Truly Dreadful Film

Expected more

Best movie ever!

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This is a movie with a history that is bound to bring out her fans or call out the hounds.Pia Zadora is very beautiful and sensual in the role of Katy, a young woman in need of a man that loves and cares for her. Having grown up without a father and having been hustled by men who used her for their pleasure, she is seeking a strong male figure. After returning home to her real father, she becomes confused about the different boundaries that society has established for the love between a girl and her father, and the love between a woman and her lover, and thus intertwines the two. Pia Zadora turns in a convincing performance. She's at ease before the camera, is always expressive, and acts and delivers lines as well as most. Stacy Keach is equally convincing in his roll. And Orson Wells? Well, after all, he is Orson Wells.The plot was good and moved along steadily. It has a really interesting ironic twist near the end that is sure to take you by surprise, and leads directly to the odd and convoluted climax of this film.After the claimed shenanigans involving Pia Zadora's winning an award for her part in this film, it seems to me that many reviewers were outraged at the thought of such a dirty deed as buying the award, (if that's even what happened). It looks like to me that buying an award proves to them you're no good as an actress? One couldn't possibly buy an award and deserve it too, could they? Perhaps because they took those accusations as truth, their own sentiments kept some critics from ever giving Pia an honest look. And frankly, it seems to me that the same negativity from critics has followed her all the way to the present as reviewers still love to pile on Ms. Zadora who is a talented and beautiful lady. That's exactly what I suspect after I watch this film and then read what others have to say. I think they are really wrong about this film, and about Pia. It is a film that is surely worth watching and would be much more widely acclaimed were it not for reviewers who either can't or won't be objective. If you're even a little interested in "Butterfly", I say you owe it to yourself to watch this film and make your on decision about the merits of the story, the acting and the whole package. It is well worth your time.Now for the answer to the title question, What's really wrong with "Butterfly"? Of course, nothing is wrong with "Butterfly".

Butterfly (1982) ** (out of 4)Based on the James M. Cain novel, this film centers on the young Kady Tyler (Pia Zadora) who returns home to live with her father Jess (Stacy Keach) and soon she begins to seduce him. Yeah, you read that right. Zadora made history with this film as she won the Razzie Worst Actress award while at the same time winning the Golden Globe New Star of the Year award. You can read about the controversy behind the Globes win elsewhere but to say this film is normal would be a very big lie. BUTTERFLY isn't nearly as bad or as trashy as its reputation would have you believe. It's not a soft-core porn flick if that's what you're expecting but more of a romantic mystery that probably shouldn't have been made. Those coming to the film to see how horrid Zadora is are also going to be disappointed because I really didn't find her as bad as the film's reputation. It seems she just became a punchline after winning the Golden Globe and while she's certainly not great or even good here, there's no doubt that she's taken way too much heat for the performance. I thought she played that dirty teenager well enough for a film like this. What she lacks is certainly made up by Keach who is actually very good here. I thought he did a very good job at showing the conflict that his male/father character had over the sexual advances of his daughter. Another person who's "bad performance" reputation is somewhat of a lie is that of Orson Welles who plays a judge. I really didn't find him to be bad here and in fact I thought he was quite good and that his performance certainly had a wink to the viewer to it. The film falls flat on a few levels including the running time, which just goes on way too long. The screenplay itself just doesn't have enough interesting moments to help keep the thing entertaining from start to finish. Another problem is that director Matt Cimber just doesn't add enough spark or energy to the picture. BUTTERFLY will probably always been known as a disaster but I think its reputation is quite unfair. It's not a good movie but there are certainly much worse out there.

Adaptation of James M. Cain's book "The Butterfly" won Pia Zadora a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer before anyone had even screened the film, setting into motion an awards-show controversy that is far more interesting than anything in this movie. Shabby potboiler has a sexy teenager in 1930s Arizona reuniting herself with a man who may be her long-lost father; that doesn't stop her from seducing him, which leads to dirty doings, a murder, and a final act in the courthouse (with Orson Welles as the judge!). Co-screenwriter Matt Cimber also directed the picture, but he fails to create a depiction of this time and place that is half-way realistic, preferring to let Zadora's sexual antics carry the load. She isn't terrible, yet her cameo in "Hairspray" a few years later far exceeds anything she does here. *1/2 from ****

A few years ago, this showed up on everybody's Ten Worst list. Then with the explosion of videotape, giving people access to hundreds of really godawful movies, Butterfly kind of drifted off into obscurity.It's time to bring it back to the front. This movie seriously reeks. Pia Zadora has as much business standing in front of a movie camera as Judge Judy in a thong. I've seen classier emoting in the vice-principal's office. Sensual? Actually, she looks like a legal secretary who ate a bad clam for lunch, and her face is puffing up pretty bad. Let's face it, her acting peaked in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians; watch carefully, and you'll see her flash the camera, thankfully revealing nothing whatsoever.Stacy Keach tries to maintain his dignity, James Franciscus gets the only good bit in the movie as a spectacular slimeball, and Ed McMahon shows up at one point playing a rich, drunk Irishman - make up your own joke.But it's the script that makes Butterfly worth renting, worth owning, and worth demanding on DVD. This is one of those rare bad scripts that thrusts itself into the forefront past bad actors, bad direction, and the most ludicrous costume design since Myra Breckinridge. Seek it out, invite friends over, and everybody can slam a brewski every time the camera zooms in for an overlit shot of Mz Pia looking up into the lens and slitting her eyes (that's "expressing deep feeling"), or Stacy Keach making a strange face like he just caught something dreadful in his zipper (so's that).There's a whole generation out there who never heard of James M. Cain, and it's our job to get the Truth to the Youth.