A WOMAN FOR ALL MEN can best be described as a psychosexual drama in a slow-moving mould. It's essentially a love triangle between old-timer Keenan Wynn, his sinister new wife, and his son, played by '70s favourite Andrew Robinson. It soon transpires that the sexually-charged young woman has more than a few tricks up her sleeve, bedding all and sundry and eventually driving the men in her life to murder. Sadly, this plays out in a limited way, with an extremely slow-moving narrative and little in the way of interesting incident. For the first two thirds it feels like a typical skin flick, nothing more, and only really picks up towards the climax, but even then by not very much.

This movie begins with a beautiful woman by the name of "Karen" (Judith Brown) marrying an older man named "Walter McCoy" (Keenan Wynn) and subsequently driving home with him to meet his adult daughter "Cynthia" (Patty Bodeen) and his two sons, "Steve" (Andrew Robinson) and "Paul" (Peter Hooten). It then becomes known that Walter is a multi-millionaire who owns a construction company and is extremely selfish and over-bearing to everyone. Karen, as it turns out, was a high-class Las Vegas prostitute who never loved Walter and has married him only because he is rich. Needless to say, both Paul and Cynthia suspect that Karen is nothing but a golddigger and they now feel threatened by her influence with Walter and the probable impact on their inheritance. Steve, on the other hand, becomes attracted to Karen and discovers that Karen is equally attracted to him. They eventually have an affair which threatens everything. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a rather standard film-noir which was greatly enhanced by the presence of Judith Brown and some decent mystery toward the end. It isn't a great movie by any means but I didn't think it was necessarily that bad either and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Drive-in movie director and TV grad Arthur Marks teamed up with a one-time big name screenwriter Robert Blees (some classics in the '50s) to produce A WOMAN FOR ALL MEN, an interesting case study in movie failure.Before the advent of video I used to see a lot of unreleased (and unreleasable) movies: never acquired by a distributor; stuck in a lab due to non-payment of fees, or unfinished in some way. It was fun to analyze what went wrong -here is a similar case (typical of the video era where old films are resurrected rather indiscriminately) of a complete film that just isn't hitting on all cylinders.Blees' overwritten script is the main problem -it has dubious plot twists, especially in the later reels, that would have been blue-penciled at an early stage by some staffer at a major studio. But this was produced by Blees with director Arthur Marks at the tail-end of the life of latter's home base General Film Corp., and emerges intact, warts and all.I never liked the Marks films I saw in cinemas 40 years ago: specifically I went to every Pam Grier and Fred Wlliamson release, even amateurish ones like Fred's "Adios Amigo". Marks directed my two least favorite (out of dozens), both very disappointing when brand-new: Friday FOSTER (Pam's first "clean" and thereby pointless movie, lacking her requisite nudity); and BUCKTOWN, utterly old-fashioned and lame despite teaming the two greats. In both cases production value was substituted for gutsiness.In this completely different movie he makes the same mistakes: no edge, no sleaze (the film seems made for TV with only minor cuts warranted) and a misguided quest for respectability. Casting is awful: on the DVD as bonus, Marks in an interview regrets not having a star, and it really shows, as attractive Judy Brown in the femme fatale leading role is miscast -she's an Eve Arden type (as styled here), not a leading lady. It would be like putting Eve Plumb or the great Amy Madigan in as a sex symbol -they're character actresses.Similarly Andy Robinson, fresh off a career peak as Clint Eastwood's DIRTY HARRY nemesis, is unappealing from the git-go, in a leading role where he's supposed to start off somewhat sympathetic before becoming the baddie. As his dad, Keenan Wynn is embarrassing, overplaying the already domineering (as written) role as the 100% mean patriarch so as to ruin the film early on - I missed him twirling his white mustache as Snidely Whiplash. Peter Hooten as Andy's brother is literally lost in the shuffle as Blees' script has way too many characters.Marks is proud of his repetitious use of a grandfather clock - a hoary and cornball device that sticks out like a sore thumb in later reels -he lectures us in his interview on suspense but doesn't have a clue. The grade-Z resolution of the drama with twist ending is horrendous, as the script's (almost) only sympathetic character (I'm leaving out Wynn's daughter, whose role also gets lost) turns out to be a deranged murderer.It's a case of handing in merely adequate (technically - in-focus, no bloopers) dailies, proper coverage, but forgetting to put some life into a picture, resulting in a dull, stillborn product that no reasonable sub-distributor or regional exchange would want to book back in the day. With the advent of VHS and now DVD (plus streaming soon to take over completely), any old artifact is deemed potentially interesting to viewers with low (or no) standards. That perhaps 95% of what is euphemistically put on a pedestal as new "independent" features is crap doesn't help matters.

Compact but talented cast headlined by sexploitation starlet Judy Brown as "the woman" brought home from one of cantankerous millionaire Keenan Wynn's frequent Las Vegas excursions, only to be mistreated by Wynn's drunken abuse and jealousy. His sons soon discover she's 'too much woman for any one man' (quote, unquote) and the web of seduction, murder and double cross is spun. But just who is the spider? Notable in the cast are Andy Robinson and Peter Hooten playing the sons, while Alex Rocco has a small role as a police detective. There's not much prohibited content to warrant the R rating; a lot of semi-nude embraces, vaguely transparent negligees and soap opera dialogue but the film still manages to look like a 70's style loop. The trashy wallpaper, cheap sets and stage decor give an authentic render, but there's often too much talk, and too little action to sustain the interest.Still, it's good to see Wynn in both a dominant and vulnerable characterisation, showcasing some acting talents he rarely had the opportunity to display in the latter part of his career (even if his screen time is limited).