Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson play Mr. and Mrs. Gregory, a couple who are writing a biography of a famous silent film star, Lorna Love. Apparently decades before, Mr. Gregory's father had an affair with Love but ended up leaving her....and the son is really fascinated with the lady. However, during their research they find some contradictory things--some folks thought she was practically the Devil herself and another said she was terrific! In addition, they find various Satanic paraphernalia about the Love mansion as they stay there as well as learning about Lorna's guru, Father Eternal Fire. What also is there is a weird glass coffin in which the dead Ms. Love resides! Weird, huh? Well, also weird are an attempt on the life of Mrs. Gregory as well as her husband becoming bizarrely infatuated with the dead woman! What's going on here?This film suffers from a bad cliché, as Robert Wagner plays the son as well as the father in flashback scenes. The notion of a father and son who are identical is something you see in some TV shows or films, but it's rather ridiculous. Also ridiculous is much of the movie and the plot is just strange in so many ways. It also didn't help that Lorna looked nothing like a silent film star but like a woman right out of the 1970s...SOME effort to make her look like a silent era lady would have made sense. Overall, it's a very, very strange and goofy film...one that left me confused and annoyed because it sure could have been better.

"Joel Gregory" (Robert Wagner) and his wife "Donna" (Kate Jackson) are writing a book on a former movie star by the name of "Lorna Love" (Marianna Hill) who captivated audiences with her sex appeal before dying in the prime of her life. To help them with this project they are given permission to stay in Lorna's former mansion to collect more information pertaining to their research. What they soon discover is that Lorna spent a great deal of money to hire a specialist in the occult who could give her immortality along with her lover--who just happens to have been the father of Joel. Soon mysterious things begin to happen to both Joel and Donna which not only threatens their marriage but also their sanity and their lives. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was a fairly entertaining mystery film which was greatly limited by the made-for-television format. Additionally, while it had some suspense here and there, it seemed somewhat subdued in nature as well. All in all though, I suppose it was an okay movie and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

A biographer and his wife move into the old Hollywood mansion of 1930s movie star Lorna Love, who died at a young age and whose body lies in state on the property--embalmed and behind glass. The couple is writing a book on Lorna and want to be close to her spirit, but get more than they bargained for (surely other books about such a world famous star had been written before, but the movie doesn't take details like that into consideration). The agenda here is to have the writer, whose own father once had a torrid affair with Lorna, become hypnotized by the girl's portrait and turn against his wife, all while someone dressed in black is lurking around causing trouble. Tacky TV-movie from the prolific producing team of Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, here working with a fifth-rate script, a cheap rehash of 1968's "The Legend of Lylah Clare" (itself a mishmash of movie memories). Kate Jackson runs from room to room in the mansion calling out for husband Robert Wagner, who isn't doing any writing; Sylvia Sidney is the faithful housekeeper, still on staff in the empty house; and Joan Blondell is a friend from the old days who hints that Lorna and she were involved in witchcraft. The sepia-toned flashbacks are well done, though Marianna Hill is all wrong as Lorna Love (she's too modern), and James Barnett's teleplay is full of dead ends and deadly talk. A twist at the finish line brings up more questions than Barnett or director E.W. Swackhamer could ever hope to answer, while Wagner's book (a MacGuffin, as it turns out) appears to be permanently shelved.

While two of those films in my summary are all-time classics and the other one is a camp classic, this one won't fit into any category other than bad 70's TV movie of the week where a fictional 30's legend has become the subject of research by a married couple (Robert Wagner and Kate Jackson, how more 70's can you get?) for a book and possible movie. Wagner's look-alike father was once involved with the late legend whose portrait dominates the Beverly Hills mansion she lived in and whose body apparently lies in permanent state at the mausoleum where she intended to remain beautiful forever, much like "She who must be obeyed".The problem with Lorna Love is that she looks nothing like any 30's love goddess, especially any of the tragic figures who died early on. Her whole style is 60's schlock, and with Marianna Hill playing the part in flashbacks, newly filmed movie clips and dream sequences, it totally defuses any indication that she would have out-done Jean Harlow, Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford or even Dorothy Lamour who plays a rival here, seen filming a coffee commercial then telling both Wagner and Jackson how evil Love really was. Hill is never convincing in this part, and at one point, is filmed looking more like a department store mannequin than a human being, grossly made up and seriously badly acted in movies which are supposed to take place during the silent era and early sound era.The cameos of 30's stars are more than welcome, with Lamour still gorgeous even without wearing a sarong, Joan Blondell totally outrageous as her fan club president who has an obvious obsession with the dead star, and John Carradine as her former director who was destroyed when no studio would hire him after Lorna had him blackballed. "Maude's" Bill Macy is briefly seen as Wagner and Jackson's agent. Veteran 30's leading lady Sylvia Sidney plays Lorna's all-knowing housekeeper, a mysterious woman who says little but drops enough hints to give away the plot twist at the end. A few scary moments including one where Jackson is locked in a bathroom with leaking gas are intense, but the continuous shot of a man in an obvious Satanistic robe is just plain silly and never resolved after a scene where Carradine sees this character during a rainstorm.The 1970's had a lot of nostalgia with fond looks back at the past, several remakes of classic movies, and biographical looks back at stars like Gable and Lombard, W.C. Fields, a young Judy Garland, Bogart and Bacall and Rita Hayworth. This fictional Hollywood melodrama never captures the magic that was old Hollywood and ends up being more of a curiosity piece because of its inclusion of the older stars. The same theme would be better done without the horror elements when Billy Wilder went back down "Sunset Boulevard" movie with the underrated "Fedora".