Vendetta Reviews

Rotten Howard Hughes epic into which the nutty millionaire sunk untold dollars and several years to provide a starring vehicle for his latest sexual obsession, Faith Domergue (best remembered for her screaming roles in THIS ISLAND EARTH, 1954, and IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, 1955), who couldn't act to save her life. The story sees Domergue as a tough Corsican girl out to avenge the murder of her father despite the fact that her brother, Dolenz, thinks she's gone goofy. Eventually she motivates him to join her and together they battle the rival Corsican clan that murdered their father. In the end her brother is ambushed and she is killed in a duel. This slow-moving, silly effort was begun by writer-director Preston Sturges who had a falling out with Hughes and left. Max Ophuls was then hired to direct and he too was replaced by Hughes himself. Then Hughes lost interest in the project (and presumably in Miss Domergue), leaving RKO to deal with his mess. The hapless Mel Ferrer was drafted to clean up (his fourth directorial effort) after Hughes, but it was a losing battle. The studio, saddled with a turkey, dumped the film on a handful of theaters with virtually no advertising and took its lumps.