Single Room Furnished Reviews

Mansfield's last film is a real mess, both on-screen and off. She's moved into a new apartment with her husband, Horsey, but he leaves once he learns a baby's on the way. After Mansfield loses the baby, she decides to start her life over. She dyes her hair, changes her name, and becomes a waitress. She has an affair with Ve Sota, who also leaves her pregnant and alone. Her sympathetic neighbor, Dean, takes pity on her, and the two eventually get engaged. But he too leaves her, and Mansfield gives the baby up for adoption. She changes her name once more and takes up life as a prostitute. The amateurish direction was by Mansfield's lover, Ottaviano, who later went on to direct Pia Zadora in the equally awful BUTTERFLY. During the filming of SINGLE ROOM FURNISHED, the star and director got into a fight, and Mansfield headed to Florida to calm down. The production was halted until her return, but tragedy intervened when she was killed in a car crash near New Orleans. Ottaviano was forced to pad out his film with a hopelessly awful subplot involving Keller and Dean as two parents who warn their daughter, Messina, about their floozy neighbor Mansfield. Even worse is a maudlin and lengthy "tribute" to Mansfield, narrated by Walter Winchell, that serves as a prolog. One of the redeeming features of this film is some early work by noted cinematographer Kovacs, who toiled on cheapies like this until his career took off. Brianne Murphy, a cinematographer, claimed that she directed this film, but her name does not turn up in the credits.