Lola (a.k.a. Twinky/a.k.a. London Affair) (1970) Having at long last caught up with this stranger-than-strange, misbegotten little oddity, we now understand why it shows up in DVD collections of movies with expired copyrights that fell into Public Domain.......
We could hardly fault anyone involved with this film for denying its very existence.....who could blame them? Not BQ, for sure.
Oh Lordy, where to begin with this one?
File it first under, 'Movies that could never, ever, ever be made today'.....
Or under, 'Who in living hell thought making this was a good idea?'
Or possibly under, 'How did this even get made in 1970?
The plot? Prepare yourself. A 38 year old American porn writer (48 year old Charles Bronson) falls in love with and marries 16 year old 'Twinky' or if you prefer, 'Lola', a British schoolgirl...(played by nymphet-of-the-moment Susan George).
Unlike, Vladimir Nabakov's immortal pederast Humbert Humbert, Bronson has no problem winning his swingin' London Lolita away from her eccentric parents (Michael Craig, Honor Blackman).
Bronson's brother and parents (veteran American supporting cast members Orson Bean, Paul Ford and Kay Medford)look upon the union either bemused and befuddled.
And then....(once again, prepare yourself)....this bizarre films unleashes brief appearances by almost the entire British acting community.....Jack Hawkins, Trevor Howard, Lionel Jeffries, Robert Morley and many other familiar faces. Why are they there? What are they doing? You tell us.
Overseeing this calamity fell to future A-List director Richard Donner ("Superman", "The Goonies", the 'Lethal Weapon series), just starting his feature film career after toiling in the trenches of episodic TV.
The movie itself? Visually, it's a chaotic mess of frenetic random footage, edited in the choppy, trendy style pioneered by Richard Lester's direction of "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help". Pop tunes blare as the film opens with Susan George and fellow schoolgirls cycling through London, with special attention on their thighs and knee socks......(listen carefully and you can hear the last wheezing gasps of the swingin' 60's....)
A mellowed-out Bronson spends the first half of the film delighted and besotted with his bubbly, babydoll prize....like he's won an inflatable teenage girl-toy out of a claw machine.....
But once they move to New York and attempt married life, the exasperated Bronson begins to realize he wed a petulant child with the attention span of a fruit fly.
Wow....whoever saw that coming? Uh......everyone.
Finally, the film makes a lurching. clumsy effort to re-establish itself as some sort of hip, modern day fairy tale.....with George spinning around atop a Central Park rock, saying, 'I'm divorced' three times like a magical incantation.
.......which must have been a huge blow to all the pedophiles watching in the sticky seats of 42nd street grindhouses...
Zero stars (0).....suitable only for curators of the weirdest cinema imaginable and those listed on the sexual predator watchlist.
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