5/10
At times riotously bad yet undeniably watchable Harold Robbins adaptation was produced by the author himself, yet the end result is a trashy throwaway like most of the author's previous cinematic adaptations.
A ridiculously miscast Laurence Olivier is just awful as a car mogul forever jockeying for control over his prized corporation, while -- in flashbacks -- we see him as a much younger sexual dynamo (LOL) and object of affection on behalf of his secretly gay son's bride (Katharine Ross). Olivier is just so bad in this movie -- his accent is all over the place, he's completely unconvincing in the Detroit '30s sequences (shot mostly in Newport RI), and his performance is a mess. Why didn't they cast Kirk Douglas or some other, "veteran" American lead who would've been much more suited, and suitable, for the part?
The movie is episodic and throws plenty at the viewer, though to be fair, the present-day material involving Tommy Lee Jones as a race car driver trying to get new, groundbreaking car "The Betsy" out to the public is pretty good -- and much better than Olivier running around, being unable to keep unzipping his pants, in those flashback scenes. Jones' urgency and performance seems like it's out of a different kind of movie -- and maybe if the film just focused on him and his story, and not the rest of the stilted soap opera stuff, "The Betsy" might have worked.
Still, the movie serves up enough intrigue and sex to get by, including gratuitous nudity of Kathleen Beller ("Dynasty" vet and future Mrs. Thomas Dolby), plus supporting performances from Edward Herrmann and a disinterested Robert Duvall, who looks like he's wandering around, trying to find the nearest bank to deposit his check.
One element that's seriously good is John Barry's lovely score. Though repetitive, this is a suitably melodic, wistful score that has a big, dramatic flourish of an ending, and is much preferable to other works he was turning out at this time ("Hanover Street," "Game of Death," "Starcrash," "White Buffalo," etc.).
Imprint's Blu-Ray, which I had to import from JB Hifi ($20 after VAT removal), offers the only HD master of the movie that's been seen to date.
Though billed as a 2K restoration it looks like it may have been sourced from a print. It's a bit soft and the colors aren't dazzling by any means, but it's passable. This was an Allied Artists release that went out through UA, and foreign rights reside with MGM, which supplied Imprint with their master. Domestically, "The Betsy" resides with Warner Bros. since Lorimar bought out Allied Artists in the late '70s, and while one might be motivated to wait for a superior master from the Warner Archive, it's unlikely this seldom-distributed film from the late '70s is high on their roster of films to resurrect.
