On L List of Movie Reviews
(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)
The Last of Sheila (1973)
Rate:
5
Viewed:
6/11
6/11:
I hate movies like The Last of Sheila.
The premise was so good that it got bungled toward the end. I hated the direction. At the beginning, I was thinking of a
possible rip-off of And Then There Were None, but it turned out not to be so.
Then, looking at James Coburn who's all teeth and nothing else, I thought it was a going to be a great mystery murder game.
This speculation ended rather quickly when his character got killed. Thereafter, the sight of James
Coburn's dead transsexual face is the most chilling image of the film.
For a good reason, I kept feeling that it was all fake and that James Coburn would magically appear at some point later. Then,
I saw Dyan Cannon's "Oscar" clip of getting drunk and stupidly laughing on her way back. It's probably the beginning of the
end since who in his or her right mind would be along that side of the boat, especially near the propeller area?
During the second half, there was an emergence of two ordinary filmmakers who had suddenly become world-class detectives.
Either they were trying to manipulate me or knew what happened because they...did it. Unshockingly, the latter proved to be true.
That's when The Last of Sheila started to fall apart as it tried too hard to be intelligent. I wonder how the ship was
able to operate without a crew. If there are in fact crew members, then why is none of them suspected of murder?
Anyway, I'm disappointed nobody played any of the board games in the "Parkers Brothers" room. Dyan Cannon's line
"My mouth is so dry they can shoot Lawrence of Arabia in it" is clever. The same goes for James Mason's character
when he was labeled as the "Little Child Molester" given he did play one in Lolita.
All in all, The Last of Sheila isn't worth it.