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.
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.