Combining the astringent pessimism of The Big Knife with themacabre fantasy of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Legend of LylahClare is probably the most personal, most extreme, but certainly themost poorly received of all Robert Aldrich's films on Hollywood. KimNovak, in a reprise of her dual Vertigo role, here plays a youngactress, Elsa Brinkman, who is hired by director Lewis Zarkan (PeterFinch) to reenact the life of his screen-goddess wife who died undermysterious circumstances on their wedding night some twenty yearsearlier. As she becomes increasingly involved in the part, Elsa beginsto exhibit an intimate knowledge of Lylah Clare, essentially taking onher spirit and, eventually, her misfortunes-including the love ofZarkan. Though the story seems "workable" enough, it wasAldrich's treatment of it that accounted at once for the artisticinterest of the film and its dubious commercial potential. StephenFarber wrote in Film Quarterly, "It is...flamboyant, wildlyexaggerated in both plot and character, stylized to the point ofmadness...The film is about the garish, swollen Hollywood...of our mostextravagant nightmares." And Fred Camper wrote for the Chicago ArtInstitute: "(Aldrich) sees Hollywood as being totally withoutvalues...and (this) is generally expressed through a visual style whichundercuts any consistent way of seeing space."