(Some Spoilers) Old money and high society sleaze make "Where Love Has Gone" one of the best of it's kind in how the other side lives loves and cheats on each other. War hero and USAAF fighter ace Major Luke Miller, Mike Conners, gets caught up with a world that even the trials and tribulations of the Second World didn't properly prepare him for.
In Phoenix Arizona discussing an upcoming project for the city Luke gets a call from San Francisco for him to fly right over in that there's trouble brewing for his fifteen year old daughter Daniell, or Dani, played by Joey Heatherton the real life daughter of TV's popular "Merry Mailman". It turns out that Dani was involved in a free for all between her mother Valerie Hayden Miller, Susan Hayward, and her mothers lover Richard Lazich. During the wild and hysterical slug-fest Dani ran through Richard with a knife killing him.
We soon realize that both Luke and Valerie have been divorced and it's their separation that caused Dani to drift into very wild and dangerous company that has caused her to lose control of both her emotions and actions. Valerie who had a strict upbringing by her mother Mrs. Gerald Hayden, Bette Davis, had let her daughter Dani grow up wild and free. This caused Dani to lead a life of wild sex as well as partying with much older men losing her virginity before she was 15 years old!
We get a long flashback of how Luke met Valerie, a world famous artist and sculptor, during WWII and how her mother Mrs. Hayden practically forced Valerie, even though she was in love with him in the first place, to marry Luke. Mrs. Hayden was the epitome of a nosy and intrusive mother-in-law making Luke's life a living hell controlling both him and his means of making an honest living. Mr. Haydens actions kept Luke from his love of building buildings for the state by having him blackballed out of the real-estate and architecture business.
Forcing a helpless and unemployed Luke to work for her building company Mrs. Hayden had the once proud and independent Luke Miller broken down to nothing more then an leach and moocher where he had to live off both his wife's and mother-in-laws money in order for him to survive. All this didn't help young Dani who growing up had no father to look up to with her dad Luke turning to the bottle for comfort and at the same time help make him forget what a failure he really was.
As we get back into the present, 1964, we see that Dani who's charged as a juvenile in Richard Lazichs death knows a lot more then she, and her mother, are willing to let out. It's the last ten or so minutes of the movie at Dani's trial that the awful and devastating truth comes out of what really happened that evening when Richard Lazich was stabbed to death. This shocking revelation that was so x-rated back then, we weren't even given the benefit to see it in a flashback, that it completely blew away Valerie as well as her mother Mrs. Hayden. This all lead ***SPOILER ALERT** the poor and emotionally destroyed Valerie Hayden Miller to rush back to her studio and do herself in the very same way her lover Richard Lazich was.
Too shocking and outrageous to mention even now some 40 years after it's release the movie "Where Love Has Gone" indescribable ending will leave you, like every one in it, sputtering with disbelief. In that something as shocking like that, the goings on between Valerie Dani and Richard Lazich, was even considered to be put into a film, as sleazy as it was, way back then.
The movie is actually based on the Lana Turner Johnny Stomponato affair back in April 1958 where Lana's 14 year old daughter Cheryl was convicted in Stomponato's, a notorious Los Angelas gangster, justifiable killing. In the movie "Where Love Has Gone" the final few minutes totally outdoes and eclipses whatever happened in real life between Lana Johnny and Cheryl by a wide country mile!
In Phoenix Arizona discussing an upcoming project for the city Luke gets a call from San Francisco for him to fly right over in that there's trouble brewing for his fifteen year old daughter Daniell, or Dani, played by Joey Heatherton the real life daughter of TV's popular "Merry Mailman". It turns out that Dani was involved in a free for all between her mother Valerie Hayden Miller, Susan Hayward, and her mothers lover Richard Lazich. During the wild and hysterical slug-fest Dani ran through Richard with a knife killing him.
We soon realize that both Luke and Valerie have been divorced and it's their separation that caused Dani to drift into very wild and dangerous company that has caused her to lose control of both her emotions and actions. Valerie who had a strict upbringing by her mother Mrs. Gerald Hayden, Bette Davis, had let her daughter Dani grow up wild and free. This caused Dani to lead a life of wild sex as well as partying with much older men losing her virginity before she was 15 years old!
We get a long flashback of how Luke met Valerie, a world famous artist and sculptor, during WWII and how her mother Mrs. Hayden practically forced Valerie, even though she was in love with him in the first place, to marry Luke. Mrs. Hayden was the epitome of a nosy and intrusive mother-in-law making Luke's life a living hell controlling both him and his means of making an honest living. Mr. Haydens actions kept Luke from his love of building buildings for the state by having him blackballed out of the real-estate and architecture business.
Forcing a helpless and unemployed Luke to work for her building company Mrs. Hayden had the once proud and independent Luke Miller broken down to nothing more then an leach and moocher where he had to live off both his wife's and mother-in-laws money in order for him to survive. All this didn't help young Dani who growing up had no father to look up to with her dad Luke turning to the bottle for comfort and at the same time help make him forget what a failure he really was.
As we get back into the present, 1964, we see that Dani who's charged as a juvenile in Richard Lazichs death knows a lot more then she, and her mother, are willing to let out. It's the last ten or so minutes of the movie at Dani's trial that the awful and devastating truth comes out of what really happened that evening when Richard Lazich was stabbed to death. This shocking revelation that was so x-rated back then, we weren't even given the benefit to see it in a flashback, that it completely blew away Valerie as well as her mother Mrs. Hayden. This all lead ***SPOILER ALERT** the poor and emotionally destroyed Valerie Hayden Miller to rush back to her studio and do herself in the very same way her lover Richard Lazich was.
Too shocking and outrageous to mention even now some 40 years after it's release the movie "Where Love Has Gone" indescribable ending will leave you, like every one in it, sputtering with disbelief. In that something as shocking like that, the goings on between Valerie Dani and Richard Lazich, was even considered to be put into a film, as sleazy as it was, way back then.
The movie is actually based on the Lana Turner Johnny Stomponato affair back in April 1958 where Lana's 14 year old daughter Cheryl was convicted in Stomponato's, a notorious Los Angelas gangster, justifiable killing. In the movie "Where Love Has Gone" the final few minutes totally outdoes and eclipses whatever happened in real life between Lana Johnny and Cheryl by a wide country mile!