And while we're on the subject of the worst films ever made, here's a trivia quiz. Which actress has been in two of the 3 worst films ever made?
The films are - as if you need me to tell you! - A Stranger Among Us and Shining Through.
The answer:
Melanie Griffith.
A Stranger Among Us was so preposterously stupid, and so shockingly badly acted, that I spent the entire film in a mix of embarrassed laughter and awe-struck admiration that such drivel could ever have been contemplated by a studio. Ms Griffith plays a NYPD detective (that alone would be enough to make the film preposterous) who goes undercover into the NYC Hasidic community to hunt down a murderer and falls in love with the rabbi.
Let me run that by you again, since the human brain cannot absorb such a concept in one go. Melanie Griffith - Melanie Griffith! - plays a NYPD cop who goes undercover as a Hasidic Jew, no one notices she isn't entirely kosher, and she and the rabbi get to make beautiful klezmer together.
The other film, Shining Through, is a Nazi double, triple, quadruple, I lost countuple 'thriller' in which she starred with Michael Douglas and was so mind-numbingly dull that when I realised, some half an hour into it, that I left my oven on, walked home to turn it off, walked back to the cinema, turned to my friend and asked 'what's happened?', she replied: 'nothing'.
There can, of course, be no debate as to these three worst films ever made. But if you have contenders for spots 4 or up, do please post a comment.
The two most discerning film critics I know - they work as a team - are Alex and Harry Solomons. That they are my nephews is irrelevant. They have impeccable judgement, and are regulars at their local cinemas.