Barrington, believing that his TV interview was a triumph, finally returns to his wife. Here we lead into the film’s, and perhaps Cinema at large’s, most grotesque moment. Random musical notes start drifting across the soundtrack, like flakes of radioactive fallout. Eventually, a semblance of a musical pattern emerges, but one which our mind refuses to recognize. Then the ‘singing’ starts, and we can no longer evade the truth. The couple is soon butchering their way through The Captain and Tennille’s "Love Will Keep Us Together." (!!!!!)
Words can not adequately describe the sheer repugnant horror of this scene. It’s like gazing upon one of H. P. Lovecraft’s Old Ones, something so momentously and unimaginably monstrous that even perceiving the edges of it threatens one with madness. (Just ask Andrew Borntreger.) As such, one hardly knows where to start listing some of the more evident flaws. Still, here goes:
The way Barrington begins the song as normal speech ("Love. Love will keep us together…") before it ‘blossoms’ into song.
The fact that Timothy Dalton cannot sing. He tries to do that Rex Harrison speak/singing thing, but can’t pull that off either.
The dumb-ass selection of "Love Will Keep Us Together" as the couple’s signature tune. What the hell?
The fact that the song has to be modified in so obvious a fashion. Arguing that a lasting love is more valuable than a fling, the song’s central couplet is "Someday your looks will be gone/When the others turn you off, who’ll be turning you on?" For obvious reasons, the reference to looks being someday gone isn’t going to fly here. Therefore they change the line to "your looks will never be gone," which plays havoc with whatever small point the song has.
The fact that West’s contribution to the duet largely consists of tossing in the occasional "stop" and "what-ev-ah."
When Barrington ‘sings’ "who’ll be turning you on?", he pulls out a diamond bracelet and waves it at his wife. Now, back in the ‘30s, a woman forthrightly using her sexuality in order to make her way in a Man’s World might have been viewed, by some stretch of the imagination, as progressive. In the ‘70s, however, it just seems rather tawdry. And as an action during a romantic love song moment, well, it leaves something to be desired.
A 32 year-old Timothy Dalton is singing a love song to a practically embalmed 87 year-old Mae West, and, uh….ewwwww!!
Anyway, that’s about all I can take of thinking about that. As we know, movies often alternate horror with humor. And while I can’t really say that the following bit is ‘funny’…oh, never mind. Barrington is about to get *shudder* romantic with Marlo when an insistent knock comes at the door. Why, it’s The Who’s Keith Moon (!!), playing Marlo’s costume designer! And guess what – he’s flamboyantly gay! A clothes designer! What a twist! Moon gives perhaps the film’s most undisciplined performance, which is saying something. He’s so far over the top that if he fell he’d crash through the Earth’s crust. Either that, or he’s just unimaginably happy at being the sole male cast member who doesn’t have to make goo-goo eyes at the antediluvian Marlo.
And some of the "inspirational" dialogue is just priceless!
