On 2009-08-25 Sharon Levenson, new jersey wrote: ...to have agreed to star in a clunker like´Scandal Sheet´..Burt Lancaster made many outstanding films in his day..´Elmer Gantry´ and ´Atlantic City´ come to mind as well as´judgement At Nuremburg´ and´Sweet Smell Of Success´..It is perhaps his association with this last film that gave producers Roger Birnbaum and Irwin Winkler the idea to cast Lancaster as Harold Fallen,the manipulative,odious publisher of a tabloid newspaper that delights in nasty headlines that trash celebrities..Lancaster as usual does his very best,and his take as Harold Fallen is the only reason to watch this film..
For some unexplained reason Fallen has it in for recovering alcoholic actor Ben Rowan..Rowan,as played by Robert Urich,comes off as a lightweight,and one wonders why Fallen is so willing and eager to destroy him..These questions seem to be at the core of the script and yet they are never even addressed..Rowan is married to actress Meg North(who is played by Lauren Hutton)...She being the more bankable of the two is signed to do a 25 million picture but refuses unless her husband also stars..The producer of the film brings up not only Rowan´s alcoholism but his heart and liver problems,making him sound as if he is at death´s doors..One look at the healthy,boyish,obviously not sick Urich makes one wonder about the casting choices for´Scandal sheet´..Anyway Meg North says she will underwrite her husband´s steep insurance costs with her own hefty salary for starring in the proposed flic,on the condition that her husband is not to know of this.
Enter Helen Grant(Pamela Reed),good friend of Movie star Meg North,and a good but struggling writer down on her luck.Harold Fallen,determined,for whatever unknown reason,to destroy Ben Rowan,now uses Helen Grant to do so..
Actor Peter Jurasik plays Fallen´s slimeball right hand man with such skill that he almost steals the picture away from Lancaster,but once the two decide to use the Pamela Reed charecter to ruin Ben Rowan the script nose-dives into the gutter..All of the twists and turns that occur make one wonder why Fallen is so deadset upon ruining Rowan but,as mentioned earlier,this question is never addressed..Scandal involving celebrities has always been of interest to many americans,and the supermarket tabloids do do a brisk business because of this interest,but just being a drunk hardly seems the sort of scandal that would galvanize a tabloid publisher or make him go to such great lengths to destroy a career.
David Lowell Rich directed,which,in the case of´Scandal Sheet´ more or less meant that he let the actors do pretty much as they pleased so long as they got thier lines straight.
Not anyone´s finest hour,´Scandal Sheet´ ranks at the very bottom of the Burt Lancaster film catalouge.. And summed up by saying Burt must have REALLY needed the money.... Currently Scandal Sheet has an overall rating of 4 over 10.
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