Once Is Not Enough [Blu-ray]

Once Is Probably More Than Enough
In the lexicon of bad film, there is surely a top spot for the delightfully skewed adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's "Valley of the Dolls." "Valley" is perhaps the most famous side of Susann's literary "trash trilogy" which includes "Love Machine" and "Once Is Not Enough." All the novels were fabulously popular in their day and all have been produced into movies with varying degrees of success. Sublimely ridiculous, "Valley" is beloved as a camp classic for so many terrific reasons. If possible, the film of "Love Machine" was even more preposterous--and much more of a "love it" or hate it" proposition. And then we've got "Once Is Not Enough." Easily the most subdued of the film adaptations, "Once" doesn't actually benefit from this distinction.

The film starts out promisingly enough with Kirk Douglas as a down and out filmmaker willing to do anything for the light and love of his life, his daughter January (Deborah Raffin, alternately charming and annoying). He...

Brenda Vacarro SHINES, but NOT ENOUGH DRUGS!
Although I wasn't as disappointed with this film as the previous reviewer, it was quite a letdown after reading the book. The "vitamin shots" and other assorted goodies (gang rapes, Karla's secret retarded daughter, etc.) that didn't make it on screen severely lower the scandal and glamour level of this film, but the exotic locales and Deborah Raffin's innate charm are undeniably great. It's also fun to see some of the retro kitschy sets (especially George Hamilton's swingin' bachelor pad), and the disco sequence. The film's saving grace is definitely Brenda Vacarro as the unabashed man hungry corporate sleep around Linda Riggs. Her Oscar nomination for the role was well deserved, and I am disappointed she didn't win. The bottom line, however, is this: NOT ENOUGH DRUGS!!!

Better Than I Remembered
Deborah Raffin is really worth seeing in ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH. I remember seeing this film when it first came out and thinking it ghastly, but now when I watch it, I'm in awe of Raffin. Okay, she's not much of an actress and will never give Meryl Streep any competition, but, well, I sound like a perve but she just exudes youth and beauty in the part of January Wayne, and her coltish, extremely thin clotheshorseness is so endearing, even when she gives out one of her questionable line readings I just love her.

She's great when she's obviously in love with her own father (but she doesn't realize this until the very last minute of the movie, and instead of a psychic shock, she evinces only a typically cat-like smile, as though a pleasant memory were running somewhere in her mind). I love her playing the newbie to Brenda Vaccaro's Manhattan media slut. She can't believe how vulgar Vaccaro is, and yet she seems to delight in it, Vaccaro's sex talk brings her alive in a way...

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