Love Has Many Faces begins with a body washed up on the shores of a beautiful beach in Acapulco. The body is that of a young man with a bracelet on his wrist that can be linked back to Kit Jordan (Lana Turner). The bracelet says, "Love is Thin Ice," something Kit believes in firmly. She's been married several times, is wealthy, and is currently married to Pete Jordan (Cliff Robertson). Acapulco is loaded with Beach Boys, but not of the singing variety. No, more of the gigolo variety. Pete used to be one himself before hooking up with Kit. The dead boy on the beach who was having an affair with Kit was also one. And there's another, older one, Hank Walker (Hugh O'Brian), who's made a career out of it and plans to retire rich off of middle aged women's money, like Margot (Ruth Roman). The final wrinkle comes in the form of the dead boy's girlfriend, Carol Lambert (Stefanie Powers), who shows up to find out how her boyfriend came to be a corpse on the beach.
If all this sounds like the setup to a great crime-thriller-mystery, it's not. The dead boy is nothing more than a MacGuffin to get the plot going and the plot is nothing more than all those characters bedding each other and scheming, getting jealous, and knocking each other down. And they get to do it all on location, in Acapulco.
Lana Turner was entering the golden years of her career by this point. She was only in her mid-forties but by Hollywood's sexist standards, she was old and obsolete. Still, this is exactly the kind of movie made for someone like Turner. Soap operas really were her forte and a young Stefanie Powers can't outmatch her in acting, style, or grace. Turner looks great and has great chemistry with Robertson. Robertson, a great actor, doesn't stretch himself too much and, in the end, it's Hugh O'Brian as the older gigolo who gives the best performance of the movie. Out of everyone, his character is by far the most captivating.
Virginia Grey and Ruth Roman appear to be having a wonderful time in their small, supporting roles as two middle-aged women wooed by the younger gigolos on the beach. Roman is particularly entranced by Hank and Hank makes no secret that his favors are bought and sold. Roman doesn't seem to care.
The movie was directed by Alexander Singer, a childhood friend of Stanley Kubrick. In fact, Singer's first cinematographer job was on a short film directed by Kubrick, Day of the Fight (1951). Although Singer would spend decades behind the camera, it was rarely for feature films. Most of his work was in television where he flourished.
Love Has Many Faces was one of the last of its kind. An old-fashioned soap opera that would soon be almost entirely relegated to television. As the '70s came upon the cinematic world, stories like this were made more and more for cable outlets, not theatrical release. Unsurprisingly, Turner ended up doing a great deal of her later work on TV, where primetime soap operas flourished. But this lesser known Turner film is actually one of her best and, by far, one of the most beautiful to watch, especially on a cold, rainy day when from the silver screen, Acapulco beckons.
Director: Alexander Singer
Screenplay: Marguerite Roberts
Producer: Jerry Bresler
Music: David Raksin
Cinematography: Joseph Ruttenberg
Film Editing: Alma Macrorie
Art Direction: Alfred Sweeney
Set Decoration: Noldi Schreck
Costume Design: Edith Head
Cast: Lana Turner (Kit Jordan), Cliff Robertson (Pete Jordan), Hugh O'Brian (Hank Walker), Ruth Roman (Margot Eliot), Stefanie Powers (Carol Lambert), Virginia Grey (Irene Talbot), Ron Husmann (Chuck Austin), Enrique Lucero (Lieutenant Riccardo Andrade), Carlos Montalbán (Don Julian), Jaime Bravo (Manuel Perez)
By Greg Ferrara
