Goddess of Love (1988 TV Movie) User Reviews

"Eternity sounds great, don't get me wrong it's just that it takes up so much of your time"

[The_Movie_Cat · 4/10 · 1 June 2000]

Truly when it comes to film, the marriage of the words "TV" and "Movie" are a match rarely to be made in Heaven. While the occasional historical work or a Dennis Potter play may arouse interest, in 99% of cases the television movie attracts the sort of disdain normally reserved for the close proximity of the word "Police" with "Academy".

Goddess of Love is no different. To be honest, I only looked in on this one to see Little Richard as the camp cameo Alphonso. What unravels is a story where a hairdresser, Ted (David Naughton) has to choose between his fiancé, Cathy (Amanda Bearse, the neighbour from Married... With Children) and the goddess of love herself, Venus. Of course, it doesn't help matters that Venus is woefully wooden in the hands of Vanna White, or that Ted's best friend Jimmy is also lacking in the tv actordom of David Leisure. Yet there's something endearingly awful about this film. It knows it's a worthless piece of junk made on a budget of 5 cents to fill an afternoon's schedule. There's a real sense of earnest desperation as everyone involved knows what a low-grade movie they're involved in, and are determined to overact in order to be noticed.

Astonishingly, Leisure was noticed, and went on to appear in many films, including 10 Things I Hate About You, Dogmatic and The Brady Bunch Movie. The best performance comes from Philip Baker Hall as Detective Charles. Much too good for this sort of thing, Hall has appeared in 60 films to date, including high-profiles excursions like Midnight Run, Boogie Nights, The Truman Show and Enemy of the State. The decision to cast non-actors in roles is brave, in fairness. White was, I understand, a co-host on the American version of "Wheel of Fortune". Though while she does okay-ish for a quiz host, Little Richard shames 90% of the "actors" here with a great turn as Alphonso. In fact, you can't help but feel if he'd had a bigger role the movie might have been more watchable. His effeminate tone and utterly unique phrasing of words virtually steals the show. Mind you, if he had stole such a lame film, I'm sure he'd have given it back afterwards. His performance leaves just one unanswered question: what happened to him? We see a vengeful Venus take him angrily in a room threatening to do terrible things to his person. Yet that's the last we see of him. I think we should at least be told, with Goddess of Love 2: The Alphonso Story. He deserves it.

Vanna - Matron Goddess Of Bad Choices

[aesgaard41 · 4/10 · 12 May 2001]

There's a great movie idea in the concept that the gods are still alive in the Twentieth Century, but unless you find roles for all the gods of the cultures, it's just not going to work. Vanna White makes a beautiful Aphrodite aka Venus, but she has a lousy script, and a plot that wanders around and gets lost. For a goddess, she's more of a dim bulb as she blindly pursues David Naughton. David Leisure plays a fair comic relief, but one major problem in this script stolen from Manniquin (at least that movie had Egyptian Gods), is it just isn't believable. If Vanna's going to play a goddess, she needs to convince us that she is one of the creators of the world and less of a blonde air-head just discovering the mortal world, I mean, just where was her spirit while civilization was advancing around her stone body ? At times, she also seems surprised at what she can do, and other times the direction just makes her look foolish. Why she does half the things in this film are beyond me, but if I had made this movie, I would have leaned more to fantasy and less to comedy. This film as it is just makes me shudder. I could create a much more better version with Reese Witherspoon and Breckin Meyer in the main roles!

"I always heard that you hair guys did alright."

[utgard14 · 4/10 · 8 January 2016]

Vanna White plays Aphrodite (or Venus, as she prefers), the goddess of love, who is banished by Zeus from Mount Olympus until she can make a man love her without killing him. So she spends centuries as a statue until hairdresser David Naughton accidentally frees her. She insists he's in love with her, despite his being engaged to another woman, and won't take no for an answer. There are also two bumbling thieves straight out of a '70s Disney movie.

Vanna is gorgeous but she's the worst actress you'll ever see. She's so wooden and awkward in her line delivery. Pretty much every word out of her mouth will have you laughing for the wrong reasons. David Naughton is likable and delivers his corny dialogue like a pro. David Leisure plays Naughton's horndog friend, similar to his Empty Nest character. Amanda Bearse plays the fiancée. Little Richard, John Rhys-Davies, Philip Baker Hall, and Betsy Palmer also appear. It's obviously not a very original plot, bearing strong similarities to films like One Touch of Venus and Mannequin, among many others. I will say the ending was somewhat surprising, but not really in a good way. There is an enjoyable amount of cheese, to say nothing of the oddity of seeing the Wheel of Fortune chick trying to act. Worth a look if you like corny made-for-TV junk.

Hidden camp classic awaiting rediscovery!

[capkronos · 1/10 · 8 October 2006]

This sadly forgotten made-for-TV bomb takes embarrassingly bad to a whole new level... a hilarious one! From the wretched "comic" dialogue to the horrible porn-grade "plot" to the indescribably campy / wooden acting to the overlong 80s musical montage about credit card shopping sprees... it's a complete disaster from start to finish. I can't believe anyone would read this script and then decide to green-light such a project, but I'm sure glad they did!

