Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman

Rating:
Summary: "I'd love to see you all messed up."
Review: "Smash Up" is a tearjerker that offered Susan Hayward her first staring role as Angela Evans. Angela has a promising career as a singer ahead of her when she tosses it all away for domestic bliss with up-and-coming singer husband, Ken Conway (Lee Bowman). Everything is perfect at first, but then when Ken hits the big time, Angela's deep insecurities emerge, and soon Angela plummets into a serious drinking problem. Ken professes amazement and then annoyance with Angela's behaviour--after all, he reasons, she has everything a woman can want. Then the marriage hits the rocks, and Angela hits the bottle even more than before ...

Eddie Albert plays Steve Nelson, Ken's accompanist and partner. Steve is the steady bachelor who can see the error of Ken's remote and disaffected ways. Marsha Grey (Marsha Hunt) plays a conniving woman who wants Ken for herself. The film is corny in parts, and the relentless playing of the theme grates on one's nerves, but this is Susan Hayward's film. She delivers a stunning performance as the needy Angela, whose decline begins with her husband's success. Some of the scenes called for her to be drunk, or to get drunk, and she performed excellently. Not everyone can pull off the role of a drunk, but there were some scenes when it wasn't quite clear, at first, whether or not Angela was tipsy--she didn't overdo it once. If you want to watch a 40s tear-jerker, this good quality Alpha DVD is a great place to start--displacedhuman


Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Film
Review: First, nowhere in IMDB.com's biographies of Susan Hayword and Rita Hayworth do they note ANYTHING even remotely linking these two women ESPECIALLY as "sisters"?

I have not seen Susan Hayword probably since the TV program "Bill Kennedys Showtime" screened them in the early-mid sixties.
She is quite excellent in this film although she is, at times, emotionally all over the place.

I don't believe this was done intentionally to further the alcohol plot device, I believe it is a technique unique to Susan Hayword's acting style.
For example, she will go from a scene of ravishing the screen with natural beauty and then, they make her up to look beautiful (according to Hollywood studio standards) and she looks plastic and trampy. She seems to excel at emotional extremes and she takes advantage of sometimes weak dialog and, via performace strategy, has the ability to raise the scene from "C" to "A" level.
She DEFINITELY "carries" a film! She eats the screen alive.

Now, the songwriting... it is very quaint but if you enjoy a decent melody, you'll find yourself walking about the house humming it (almost to the consternation of any musical preferences!). For all of Susan Hayword's ferociousness Marsha Hunt stands up to her admirably (and rivals her beauty and class). All supporting roles are done quite well, Lee Bowman (as Susan's husband), Eddie Albert (as his songwriter collaborator), and you will enjoy Janet Murdoch as Miss Kirk (Baby Angelica's Nanny) and her wonderful Scots brogue.

I don't expect the greatest from Alpha-Video (Gotham) because they transfer, as is, whatever they can get their hands on from Public Domain. But, at least, we get to see this film!

Overall Quality of DVD: **1/2 /**** Sound: ** /**** Plot: **1/2 /**** Acting: ***/**** Cinematography: ***/**** Direction: ***/****
If you enjoy Susan Hayword, I would recommend: "I Want To Live" & "Tulsa"

Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Film
Review: First, nowhere in IMDB.com's biographies of Susan Hayword and Rita Hayworth do they note ANYTHING even remotely linking these two women ESPECIALLY as "sisters"?

I have not seen Susan Hayword probably since the TV program "Bill Kennedys Showtime" screened them in the early-mid sixties.
She is quite excellent in this film although she is, at times, emotionally all over the place.

I don't believe this was done intentionally to further the alcohol plot device, I believe it is a technique unique to Susan Hayword's acting style.
For example, she will go from a scene of ravishing the screen with natural beauty and then, they make her up to look beautiful (according to Hollywood studio standards) and she looks plastic and trampy. She seems to excel at emotional extremes and she takes advantage of sometimes weak dialog and, via performace strategy, has the ability to raise the scene from "C" to "A" level.
She DEFINITELY "carries" a film! She eats the screen alive.

Now, the songwriting... it is very quaint but if you enjoy a decent melody, you'll find yourself walking about the house humming it (almost to the consternation of any musical preferences!). For all of Susan Hayword's ferociousness Marsha Hunt stands up to her admirably (and rivals her beauty and class). All supporting roles are done quite well, Lee Bowman (as Susan's husband), Eddie Albert (as his songwriter collaborator), and you will enjoy Janet Murdoch as Miss Kirk (Baby Angelica's Nanny) and her wonderful Scots brogue.

I don't expect the greatest from Alpha-Video (Gotham) because they transfer, as is, whatever they can get their hands on from Public Domain. But, at least, we get to see this film!

