Remember when Audrey Landers was giving it a go as the next Goldie Hawn? Nope? Guess you haven’t seen Ghost Writer. (It’s no Deadly Trigger.)
She plays Angela, a writer for that hot entertainment magazine Hollywood Beat, yet she just can’t land a story to please her editor. He’s played by David Doyle (Vigilante Force), who reacts to her typewritten copy with “I wanted an interview, not a barbecue!” and other lines delivered with the kind of popped-eye faces you never want to see again.
Angela’s luck flip-flops soon after she moves into the Malibu beachfront property formerly called home by sexpot startlet Billie Blaine. Given that she died in 1962 after she supposedly “ate a bottle of barbies” (per Joey Travolta, the kind of Travolta you never want to see again), Billie is obviously supposed to be Marilyn Monroe — a point hammered home by the casting of Audrey Landers’ bustier sister, Judy, in full boop-oop-a-doop mode.
Billie didn’t commit suicide as everyone believes. She was murdered! Her ghost appears to Angela — and only to Angela, except when Billie chooses to strip nude at a club — and enlists her help in finding the man who killed her; in exchange, Billie gives Angela the scoop of a lifetime, because if there’s one thing magazine editors clamor for, it’s an unsubstantiated, unverifiable story.
Judy may not be asked to do anything beyond provide eye candy, but Audrey throws herself (sometimes literally) into the role as if she were in a classic-era screwball comedy. Kenneth J. Hall (Evil Spawn) fails her, because he wrote and directed the thing like the most predictable, most vanilla TV sitcom, making Ghost Writer another film beneath her talents. If you do watch it, look for support from Tony Franciosa, Jeff Conaway and a box of Mister Salty Pretzels. —Rod Lott