The one scene I could remember from seeing "The Goddess" just too many years ago was the "cat scene" where Patty Duke as the lonely, unloved little girl whispers to the cat "I got promoted today".She and her mother have come to visit Uncle George, her mother hoping to dump Emily Ann so she can get away and have some fun - "after all I'm only 26". Twelve years later (1942) she is still there - a religious fanatic and Emily Ann (Stanley) is the town "tramp" who desperately dreams of Hollywood fame. When she and some friends run across a drunk who just happens to be the mixed up son of a Hollywood star, she sees her opportunity but it only leads to frustration as the first part ends with Emily, a young mother, voicing the very words her mother said many years before - that she is not ready to be a mother and she just wants to have fun.I also was unfamiliar with Kim Stanley but by the end (on viewing it recently) I was wondering who was this superlative actress. Marilyn Monroe may have been the character's inspiration but as played by Miss Stanley that was unimportant. Her extraordinary performance made the role her own and seemed to encapsulate all the hard luck, unloved actresses - Monroe, Garland etc. I do agree Stanley did look a bit old but the magic in her performance was like a sky rocket, especially in the scene where she is describing her inner most dreams to a boy who has only asked her out because he thinks she is "easy" - "but I think Ann Sheridan is a true beauty, don't you think?". He doesn't care, the same as he doesn't care when she is explaining that the only reason she has that "reputation" is because she wants to be liked. Heart breaking stuff!!That's why I think the film works best in the first half. There was a continuity - the unloved little girl becomes the promiscuous teenager who then marries and becomes her mother all over again. Unlike her mother she does escape to Hollywood and the next part finds her an up and coming starlet contemplating marriage to an over the hill boxer (Lloyd Bridges is very good). The second part falls down a bit, suddenly she is the Goddess, at the top of her profession but already having suffered a severe breakdown and now has her mother living with her. Mother (great performance by Betty Lou Holland) is even more remote and now only has time for God but Emily doesn't care, only knowing that she needs a mother's love and security. When Emily finds religion and her mother leaves, that paves the way for a descent into madness.A very strong film remembered for Kim Stanley's powerhouse performance.

I'm ashamed to confess I didn't know the first thing about Kim Stanley when I saw "The Goddess" Now, she is someone who lives within my psyche. To say that she's remarkable seems feeble. She is, something else, something more, unique! Her character through her got into my system and stayed there. The sadness of the story, written by Paddy Chaeffsky no less, harbors something prophetic. I can't quite put my finger in it but this was 1958 and talks about things we really start to understand now. I'm writing this review in 2010. John Cromwell (Of Human Bondage) directed, Steven Hill (Law and Order, Lloyd Bridges (Jeff's and Beau's dad), Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker) lend extraordinary support. For lovers of great acting. You can't afford to miss this extraordinary experience.

*Marty,* *Network,* and... *The Goddess*? I was looking forward to viewing this film by Paddy Chayevsky, who I admire, and whose script was nominated for an academy award. But it plays like an adaptation of a much richer novel, or perhaps a stage play. On the plus side: Chayevsky assumes that the viewer has a certain level of intelligence, a courtesy not always offered by Hollywood. Characters deliver long, well-written speeches, trusting the viewer both to pay attention and to draw more inferences than than most modern *or* classic films allow. That said, the story feels undeveloped,as if Chayevsky was asking us to his work for him. An important character undergoes a religious conversion without explanation. Marriages end off-scene. The film moves forward choppily, superimposing the year ("1930," "1942") on screen to ground us -- but not very successfully. The camera is on Stanley for almost the entire film and very few performers can sustain our interest for that long -- at least not without a very strong script. To end on another positive note: a studio exec acknowledges that Stanley's character isn't very pretty, but that she has warmth and sensuality with which to engage her audience. The same might be said of Bette Davis or even (gasp) Meryl Streep. I appreciated that bit of honesty.

Kim Stanley was the great interpreter of William Inge at the time he was the most successful playwright in America. On Broadway she played Millie, the younger sister, in his "Picnic" and Cheri in "Bus Stop" -- ironically, the role played in the movie by Monroe, the model for "The Goddess." Cast in "The Goddess", Stanley is clearly too old for the part, and not cinematically 'beautiful' enough. What she does bring to the role is an astonishing talent based on flawless technique and an emotional sensitivity that both made her career and destroyed it. I ran across the movie by accident when I was about 12 years old, and Stanley's performance has continued to haunt me for 36 years. The making of "The Goddess" was so emotionally agonizing that Stanley essentially fled from the movie business. How brilliant she would have been in dozens of roles that won acclaim for lesser talents. Many years later she played Jessica Lange's mother in "Frances" -- a similar story of a glamourous and tragic film star. She told Lange, "As soon as this movie's over, do a comedy. Immediately. Any comedy you can get your hands on." That comedy was "Tootsie" which won Lange her first Osacr.