Overall Quality of DVD: **1/2 /**** Sound: ** /**** Plot: **1/2 /**** Acting: ***/**** Cinematography: ***/**** Direction: ***/****
If you enjoy Susan Hayword, I would recommend: "I Want To Live" & "Tulsa"

Rating:
Summary: Alcohol Makes You Do Crazy Things.
Review: SMASH-UP: THE STORY OF A WOMAN stars Susan Hayward (sister of Rita Hayworth) as Angie Evans, a young singer who ends up destroying part of her life through drinking. Angie is an up-and-coming nightclub and radio sensation. However, one night she meets a man with a voice of gold and they fall in love. Angie gives up her career to be a wife and later a mother. However, her husband hits the big time and she soon finds herself alone with the baby and a bottle of licquer. She slowly declines in alcoholism until she causes a tragic accident which almost costs her life and that of her child.

SMASH-UP is a movie with a lesson. It would seem almost like an after school special, except the movie is made so well it doesn't come off that way. Instead, what is captured on film is a fairly accurate portrayal of what can happen to a person when they become addicted to alcohol. The acting is good and the movie has a very beautiful score. Not too shabby for a preachy, anti-drinking movie.

Rating:
Summary: Susan Hayward Rules!!
Review: Susan Hayward rules in her portrayal of an alcoholic.It's a great movie!!

Rating:
Summary: Susan, Susan, Susan
Review: Susan Hayward, impossibly young and beautiful, in this Walter Wanger production, portraying Angelica Evans, a young chanteuse with the world at her feet, but who doesn't want the world. She wants Ken Conway, part of an unemployed singing/songwriting duo (sexlessly portrayed by Lee Bowman), but he is socially beneath her. As the effervescent star of a family of performers (who happens to like a little drinkee now and then), Angelica lacks the ambition to continue her singing career. It's easy to understand why - not having been around in 1947, it's hard to imagine that the kind of singing and dancing that Hayward does as Angelica could ever be popular in real life. But, we digress - suffice to say she gives up her career for love. Hubby, and his partner, played by Eddie Albert get jobs as singing cowboys on the radio (another mysteriously popular career in old movies), and he pens a special song - a hideously slurpy ballad called "Life Can Be Beautiful." Dispensing with the cowboy routine, hubby sings the song on his radio show one night and become an overnight success, a teen idol - this, of course, is a time when teen idols *weren't* teenagers themselves. He gets hooked up with a management company, and acquires an assistant, a little minx named Martha, wickedly played by Marsha Hunt. Little Martha takes over many aspects of hubby's life, rendering Angelica useless, except as a milk machine for the baby. A few little drinkee-winkees help ease the pain ("It puts *poise* in apathetic people," she tells us), but with the drinkees come the attendant drunken dramas and Angelica becomes an embarrassment to her pop star husband. Martha happily manipulates the situation, making sure that Angelica knows that she's no longer needed in every way possible. This culminates in a drunken slapfest at a party, resulting in hubby moving out. Proven to be an unfit mother, Angelica loses custody of her child and naturally dives deeply into the bottle. Drunkenly deciding to kidnap her child, she does so, and nearly kills the child by setting the house on fire with a cigarette. This brings Angelica and hubby back together again, Martha admits there was never anything between them - she just wanted Angelica to *think* so, and everything works out perfectly, with hubby understanding that his wife's alcoholism was caused by his lack of attention to her. Life can be beautiful. Indeed.

Rating:
Summary: GREAT HAYWARD MOVIE ALL THE WAY!!
Review: Susan Hayward, in the first of her five Oscar nominated performances (she should have won for this one, in my opinion!!), gives a riveting portrayal of a woman with a low self-esteem in which alcoholism nearly destroys her and all that is precious to her. Her performance is right on target with many facets and dimensions that allow us to really feel right along with her, what she is going through. In 1947 she was up against Rosalind Russell (Mourning Becomes Electra), Dorothy McGuire (Gentleman's Agreement), Joan Crawford (Possessed) and Loretta Young (The Farmer's Daughter). Having seen all of the performances of the above and being a fan of all the actresses above, not favoring one over the other, I would have given my vote to Hayward! In my opinion, she is better in this film than her other two alcoholic portrayals that earned her Oscar Nominations as well..namely, "My Foolish Heart" and "I'll Cry Tomorrow".

The rest of the film is ably abetted by a strong supporting cast with the possible exception of Lee Bowman who plays her ambivalent, non-empathetic husband. He is wooden and unlikeable throughout. Eddie Albert and Marsha Hunt turn in wonderful performance, the latter exceptional in two scenes...one in where she and Hayward have a catfight, the other in which she sacrifices her love for Bowman to do the honorable thing because she knows Bowman will never leave Hayward for her.