As most of us know, Vanna White is famous for basically flipping over letters on the very popular game show "Wheel of Fortune." I guess somewhere along the line her agent figured her talents went beyond smiling and walking back and forth on a stage like a zombie. They were wrong! As Venus, the Goddess of Love, her "acting" is... whew... I can't even come up with the proper word to describe it. Abominable? Abysmal? Atrocious? Whatever the word is, it's just BAD. Very, very bad. Whenever she has a line it comes out about the opposite of how it should and is pretty much a constant running gag in the film.

On Mount Olympus (which looks suspiciously like the patio of some California country club), Venus refuses to marry slovenly blacksmith Hephaestus (Sid Haig) so her father (John Rhys-Davies) and mother (Betsy Palmer) order her to be turned into a stone statue until she understands the meaning of true love or some such nonsense. In modern day LA, hairdresser Ted (David Naughton), who's engaged to an annoying psychiatrist named Cathy (Amanda Bearse), decides for some stupid reason to slip an engagement ring on the finger of the statue of Venus. Wholla! Venus is returned to human form, refuses to give the ring back and demands Ted drop his current love and go back to Mount Olympus with her! It plays out like a mix between "Splash" (women from another time/place must learn to relate to the modern world) and "Fatal Attaction" (woman pesters/won't leave a disinterested guy the hell alone!). Throughout the movie, Venus basically just behaves like a bratty, clueless child and uses her special powers (shooting lightning bolts out of her fingertips!!) to bully people into getting her way.

This movie is full of hilariously bad one-liners:

• "You do love another... Then I must crush her!"

• "That woman was caressing you... She wants you to look under her hood!"

• "Sister, my toga!"

• "I am not here for your cold gross chicken, I am here for your love."

• "I was splishin' and splashin' in the hot tub when I heard the voices of two strange mortals in the house!"

• "I shall invoke a speedy and terrible destruction!"

If the terrible acting and dialogue isn't enough to entertain you, we also get a slew of supporting characters to complicate matters; a pair of bumbling idiot crooks, Ted's horn-dog best bud (David Leisure), a detective investigating the Venus statue theft (Philip Baker Hall) and an effete, screeching hairdresser played by Little Richard! During the climax, when Venus finally understands what real love is about, she is given some of the most awkward dialogue I've ever heard ("At least love has touched me once, before the Gods send me to the eternal doom of of my stony exile.")

If you are a fan of very bad movies you can't afford to miss this one!

"You Love Another! I Will Crush Her!"...

[azathothpwiggins · 7 May 2021]

GODDESS OF LOVE opens with synthesizer music that could only have come from the 1980's. Taken to Mount Olympus, we are there as Zeus (John Ryes-Davies) turns his daughter, Venus (Vanna White) into a statue. She's no longer allowed on the mountain until a human male falls in love with her... and survives.

Enter Ted Beckman (David Naughton), who is busy getting ready to marry his fiancee. Through mishap and happenstance, Ted winds up reinvigorating Venus, who has somehow wound up in a museum. Unfortunately, the way in which this occurs makes Ted the object of her divine desire! Complicating matters, Ted's fiancee is back in town.

Preposterous and impossibly corny, this is fairly typical made-for-TV fluff of the period. Ms. White is indeed beautiful, and her role isn't bad.

Harmless, enjoyable viewing...

This is beyond Corny

[mick987g · 1/10 · 28 June 2006]

I remember this movie and how much it stunk. Vanna White's acting is really bad. She is better off turning letters.

Some have mentioned the Mannequin movies series.

But I saw a movie the other day titled " One Touch of Venus" with Ava Gardner Here is the summary of that movie A window dresser in a department store feels a strange attraction to a mannequin in the display. One night he impulsively kisses her; she comes to life and reveals herself to be Venus, the goddess of love.

With Vannas version you are not missing much.

Basically this is a dog

Boring doesn't even begin to cover it! Watch it for Vanna's beauty only.

[imdb-25288 · 5/10 · 29 September 2022]

I remember watching this on TV when it first aired. I remembered quite enjoying it, so I was thrilled to finally find it for a free streaming. I couldn't understand what I thought were the mean reviews here. Oh, boy! Maybe I watched this during one of my bad panic attacks and this was a welcome diversion?

As I type this, the show clocks in at a mere 3.2/10, from 273 votes. I no longer resent that. But I'll say this: Vanna White's performance isn't wooden, nor "laughable". She made the right acting choice for her mythological character. This is corroborated when at 1hr 15 mn and 38 secs in, the detective asks Ted: "does she always talk like that?" and his reply is: "she belongs to a little theater group!" I haven't seen any other acting by Vanna White, the perennial letter-turner throughout the ages, so I can't compare to anything. But for this film? Talking theatrically is what the script required her to do, and she delivered. Wooden she is not: she is also a statue, so even if you think she is wooden, that would be how statues (re)act.

