Susan Hayward Month: Smash-Up: The Story of A Woman! Review

Smash-Up stars Susan as Angie Evans, a nightclub who meets and falls for fellow singer Ken Conway(Bowman). Angie sacrifices everything for Ken, and it ends up putting a strain on her personally. When Ken's career starts to launch, Angie starts to crumble. Her one escapism from the constant avoidance from her husband, is alcohol. After Angie's been hitting the bottle too many times, the marriage between and Ken is over and Ken looks to take their child away from her. With the stress of her marriage ending, and the fear that she could loose her child, Angie sinks to the bottom. When the worst possible thing to happen to Angie occurs, thats when she realizes she needs to clean up her act.

It's not a terrible movie, but it's directed poorly. It begins quite quickly and then stalls for the rest of the film. The cast is superb but while watching, I couldn't imagine Marsha Hunt as the lovestruck secretary, who attempts to break Ken and Angie's marriage. To me, she never came off as a vixen, more like the sweet innocent. Susan was marvelous but I preferred her performance in "I Want to Live" more.

Grade: C

Next Film: I'll Cry Tomorrow

A Change of Plans

Originally this series was going to be lasting until the 31st of January, but I've changed my mind. I've decided to extend it one more month. I just feel like I'll know more about her from two months, versus one month. So I hope you enjoy my ramblings on Miss Hayward for a little bit longer.

Susan Hayward Month: I Want to Live! Review

I Want to Live! is based on the life of Barbara Graham, who was convicted of murdering Mabel Monahan, a Californian widow. From the minute Barbara starts off in the world, it seems her life is meant to be in shambles. Her Mother was a troublesome teen, when she had Barbara, and when Barbara was just 2 years old, her Mother was sent to reformatory school. She didn't know her parents very well, and grew up with little knowledge of them.

When Barbara grew up, things just became worse. Barbara was heavily into drugs by her teens and was prostituting as a mean for some extra money. She had been arrested several times on lesser charges but in 1953, her fate was sealed. Barbara along with two accomplices were arrested for the murder of Mabel Monahan, a 64 year old widow. Her two accomplices, Emmett Perkins and Jack Santo both accused Barbara of the murder, in which they tried to protect themselves, but all three would get the gas chamber.

On June 3rd 1955, Barbara along with her accomplices were put to death. Barbara was 31 years old, two weeks shy of her 32nd birthday.

Susan plays the role of Barbara Graham so convincingly and real, at times, I felt sympathetic towards her character.

With this being my "first" real Susan Hayward movie, I really thought she was amazing. She was sarcastic, sad, charming, and honest. She certainly deserved to win the Oscar for her performance as Barbara Graham; truly amazing! The film had this documentary feel to it, and I felt like I was there watching the actual events occur. Nothing was too stagy and the performances were raw and real. Supporting players were fantastic as well, even though I never heard of any of them.

Grade: B

Next Film on the List: Smash Up: The Story of a Woman

Susan Hayward Month

Before, you jump to the conclusion that I had forgotten about poor little Susan Hayward, you are wrong. For the past couple of weeks, I've been working on finishing a particular season 1(it's Sons of Anarchy; not my type of show at all! lol) and I wanted to finish that up first, before I started my posts on Susan. I have about three more episodes left, and then for the rest of this month, I will be posting on Susan.

When I originally came up with this series, I was going to do actors/actresses that I would randomly pick and just talk about their career, etc. Many of them, I knew but now I've decided to embark on a different route. For these posts, I'm going to be introducing myself to an actor/actress, that I'm not too familiar with. My first pick was Susan Hayward and with hearing so much good about her, I'm excited to watch and learn more about her. The only movies of hers, that I have seen have been "I Married a Witch" and "Beau Geste", with her roles in those films, being very small. So I'm expanding my interests and opening up my views, so that I'm able to learn about Old Hollywood.

As for the reason as to why I'm watching Sons of Anarchy, its because I'm trying to watch a different series each month. My older brother asked me, a while back to watch it, and I kept delaying it, but now I'm watching it. It's actually not that bad, a bit foul mouthed for my taste, but overall it's a pretty good show. Don't worry, next month's show is lot tamer, it's The Mary Tyler Moore Show. :)

So don't fret, a post will be on its way, within a couple of days.