Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman 1947

Love-Wrecked!

6.0 / 10   21 vote(s)
NR
Drama

A nightclub singer uses alcohol in excess to sooth her painful life.

Release Date 1947-03-01
Runtime 1h 43m
Directors Stuart Heisler, Stanley Cortez, Charles Felstead
Producers Walter Wanger, Martin Gabel
Writers Frank Cavett, John Howard Lawson, Dorothy Parker

A sort of role-reversal of "A Star is Born" as Susan Hayward portrays a successful nightclub singer who marries a struggling lyricist - Lee Bowman. When his career takes off, she becomes disheartened and turns to the bottle - putting herself and her young daughter at risk. Hayward is rather good in this - she is convincing as both a singer (thanks, largely, to the tones of Peg La Centra) and a drunk; and does engender a feeling of sympathy. Regrettably, the rest of the cast are unremarkable and the ending reduces her performance to little more than that of a pathetic failure. It's worth a watch, but only because you can see the star quality in Hayward's performance rather than anything peculiar to this story.

CinemaSerf