This is a throwback to Mannequin with Kim Catrall. Vanna is equally as lovely, if not a lot more. Can you imagine being born with that kind of beauty? Vanna was sheer perfection: from her gorgeous chiseled face, to her perfect '80s body and natural tan, she looks equally beautiful in her toga as she does in her other getups. White, black or pink, all colors flatter her.

Yes, the movie is boring. There isn't that much of a plot. David Leisure plays his one annoying character as well as every other time I've seen him play it; the actor who plays Ted is alright; Detective Charles is played by a competent actor, etc. It's just that the script is as dreadful as the production values. The lighting, the camera angles, the filming are pretty terrible. There isn't any character that keeps me interested, and their story is flimsy at best. Amanda Bearse looks her best here, with her hair all moussed up '80s style, and she is drop dead in a belted black dress with oversized earrings. The men aren't much to look at, but you have the ladies beauty to at least elevate this from a dreadful 3 to a 4 or a 5.

The scene where Venus goes Rodeo Drive shopping made me wonder if Pretty Woman ripped it off from here, or if that was a 'thing' in the '80s. (I think there's plenty other era shows with such a shopping scene.)

All in all, this is painful to watch and I fell asleep trying to get through, as I kept pausing.and finding better things to do. Nevertheless, I have 15 more minutes to go and I intend to see it through. With a better script, a better cinematographer and a more creative director, this could have been fun fluff to watch on a rainy day. As it is, it's boring fluff, but gorgeous Vanna will save part of the show. Pity she spends most of the film in the toga. As flattering as it is on her, it would have been nice to see her wear other numbers more than just for a few secs, during the shopping sequence. Also her makeup wasn't that great, made her look kinda washed out, but even then, the woman was just a drop dead beauty. With a few acting classes to further her talent, she could have done something more than being Miss Letter Turner-turned-letter-clicker. What could have been.

Watch it once, if you must, as long as you have a 2nd hobby on hand, like knitting or shaving your armpits or fixing your car's engine, to keep you occupied during the boring movie gaps...and those are many!

A Goddess Review

[amandacollins75 · 1/10 · 10 July 2007]

The mere concept that my life and that of my family being portrayed by actors has always been a source of great amusement to me. My brother Hercules has taken a shine to a few of the men to have portrayed him, but I have yet to take an interest in any of the one-dimensional Hollywood clones who has yet played me. Suzanne Somers, I don't think so! Ursula Andress, uh, no! Lisa Kudrow, yeah, right! Alex Tydings, uh, let's not go there. Oh, Marilyn (Munroe), you died too early! I could have petitioned you into Olympus had you played me. The only actress today worth my left finger would be Reese Witherspoon, but when I think of Vanna White, I just want to scream my head off. To tell the truth, I think a movie based on my life today and what my family is now doing could be the basis for a very interesting movie. I mean, who would believe that Hermes likes to race cars, or my old boyfriend Thor still goes chasing monsters with my brother, Hercules, or that Anubis flies planes. There's a casino in Wyoming where the Native American gods always hold a room open for me, but if another Hollywood screenwriter creates another Twentieth Century gods film and only features the immortals of Olympus, he's going to have a couple thousand angry retired deities at his door. To be fair, the little letter turner is kind of attractive as mortals go, but she plays me as kind of a dim bulb with the modern world. Come on! Even my ex-husband Hephaestus has been impressed with some of the inventions you mortals have created. I've kept in touch with my mortal descendants and I'm very hip on the ever-changing lingo and technology. David Naughton is cute as my little obsessed foil in the movie, but David Leisure is only fair as the comic relief. Little Richard bangs out his role the same way he does with his little piano, but I've known Sumerian gods with smaller egos. To tell the truth, the whole movie is really dated and the production is so high school. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to put another curse on those "Sex in the City" douche bags....

Great movie if you are fast asleep.

[hg-84108 · 1/10 · 8 October 2018]

The movie sucked. Vanna's acting sucked. But I gotta give her props, She's living proof you don't need talent of any kind to become rich....She was at the right place at the right time when she landed flipping squares on TV....

Bad 80s gold!

[shuvcat-1 · 6 December 2008]

I remember seeing this (twice!) on TV as a kid and totally loving the novelty of Vanna from Wheel playing Venus. (I was a pretty stupid kid) This is 80's bad TV-movie gold. Every inch filmed in the Dynasty/Aaron Spelling era California of the 80s. Even the soundtrack is total 80s sitcom synth. Rips totally from movies like Mannequin, Earth Girls Are Easy and Date With An Angel, and precursors the camp of Xena and Hercules. (Callisto bears a striking resemblance to Vanna, doesn't she?) And Vanna actually made me laugh when she masquerades as "Vera" the Southern-fried cousin. She actually hit a few comic notes there.

Silly and fluffy, but fun enough to include on your bad 80's movie night.