On April 4, 1958, Lana Turner's daughter, Cheryl Crane, stabbed Turner's boyfriend, underworld figure Johnny Stompanato, to death, in what was later deemed a justifiable homicide. This scandalous incident served as the inspiration for Harold Robbins' 1962 novel "Where Love Has Gone," his follow-up to "The Carpetbaggers." And this tawdry novel was given the A-list treatment by Paramount two years later, in a film that was critically lambasted but commercially successful. The picture featured the cream of Hollywood talent both in front of and behind the camera, but turned out to be a highly melodramatic affair, replete with florid dialogue and soap operalike qualities. But is it fun to watch today, almost five decades later? Oh, yes, indeed!

The film cleaves into two fairly discrete sections. In the first, we meet Luke Miller, an aspiring architect (played by Mike Connors) whose daughter, Danni, has just killed his ex-wife's lover in San Francisco. (Fifteen-year-old Danni, it should be mentioned, is played by future sex symbol Joey Heatherton, 20 here and almost unrecognizable as a redhead.) In flashback, we see how Luke first met Danni's mom, a sculptress and artist named Valerie Hayden (Susan Hayward), daughter of society matron Mrs. Gerald Hayden (Bette Davis, despite the fact that Bette was only 10 years older than Susan), and how their marriage soon dissolved due to alcoholism and infidelity. In the film's second half, we are witness to Danni's juvenile hearing and see the aftermath of the murder, including a short sojourn in blackmailing territory.

"Where Love Has Gone" features some beautiful sets and makes excellent use of its S.F. locales. It also features a catchy Sammy Cahn/James van Heusen theme song, warbled by Jack Jones, and eye-catching costumes by famed designer Edith Head. Edward Dmytryk's direction (he had previously worked with Susan on 1955's "Soldier of Fortune," though never before with Bette, and had just directed the film adaptation of "The Carpetbaggers") is typically expert, and the supporting cast (including DeForest Kelley as a cynical art critic, here two years pre-"Trek"; the always hissable George Macready; Jane Greer, who had appeared with Susan in 1947's "They Won't Believe Me"; and Whit Bissell, who seems to have appeared in half the films ever made!) is just fine. But of course, the main selling point of this film has to be the first and only pairing of two of Hollywood's greatest actresses, Bette Davis and Susan Hayward (two of MY personal favorites, at least). These two supposedly didn't get along well on the set (surprise, surprise), but sure do have a cutting and nasty chemistry on screen! Susan's final courtroom speech may be the film's finest moment, thespianwise, although Mike Connors, here three years prior to beginning his eight-year run as TV's Mannix, provides the film with its most ingratiating performance. In short, "Where Love Has Gone" is certainly nobody's idea of a great film, much less "high art," but yes, it sure is fun to watch. And really, where else are you going to see the "Brooklyn Bombshell," Susan Hayward, handle a blowtorch?

...when films of 1960-1965 had one foot in the demure production code era and one foot in the budding sexual revolution.

After the credits open with some horrid MOR song over idyllic shots of San Francisco, we cut to the action. Joey Heatherton stabs Rick Lazich in the presence of her mother (Susan Hayward), who had him as her latest boyfriend. Heatherton's dad (Mike Conners) flies in for appearance's sake, since he's there at the sufferance of Grandma (Bette Davis in another of her juicy later career roles) who controls everything.

We get a flashback to how Conners and Hayward married and divorced. Although, this is a flashback to some alternate-universe 1944 in which the US is still at war but everybody wears 1960s fashions and hairstyles. Conners is a war hero; Hayward a sculptress; Davis interferes in their marriage and gets all of the bankers in Frisco to make it so that Conners can only go back to her family business rather than start his own architecture firm. Hayward sleeps around (presumably) with her models while Conners drinks himself into a divorce.

Back in the present day, the killing is deemed a justifiable homicide, but Heatherton is kept in juvie while the courts can figure out who, if anybody should get custody of her. George Macready plays Davis' lawyer; Jane Greer comes from out of the past to play a social worker; and DeForrest Kelly plays Hayward's art dealer (Jim, I'm a doctor, not an art critic!).

Davis overacts and delivers pointed bons mots; Hayward wears big hair and recites some terribly overripe lines; Conners gets to be wooden; and Heatherton cries "Daddy!" all the time; you almost expect her to break out into the "I've Written a Letter to Daddy" song that appears at the beginning of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? And then there's an ending that makes no sense.

If you're looking for a serious movie, I'd rate it a 3/10. But if you're looking for the sort of turgid, over-the-top potboiler where you yell back at the screen and laugh at the absurdity of it all, I'd give it an 8/10. It's not quite as "so bad it's good" as Valley of the Dolls or Torch Song, but it's an eminently entertaining disaster nonetheless. I split the difference to give it a 6/10.

Just one more thing. Bette Davis is only nine years older than Susan Hayward, but very credibly looks like her mother. Part of that was that Bette Davis, dish that she was when she was young, aged very poorly for whatever reason. The other part is makeup. In contrast, Susan Hayward aged very well, as short as her life was, and she looks nowhere near 47 here, which was her actual age.

You just better have a good elevator man! Or in the case of this film, it is a woman, the mother of all evil mothers, Bette Davis. Seemingly sweet and loving to everybody around her (including her former son-in-law), Mrs. Hayden is power hungry, strong-willed, domineering, bossy, and utterly charming. Daughter Susan Hayward has resented the lack of love she has gotten from her mother, having been treated like a prize calf at the county fair, made to look good in order for the family to keep their social standing. This old Nob Hill family in San Francisco has not had one scandal in their lives-until one night when Hayward's teenaged daughter Joey Heatherton goes berserk and stabs Hayward's lover to death. Hayward's ex-husband Mike Connors comes back as Heatherton is tried as a juvenile, and all of the family's skeletons are released.

Sound like an E True Hollywood Story? It should, 'cause novelist Harold Robbins based this upon the Lana Turner/Johnny Stompanato affair where Lana's daughter Cheryl allegedly killed him in self-defense to protect mama. Hayward's Valarie is not a high-powered movie star here-she's a talented sculptress, and one of her knives was used as the weapon in the murder. (Turner was only angry about this for a few years as she went to appear on a Harold Robbins based TV series, "The Survivors", which ironically didn't...) When you've got dynamic actresses like top-billed Hayward and featured Davis appearing together, sparks are going to fly, the melodrama is going to spill over the cauldron top, and there are going to be some genuinely amusing unintentional camp moments. This is a "Dynasty" type soap opera where the matriarch arranges a marriage between her heir and the army hero, controls their every move (even giving him a do-nothing Vice President job at her company and a portrait of herself to line the foyer of the house she bought for them), and smiles sweetly at all times. The two ladies are dynamic together, although the fact that every single major character in this remains exactly the same for the seemingly 18 years that it takes place. Hayward's sudden weakening at the end seems out of character and throws the whole film off balance.

The real acting comes from Mike Conners as the husband so de-masculinized that he turns to drink. He is the moral conscience of the family, fortunate not to be related to this brood by blood. The least comes from Joey Heatherton as the daughter, so unconvincing in her delivery in the pivotal dramatic scenes that she seems like she's too much in awe of the legends around her to create an interesting character. Jane Greer offers some sympathetic moments as the head of the juvenile detention center, an ironic choice in casting considering hers and Hayward's one time reign as two of the great femme fatals of film noir, both appearing in "They Won't Believe Me".

As long as you look at this as total cinematic soap opera trash, you can really enjoy this for what it is, maybe not horrid to be a fun bad movie, but certainly a delightful chance to be nosy inside another family's fictional horrors.