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the audience applauded

best movie i've ever seen.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Ick. I missed this movie when it came out because my summer of 1975 was filled with the excitement of the Boston Red Sox and I paid attention to little else. Now that I've seen it, all I can say is, "Ick." January's unnatural adoration of her father left me feeling queasy. Well, it's probably not unnatural for a young girl to idolize her father. But it seems that her father encouraged it past the little girl stage right into adulthood. She keeps a picture of her father by her bedside and another on her desk. At one point, Tom says to her, "I think you're beautiful." Her answer is, "Thank you. I think you are too. Almost as beautiful as my father." Mike Wayne (actor Kirk Douglas) is an overindulgent father. His character could have been complicated and interesting. Not here. Kirk Douglas's performance on screen is cringe-worthy. Deborah Raffin as his daughter January was boring. I don't know what's worse, icky or blah.This was a bad movie until about an hour in when the character Tom Colt shows up. David Janssen is so good as Tom Colt that it's like he's acting in a different movie. He elevates this awful movie. I also enjoyed Brenda Vaccaro as Linda Riggs, January's best friend. She must have had a ball with that character – she plays it so enthusiastically and with such confidence. In comparison, Deborah Raffin as January Wayne was practically lifeless. It's just a bland, unintelligent performance, and she's the center of the movie, so she needed to be more interesting. She also had some awful lines and Raffin wasn't talented enough to make more of those lines. And she showed no emotion in her reactions to events. I neither liked nor disliked her. I felt nothing for her. So I couldn't feel sorry for her at the end.Tom Colt turns out to be the most interesting character. He's earthy and macho. David Janssen gives this movie depth and the beautiful and funny Brenda Vaccaro gives it lightness. Both characters know who they are and are honest. And I cared about them. Everyone else either sleepwalks through this slow-moving movie or weighs it down with melodrama.It's sad that 30 years after Casablanca (1942), the screenwriter of that classic film was asked to work on this. I don't think he was the right man for the job.

Jacqueline Susanne was definitely one of the top trashy novelists of all time, so understandably there would probably be a lot of people who would think a cinematic adaptation of her novel "Once Is Not Enough" would be great trash. Unfortunately, that is not the case. How this movie got an "R" rating is beyond me; there is no on screen sex, very little dirty talk, and only one (brief) scene of nudity. What the movie is instead for the most part is a gabfest, endless talk that doesn't contain that much interest or titillation. Though there is a little interest in a movie that has the cast of actors that it has, the actors take things so seriously that there is no fun in watching their performances. However, if you've ever wanted to see David Janssen do a nude scene...

The big-screen "Valley of the Dolls" and under-appreciated "Love Machine" are both camp film classics in their different ways. But this adaptation of Susann's last novel has a reputation as an embarrassment without being quite bad or enjoyable enough to reward that historical semi-misjudgment. English-born director director Guy Green (perhaps best known for 1965 Sidney Poitier vehicle "A Patch of Blue" and the disastrous 1968 adaptation of John Fowles' "The Magus") does a thoroughly respectable job with his very trashy source material--which is to say he mostly sucks the life out of it via soft-focus and an over-delicate approach to performers who might easily have gone into ham overdrive. They include Kirk Douglas as a Hollywood mogul, Alexis Smith as his ex-wife and Melina Mercouri as her lover; plus Gary Conway, George Hamilton and David Janssen as suitors to our heroine, Douglas' daughter Deborah Raffin. The latter was a classic 70s shampoo commercial (Clairol!) blonde beauty a la Cybill Shepherd almost boosted to stardom in films that fell short. She's more emotionally naturalistic than this movie's often ludicrous soap-opera situations deserve. But at the same time, a more histrionic lead performance and more shamelessly melodramatic directorial hand might have made "Once Is Not Enough" an enduring guilty pleasure rather than just a dated bad movie. Watching it again just now did make me wonder about Raffin, however, who's apparently remained active as a TV/film actress with a modest profile (according to IMDb). She was only 21 when she made this movie, but she holds her own alongside some historied stars. The best thing about "Once Is Not Enough," however, is Brenda Vaccaro. Following a long line of wisecracking second leads from Pert Kelton to Eve Arden to Dyan Cannon and beyond, she gets an unexpectedly ideal showcase in a seriocomic support role in a disposable movie. She's terrific. Her enjoyment in the role does a lot to dignify a stupid film--one otherwise marked mostly by the efforts of talented people to ignore how trashy their source material is.

It's true....Only the skeleton of Ms. Susann's novel remains in this bland, dreary screen treatment. All the truly racy parts are sanitized out partly or completely. Still, there's something irresistible about this film in a good/bad way. The stellar cast tiptoeing its way around such sordid subjects as casual sex, incestuous feelings, loss of virginity, lesbianism et al provides curiosity appeal. Aside from the bleaching of the story elements, the biggest flaw is the time spent on Raffin. She is almost adequate in the film, but her character is not very easy to identify with and can be pretty annoying. She, unfortunately, is the primary focus of the story. Douglas carries her along pretty well, but even he doesn't get the screen time one might like and does disappear for a large chunk of it. The major interest comes from the more colorful and vivid supporting cast. Vaccaro got a lot of attention as the man-hungry, plain-speaking magazine editor. She adds a lot of zing to a very sedate film. Hamilton is his usual suave self but fades out quietly, Janssen gives a thoughtful if drowsy performance and can almost be understood at times through his growl, Mercouri is barely seen at all (her story was all but snipped out of the script) and Conway has, literally, nothing to do but look handsome. The chief reason for sitting through all the melodrama and angst (aside from witnessing Conway running on the beach in the teeniest cutoff sweat pants) is to witness the wry, slick, surprising performance of Smith. Her character is a fascinating blend of haughty arrogance, vulnerability, style, elegance and bawdiness. She plays a part that would have made her old boss Jack Warner keel over from shock. Moss Mabry decked Ms. Smith in the latest (now hilariously dated) styles and with her regal air and frosted pageboy, she RUNS the film while she's on screen. Most unforgettable is her backgammon partner "Joyce". The title music by Mancini sounds like a dry run for the TV series "Hotel". He basically switched a few notes around, dusted it off and "Abrakadabra"! ...a TV theme song was born! Most excruciating for anyone who sat through the film and didn't like it (which is probably 80% of the viewing audience) is the ending, in which "highlights" of the film are reviewed (and reviewed!) over more of the title music--this time sung by generic crooners who may as well be singing about mouthwash and who probably worked on 1973's "Lost Horizon" in some cruel attempt to end film-making forever! This is a special brand of glamorously produced, but insipid, film-making. It's an acquired taste, but delicious to those who like it. One nagging question remains...... Among Douglas, Janssen, Hamilton and Conway, they chose to show Janssen's naked behind???? Assault with a deadly weapon.