Nothing much happens in A LIFE OF HER OWN to make anyone understand why a director as famous as George Cukor would bother to direct this potboiler after reading the script. And even more questionable is why MGM chose this script for Lana's return to the screen after a two-year absence. She's supposed to be a young woman who sweeps into the big city looking for a model agency that will hire her and immediately clicks as a top fashion model even though she lacks the fresh-faced beauty anyone would expect in a New York model. So much for credibility.
Nor can one understand why there is absolutely no chemistry between LANA TURNER (beginning to look matronly at 30) and RAY MILLAND, who had already seen better days at his home studio, Paramount. The characters they play, a model and a successful, married businessman, are cardboard through and through with nothing about them to stir the interest in a long soap opera with a bittersweet ending.
ANN DVORAK has a brief role at the start, but as soon as she meets her fate we get a sluggish introduction to RAY MILLAND's character and the film simply goes on and on at great length until it's disclosed that he has a crippled wife at home that Turner feels needs his attention more than she does, before she walks off nobly into the night.
This kind of stuff wouldn't have been fashionable even fifteen years prior and it just meanders all over the place before it gets to that final scene. Not recommended for fans of Turner or Milland.
Nor can one understand why there is absolutely no chemistry between LANA TURNER (beginning to look matronly at 30) and RAY MILLAND, who had already seen better days at his home studio, Paramount. The characters they play, a model and a successful, married businessman, are cardboard through and through with nothing about them to stir the interest in a long soap opera with a bittersweet ending.
ANN DVORAK has a brief role at the start, but as soon as she meets her fate we get a sluggish introduction to RAY MILLAND's character and the film simply goes on and on at great length until it's disclosed that he has a crippled wife at home that Turner feels needs his attention more than she does, before she walks off nobly into the night.
This kind of stuff wouldn't have been fashionable even fifteen years prior and it just meanders all over the place before it gets to that final scene. Not recommended for fans of Turner or Milland.