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Deemed a classic of sublimely bad moviemaking, The Legend of Lylah Clare also manages to be a bizarrely affecting demolition of the Hollywood dream machine from typically unruly director Robert Aldrich. Revisiting the terrain of The Big Knife (1955) with Gothic fervor, Aldrich and his cohorts fashion a theater of Tinsel Town cruelty that is as engrossing as it is absurd. Bad accents, gaudy production design, woozy conflicting flashbacks, and a cast of gargoyles spouting acid dialogue engulf Kim Novak's possibly possessed star gazer, while the flamboyant ending leaves little doubt about the lethal nature of Hollywood aspirations. With Novak's presence evoking her tortured role in Vertigo (1958), the insults hurled by Peter Finch's Svengali director take on an added bite; housekeeper Rosella's fixation on the dead Lylah carries more than a whiff of Rebecca's (1940) Mrs. Danvers as well. Unimpressed by the ambiguous narrative flights, R-rated corruption, and Novak's central performance as Elsa/Lylah, 1968 audiences disdained The Legend, further harming Novak's declining career.