As a performer (musical or otherwise), Anthony Newley has always been an acquired taste. His cabaret-born stylings and exaggerated delivery (again, while singing or acting) can either be interpreted as heartfelt or preening. Newley had done nothing on the screen up to this point to justify the jaded, indifferent, Felliniesque "Heironymus Merkin", an autobiographical jumble of vaudeville skits, sex and songs. Newley directed and has the lead; he also co-wrote the script with Herman Raucher, scored the music and produced. Obviously, this project meant a lot to him, but it was shunned upon its release (the ungainly title was most likely no help). The film gives off bad vibrations, as well as the puzzling impression it was made by somebody who hoped to get out of show business. A musical-comedy star reflects on his life upon turning 40 (the age, Merkin tells us, when men's bodies begin to decay); he's guided along his journey by George Jessel (dressed in all-white) and Milton Berle (dressed in suit jackets and shorts, like a leering carnival barker). Newley cavorts with a bevy of women (a handful of whom were featured in a nude Playboy layout, which figured in the advertising), but Merkin/Newley views sex cheerlessly. The women are sex objects to be ogled and then cheated on--until they get pregnant, which leads to the ultimate trap: marriage. While Newley is anxious to show off the bare breasts of his actresses (minus those of wife Joan Collins, who is turned into a shrew), he stops short of celebrating their bodies; in Newley's world, a sex scene is included only to showcase his prowess as a ladies' man. He's not only the star of his own movie, he's the leading man in each of his lovers' movies (the ladies have no personalities--only lascivious names). This self-adoration is probably the reason the film was taken to task by the critics, who called it a megalomaniacal disaster. Is it truly wretched? I would say Newley adopts a certain style from the Masters, which is unfortunately hindered in the end by the lenient editing. There are far too many shots of Newley with his shirt off, or with his shoes off, allowing the camera to admire him. He primps, he sticks out his bottom lip and looks boyish, he dresses as a life-size marionette and collapses, hoping to grab our hearts. The picture isn't a personal triumph because it has been shaped and styled to reveal Anthony Newley as a sad puppet, a crying clown, and the image is so false that nobody--least of all of Newley--could get away with it. *1/2 from ****