Deprived of a normal childhood by her ambitious mother, Lillian Roth becomes a star of Broadway and Hollywood before she is twenty. Shortly before her marriage to her childhood sweetheart, David Tredman, he dies and Lillian takes her first drink of many down the road of becoming an alcoholic.
01 Dec I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955)
Drunk on Acting
I love movies. I love getting caught up in the all the cinematic flows that filmmakers know how to weave.
But the things I value and study in film are the things that are cinematic. Some movies aren’t movies. They’re distributed and displayed as movies but they are simply exercises in another form, usually a play.
(Naturally, it works the other way. Most books these days are cinematic.)
The most common nonmovie movie is the dramatic play about a soul who loses himself — usually by drugs or alcohol — and then we share in the struggle back. Its a predictable arc, sometimes folded by having the actor play an actor.
These things are popular among those who think movies are about storytelling which is all characters supported by acting. We come only to see the acting as if the engine of a car justified the voyage.
So there’s only one thin dimension on which to enjoy and judge this.
I watched it only because it is supposed to be the best performance of the premiere redhead of the middle period — she who we see every time we see the Columbia logo.
I didn’t think it worth the effort.
Posted in 2005
Ted’s Evaluation — 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.
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