage?
With a film starring Bette Davis and Susan Hayward, you know that the fireworks are there and they sure are. Nevertheless, they are well matched by a terrific performance by Joey Heatherton as the disturbed teenager. What happened to Heatherton after this film? She was a fine dramatic actress with great potential.
Davis is her usual overbearing mother and has created lots of turmoil for the seriously emotionally unstable Hayward. Both are like sticks of dynamite in the scenes that they appear opposite each other. (In her autobiography Davis lashed out at Hayward stating that she said her lines and would immediately leave the set at the end of the scene.)
In a strong supporting performance, Anne Seymour plays the psychiatrist who tries to help the young Danny. Remember Seymour? Usually a grade-B actress, she gave a fine supporting performance as Broderick Crawford's faithful but neglected wife, Lucy, in the 1949 Oscar winner "All the King's Men."
An emotionally charged film that brings out all the stops. Mike Connors costars as Hayward's ex. An ultimate crowd pleaser due to the fine acting of Davis and Hayward. A downer at the end but still worthwhile seeing.