BUTTERFLY (1979)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Matt Cimber

SCREENWRITER: John F. Goff, Matt Cimber

FILM STARS: Stacy Keach, Pia Zadora, Orson Welles, Lois Nettleton, Edward Albert, James Franciscus, Stuart Whitman, June Lockhart, Ed McMahon, Paul Hampton, George ‘Buck’ Flower

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: James M. Cain

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Vintage

THIS EDITION  PUBLISHED: 1979

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1946

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The Butterfly

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: Pia Zadora. There was a time when she was going to the next big thing (well there seemed to be a lot of hype about her). She always seemed she was from some far off exotic land … maybe Hoboken, New Jersey is a far off exotic land because that’s where Pia Alfreda Schipani was born on May 4, 1953. I was only a early teen when this film came out but this film was the one you wanted to sneak into to see … there was nudity. I don’t recall seeing the film then. I haven’t seen it recently. I should … any film with Orson Welles, Stuart Whitman, James Franciscus and a nude Pia Zadora I will see. Director Matt Cimber’s background was in exploitation B cinema – it just gets better. Music by Ennio Morricone – how good is that.

The film was universally derided.

I must watch it again. Such is masochism.

Cain took pulp with sex and violence to high literature. Here, it’s as if William Faulkner were writing for Hustler. I’m not sure how a story about a drunken father, and a flirtatious and promiscuous daughter and (apparent) incest would go down now, but it was a best seller at the time.

LINKS

TRAILER

MOVIE POSTER