Word: hardeman
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...industrial melodrama, a product not known to sell many tickets, the thing starts out simply enough: Loren Hardeman Sr., 86, founder of the Bethlehem Motor Co. back in the heroic days of car manufacturing, is tired of vegetating down in Florida. He wants to make his comeback by manufacturing "the Betsy," a sort of Model T cum Volkswagen for the '70s, ecologically sound, energy conserving, sensible. He hires a stud race-car driver, one Angelo Perino (Tommy Lee Jones), to honcho the project back at the factory, sneaking it by Loren Hardeman III, the old man's grandson...
...framing device. What really interests Novelist Harold Robbins and the kind of people who make adaptations of his work is sex. The synopsis maker starts to get into trouble here because the bed hopping is so preposterously cross-generational. Angelo begins by having it off with the younger Hardeman's mistress, Lady Ayres (names with metaphorical overtones seem to be a Robbins specialty), as a kind of warm-up for his affair with Betsy-not the car, but the fourth-generation Hardeman (Kathleen Seller) after whom the vehicle is named. For a delicious moment or two later...
KATHERINE ROSS, decked out in plushy '30s garb, unsuspectingly climbs the stairs of Hardeman Manor. A lavish wedding reception is in full swing downstairs, and she has been sent to fetch her new father-in-law, Loren Hardeman (Laurence Olivier), who is late in coming down. Softly calling his name, she opens the door to his room and freezes. So does the audience. Propped up against the side of the bed is a petite French maid, her skirt over her head and her legs wrapped around the greatest actor in the world--the first director of Great Britain's National...
...solemnity of his touch earned unintentional laughs even from the audience I saw the film with, an unsophisticated bunch who wanted porn instead of corn. Petrie didn't even attempt to endow the cars with a mystical beauty that would explain the attraction and passion of men like Loren Hardeman Sr. Instead he gives us so many walks with beautiful girls in clothes that look like they're going to swish off against the beautiful scenery. At least John Barry's score has an attractive lilt, and the "Love Theme From The Betsy," if that's what it's called...
...projects that will not mock the accomplishments of a heroic career. Maybe a legion of his fans could from a club to intercept and screen all scripts before they reach him, discarding Harold Robbins and Ira Levin in the process. But then again, in accepting the role of Loren Hardeman, Olivier accepted the challenge of a role unlike any he had done before. At age 70, Laurence Olivier still has enough daring to teach us all a lesson...