Review of They Only Kill Their Masters

In 1972, MGM was in dire financial straits (like most of the major studios, after trying to come up with another "Sound of Music," and squandering millions in the process). MGM hired TV-executive James Aubrey in a desperate attempt to rescue the studio from oblivion. Aubrey responded by drastically cutting the budgets (and quality) of MGM's film output, and instead concentrated his efforts and the studio's remaining assets on the creation of a vulgar MGM Vegas hotel. Meanwhile, no one was around to run the store on the studio's film output, and "They Only Kill Their Masters" was typical of MGM's theatrical output during Aubrey's Reign of Terror. A cheapjack mystery no better(and in most ways worse) than the average TV movie-of-the-week, this abomination was especially horrific in unintended ways. For one, it was the last movie made on the memorable MGM backlot (soon to be bull-dozed and sold to realtors). Secondly, it reunited two of its top stars of the not-so-distant past, Peter Lawford and June Allyson, who starred in the memorable musical classic "Good News" filmed on that same lot 25 years earlier. To add insult to injury--SPOILER ALERT--an unhealthy-looking Lawford played one of the murder victims, and guess who the killer is? None other than poor Ms. Allyson, playing a homicidal lesbian whose motives remain as murky as everything else in this slapped-together disaster. Congratulations to Mr. Aubrey for cannibalizing the heritage of MGM, its wondrous backlot, and its rightful boasting that its contract players at one time constituted "more stars than there are in heaven" (look closely and you'll glimpse some other stars of years gone by--Ann Rutherford, Edmond O'Brien, etc--wasted in the wreckage). An all-around vile concoction that might have desecrated our memories of MGM for good, had not "That's Entertainment" (a compilation of MGM's greatest stars and musical numbers that became such an unexpected boxoffice hit that it spawned two sequels) come along 3 years later and put June Allyson and Peter Lawford together again exactly where they belonged--back on the (then-demolished) MGM backlot, singing and dancing up a storm to "The Varsity Drag" finale excerpted from. . . not "They Only Kill Their Masters".. . but the one-and-only collegiate musical classic "Good News."