1979 - SUNBURN, features a real life Barbie Doll Farrah Fawcett.

The Farrah Fawcett phenomenon was probably at it's peak with the release of Sunburn a comedy thriller.  Farrah was still billing herself as Farrah Fawcett-Majors until her divorce from actor Lee Majors after which she dropped the "Majors" part of her name.  Farrah was big stuff in the entertainment world for a while during the mid 1970's.  She was a California blonde who looked like a real life Barbie doll.  She had been working in the movie and TV business for a few years performing in bit parts until she hit the big time with the mediocre television show Charlie's Angels.  Not satisfied with being on TV,  Farrah made the jump to movies where she started in a couple of mediocre films, Sunburn being one of them.

Sunburn is a comedy/thriller which has Farrah and her co-stars Charles Grodin and Art Carney attempting to solve the death of a rich guy in Acapulco.  Farrah has been hired by private investigator Grodin to pretend to be his wife. Art Carney is Grodin's associate helping with the case.  Other actors that show up are Joan Collins, William Daniels, Keenan Wynn and Eleanor Parker.  Sunburn was designed to be a showpiece for Farrah but as it turned out Grodin and Carney with their comedy "chops" easily steal the movie away from her.

Farrah wears a number of outfits throughout the film to showcase her looks.  My favorite is a very impractical wet suit that would really be a rubber fetish weirdo's dream.  Farrah ends up helping Grodin and Carney solve the mystery while falling in love with Grodin. 

The film has some lame comedy bits, some shootouts and a car chase.  The director Richard C. Sarafian keeps things moving along but the screenplay really lacks wit and frankly at this point in her career Farrah really wasn't much of a performer.  I suppose the film is of historical importance as it's another case of Hollywood's ability to make a good looking woman into an icon for a while. 

This isn't much of a film,  Alfred Hitchcock was the kind of filmmaker who could do the "beautiful people, beautiful places" films of which this tries to be, when he worked at Paramount.  Hitchcock could bring a lot more style to these kind of comedy thrillers..  The film didn't do anything for Farrah's career and a few years later was appearing in The Cannonball Run.

The film was written by James Booth, John Daly and Stephen Oliver, the running time is 99 minutes.