Lola (1970 film)

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Lola
Lola (1969 film).jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Richard Donner
Written by Norman Thaddeus Vane
Produced byClive Sharp
Starring Charles Bronson
Orson Bean
Honor Blackman
Michael Craig
Paul Ford
Jack Hawkins
Trevor Howard
Lionel Jeffries
Kay Medford
Robert Morley
Susan George
Cinematography Walter Lassally
Edited by Norman Wanstall
Music by John Scott
Production
companies
World Film Services
San Marco P.S.A.
Distributed by The Rank Organisation (UK)
American International Pictures (USA)
Release dates
  • 15 January 1970 (1970-01-15)(Premiere)
  • 15 February 1970 (1970-02-15)(London)
[1]
Running time
98 minutes
CountriesItaly
United Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Lola (originally released as Twinky, also known as London Affair) is a 1970 romantic comedy drama film directed by Richard Donner and starring Charles Bronson and Susan George. [2] [3] It was written by Norman Thaddeus Vane. The London section of the film features a number of well known British actors in cameo roles.

Contents

Plot

Scott, a thirty-eight-year-old writer of pornographic novels has fallen in love with a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl whilst living in a riverside apartment in London. Her parents are horrified. When Scott finds his visa to remain in Britain has expired, the couple get married in Scotland and move to New York, where his parents live. His parents are also horrified. Scott's brother Hal, an incompetent lawyer and literary agent, pressures Scott to deliver his next, and overdue, novel.

Despite the marriage, New York state law says that Lola must go to school. Tensions arise when she participates in a demonstration outside her high school. Attempting to drag her out of the crowd, Scott inadvertently punches a police officer, is arrested and sentenced to thirty days in jail. While there, Lola leaves Scott's parents house and secures an expensive apartment, also on the river, at a cheap price. After he is released early, Scott struggles to write his novel in order to earn a living, as Lola becomes a distraction in their apartment. After a bitter row, she runs away and after a search of several days is found by Scott hiding in the cellar. The reunited couple go to bed. When Scott awakes, Lola is gone, leaving only a farewell message on their blackboard. Scott is left alone with the cat. Meanwhile, Lola apparently returns to her old life with her school friends.

Cast

Production

The idea and script for the film was written by Norman Thaddeus Vane, [4] which author Simon Richter believes was the key force behind the film. [5] Vane's script has been suggested to be somewhat autobiographical, as it mirrors the author's own marriage to 16 year-old model Sarah Caldwell, whom he married in the mid-1960s when he was 38. [6]

The film was shot on location in London and New York City.[ citation needed ]

Music

The title song and two other original numbers are composed and performed by Jim Dale. [7]

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Metropole Victoria in London on 15 January 1970. It opened in London on 15 February 1970. [1]

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "With a frenzied assortment of fashionable tricks (frozen frames, slow motion runs, speeded-up bicycle rides), an insistent pop score, a gratuitous hippy party and yards of exposed teenage thigh, Richard Donner drives what one hopes will be the final nail into the coffin of the Swinging Sixties. The film is predicated on the irresistible appeal of its nymphet heroine and on the assumption that her first fumblings towards maturity are of riveting psychological interest; but since she is surrounded by a family of cutely kooky characters ... it is hard to take problems seriously, the more so since the unbelievably fey dialogue with which she is saddled ...does little to elucidate the processes of the adolescent mind at work. Susan George, who has elsewhere shown herself an actress of some promise, can do little with the part which, with the camera moving in for close-up after close-up of her tossing blonde hair, takes on the nightmare quality of a ninety-minute shampoo commercial." [8]

The Radio Times Guide to Films gave the film 1/5 stars, writing: "Richard Donner directs this abysmal relic from Swinging London that not even its distinguished supporting cast can salvage. Susan George plays a 16-year-old schoolgirl who elopes with an American novelist played by Charles Bronson. Both sets of parents are appalled. The audience is, too." [9]

The Contemporary North American Film Directors: A Wallflower Critical Guide state that the film exploited "the sexual freedom of its era", describing Susan George's character as a "naive young nymphet". [10]

Leslie Halliwell said: "Dreary sex comedy drama, the fag end of London's swinging sixties." [11]

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References

  1. 1 2 "Twinky (advert)". Kine Weekly . 10 January 1970.
  2. ↑ "Lola". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 11 March 2024.
  3. ↑ Mark Deming (2014). "Twinky (1969)". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times . Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  4. ↑ Ottoson, Robert (1985). American International Pictures: A Filmography. Garland. p. 277. ISBN   978-0-8240-8976-4.
  5. ↑ Richter, Simon (21 August 2013). Women, Pleasure, Film: What Lolas Want. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 31. ISBN   978-1-137-30973-0.
  6. ↑ Weisberg, Sam (18 January 2012). ""Club Life" and the Oeuvre of Norman Thaddeus Vane". Hidden Films. Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  7. ↑ As stated in the opening credits.
  8. ↑ "Lola". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 37 (432): 37. 1 January 1970. ProQuest   1305824522 – via ProQuest.
  9. ↑ Radio Times Guide to Films (18th ed.). London: Immediate Media Company. 2017. p. 968. ISBN   9780992936440.
  10. ↑ Allon, Yoram; Cullen, Del; Patterson, Hannah (2002). Contemporary North American Film Directors: A Wallflower Critical Guide . Wallflower Press. p.  141. ISBN   978-1-903364-52-9.
  11. ↑ Halliwell, Leslie (1989). Halliwell's Film Guide (7th ed.). London: Paladin. p. 1059. ISBN   0586088946.
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