Soapy, yes, but good soap.

The DVD transfer is fine, but Alpha Video which produced this DVD cuts off the beginning UNIVERSAL/INTERNATIONAL logo which I feel is important to every picture that I watch. This may be a minor thing but it irks me. The rest of the DVD is just fine, the audio and picture great!!

I would give the movie five stars total were it not for Alpha's cheap video and the mediocre performance of Bowman.

Rating:
Summary: Hayward at her best rises about soapish material
Review: This is the film that made Susan Hayward a star. It is one of her top performances. Miss Hayward had been in Hollywood since 1938 or so and had really only done a slew of supporting performances. Then she got the lead in this and it was one of the biggest hits of 1947. She received the first of her five Academy Award nominations. And rightfully so, this film could have easily dissolved into typical 40's melodrama and tears, but Miss Hayward really manages to keep it a cut about all of that. She plays an up-and-comer singer who falls for another up-and-comer singer. They get married and she gives up her career to be a full-time wife and later mother. As her husband's star rises dramatically, she is often left at home while he's on the road, and of course taken for granted. Her husband's young woman business manager who travels with him and pines for him does not help matters. This leads to a severe drinking problem on Miss Hayward's part. As a result, her husband leaves her and keeps their child. Despite trying to sober up to make a professional comeback and to regain custody of the child, Miss Hayward suffers a relapse and both her life and the child's life are in danger. Not to spoil the ending, but it ends as any other 1940's film of this ilk ends.

Yet, Miss Hawyard really keeps this from slipping into silly melodrama. She plays the ignored wife/drunk really well. She creates a tremendous amount of sympathy for the character, and the subtle slide into alcoholism is well-handled. There are some really nice musical numbers in this as well. The rest of the cast is good, and the movie is a little daring in parts. She socializes with her husband's male friends, her husband has a woman business manager, and (gasp) Miss Hawyward lives with her husband briefly before they are married. Racy stuff for 1947! Overall, this is a joy to watch. It is Susan Hayward at her best.

The DVD is nice. The film is visually dark and this was actually distracting in parts, I'm not sure that this was some noir attempt or a bad transfer, but the sound is fine, particularly the songs. There are chapter selections that aren't much, and no extras. It's nice, however, that one of Susan Hayward's best roles is now available on DVD.

Rating:
Summary: Susan smashed
Review: Touted as a female version of The Lost Weekend, this was Susan Hayward's breakthrough role for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. (She wouldn't win until 10 years later with I Want to Live). As a nightclub singer who marries and exchanges her career for the bottle, Hayward prefigures her alcoholic Lillian Roth in I'll Cry Tomorrow, with the same physicality and her being a "charming" drunk (as opposed to a nasty one). In her drunk scenes she even uses the facial grimaces that she would go further with in Tomorrow, and she's willing to make herself look silly, with messy hair. Unfortunately an air of B-movie hangs over this production, and Hayward is yet to have the bullish bravado that would make her such an entertaining actress in the 1950's. Things aren't helped by her doing her own singing since it is as ill-advised as in I'll Cry Tomorrow. The B mentailty extends to the character of her also singing husband played by Lee Bowman. Bowman sounds as if his singing his dubbed, his acting is stiff, and when his wife starts drinking he never thinks to ask her why. His only reaction is stern disapproval. His pianist, Eddie Albert is far more sympathetic and "modern" in attitude towards Susan. It's nice to see too that she kept him around for Tomorrow, though I could have done without his habit of chewing gum. The psychology of why Hayward drinks is based on her feelings of low self-esteem. When she marries, she abandons her career to play housewife and mother for Bowman but once he hits it big, and employs household staff and a nanny, Hayward becomes idle. She had drunk before she went on stage to sing but one glass at the most. Here her insecurities about her worth, including a fear that Bowman is being chased by his assistant Marsha Hunt, lead her to drink more. The word "blame" is thrown around a lot yet it seems Susan must be threatend by the death of her child in a fire before she is willing to face her problem, with an odd back to the camera admission, that seems to suggest that a sequel may have been contemplated! In spite of this film running overtime, director Stuart Heisler provides some redemptive touches. A shot of Hayward and Bowman in shadow profile in their first embrace, some sadistic close-ups of the child in pneumatic pain, and a tart conversation between Hayward and Hunt which leads to a much talked of but disappointing catfight that is over before it has begun. Heisler also doesn't manage to avoid the cliche of an unseen orchestra supporting a lone singer, particularly noticeable in a radio spot with Bowman and Albert.