Review of Death at Love House

A biographer and his wife move into the old Hollywood mansion of 1930s movie star Lorna Love, who died at a young age and whose body lies in state on the property--embalmed and behind glass. The couple is writing a book on Lorna and want to be close to her spirit, but get more than they bargained for (surely other books about such a world famous star had been written before, but the movie doesn't take details like that into consideration). The agenda here is to have the writer, whose own father once had a torrid affair with Lorna, become hypnotized by the girl's portrait and turn against his wife, all while someone dressed in black is lurking around causing trouble. Tacky TV-movie from the prolific producing team of Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg, here working with a fifth-rate script, a cheap rehash of 1968's "The Legend of Lylah Clare" (itself a mishmash of movie memories). Kate Jackson runs from room to room in the mansion calling out for husband Robert Wagner, who isn't doing any writing; Sylvia Sidney is the faithful housekeeper, still on staff in the empty house; and Joan Blondell is a friend from the old days who hints that Lorna and she were involved in witchcraft. The sepia-toned flashbacks are well done, though Marianna Hill is all wrong as Lorna Love (she's too modern), and James Barnett's teleplay is full of dead ends and deadly talk. A twist at the finish line brings up more questions than Barnett or director E.W. Swackhamer could ever hope to answer, while Wagner's book (a MacGuffin, as it turns out) appears to be permanently shelved.