Touches You

People are voting emotionally.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

This is melodrama near it's best - offering style, class, surprisingly good performances and an almost believable script. George Cukor as director and George Folsey as director of photography are a solid combination - drawing the viewer into a rather engrossing drama. It's also quite unlike the general Hollywood production (it's reminiscent of the realistic sharp edge that might have come from a writer more like Clifford Odettes). As far as original screenplays go this must rank as one of writer Isobel Lennart's best dramatic character studies. And, could be one time that enforced studio alterations just may have improved the final outcome.Turner is convincing as the small town girl striving for a modeling career in hard bitten N.Y. city. Milland is always reliable and carries his guilt ridden out-of-town businessman role with fitting aplomb. All performances by an unusually cast, fully professional ensemble, are strong. It could be said that Turner was a little too mature for her part and some script elements might not always gel but this remains class entertain for those that want their melodrama treated with less gloss and more character driven. It was obvious this material was never going to be popular stuff.Bronislau Kaper's (Lili '53) dramatic but melodic score sets the emotional tone for this above average piece of storytelling and ranks as one of his best.

A Life of her Own displays an array of talent, but falls short, in part because the primary characters are not likable enough for us to care that much about what happens to them.The story is intriguing, though. The situation the characters are involved in is a classic one. Most people can relate to it. But the story does not seem focused enough; other subplots and diversions distract from the central drama.But does the film really know that the central drama is? Is it about the couple? Or the woman? Or the triangle? Is it about the questions of values? Or feelings? When we reach the end, after some out-of-left-field pontificating and amateur psychologizing, what finally was the central question? Notes on this site indicate that the ending was changed because it was unpopular. But without a clear focus, how could this story resolve with a clear message or with clear intent? And how much can you really care about a character that is emotionally damaged if she never really shows any growth or change?

Years ago, movies of this type were called "women's movies". The label wasn't intended to demean, just identify the niche the film fit into. My mother, bless her heart, would faithfully troop down to the matinée and suffer along with Joan or Barbara or, in this case, Lana as they faced up nobly to what only a woman in those days could appreciate. In short, a programmer like this had a ready-made audience, and I suspect MGM was counting on that when they put marquee names up front and then let them coast through the production. The consensus from other reviewers is dead-on. The principals—Turner and Milland—are indeed miscast and lethargic, while even the normally sparkling Cukor-touch appears flat and uninvolved except for the energetically choreographed opening. As others point out, what interest there is surfaces at the margins, especially with the superbly shaded performance from an unknown Margaret Phillips as the invalid wife. A role like that can easily descend into the depths of bathos and parody. Nonetheless, Phillips manages to be appealing without being pathetic—quite a challenge for an unsung actress who deserved more than a brief TV career. Even though the film is clearly a second-rate effort, I expect it still made money, thanks to the star-power of its principals and a ready-made audience that, nevertheless, deserved better.

Lana Turner was off screen for two years and came back with this dull film. And what happened to her? The ravishing beauty of 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' from only a few years before is gone. At only 29 years of age when filming this, she looks 39. Not only that, but she appears tired and uncomfortable throughout, as does co-star Ray Milland. She's supposed to be a spirited young wannabe from Kansas but she looks and acts like a cynical fashion plate sharpie from New York who is slumming. Milland is supposed to be a Montana copper miner unfamiliar with the Big City, but you don't believe it for a second. This is one odd little soap opera, with the ultimate point being that our little Kansas-innocent-in-the-big-city has attained that Coming of Age discovery, realizing she'll have to go on without her Great Love and forge that "Life Of Her Own." Sure, but Lana's worn face and manner makes her coming-of-age appear more like a mid-life crisis. Sadly, the film stacks the deck against her by putting her up against crashing bores like Milland and Barry Sullivan. And once Margaret Phillips shows up as Milland's crippled wife, and is so lovable in both her scenes, you know the Turner-Milland relationship is hopeless.The true sin of this film is that it becomes increasingly boring. It starts fine, with Ann Dvorak taking hold as a fading model turned sour drunk. She exits early, unfortunately, but she gives the film a charge. Tom Ewell, as the manager of the modeling agency who gives Lana her start, is excellent in a fast-paced, fast-talking scene. But when Milland shows up the film slows down, then crawls. A romance between the two is manufactured out of slopped-together bits, from a piano player in a nightclub playing the same theme over and over, a kid getting Lana and Milland involved in buying a jalopy, and (no kidding) a ventriloquist goofing around with them. So, it goes, yawn by yawn, but during all this forced dramatic hoo-hah is a parade of eye-blink bits by many familiar film/TV faces. There's Kathleen Freeman as a switchboard operator, Richard Anderson as a note-taker, wheezy-voiced Percy Helton as a diner owner, Hermes Pan as (of course) a dancer, Frankie Darro (all grown up) as a bellboy, Frank Gerstle (the Jeff Chandler-like actor who played the doctor who tells Edmond O'Brien he's a dead man in 'D.O.A.') as a party guest, along with Beverly Garland as a fellow party guest, and Ann Robinson (of 'War Of The Worlds' fame) as a model. There's also Madge Blake (Aunt Harriet from the 'Batman' TV show) and Whit Bissell. It never seems to stop. Fortunately, the film does stop... or more likely runs into a dead end and gives up.