A Life of Her Own (1950) User Reviews

Interesting yet flawed

[samhill5215 · 6/10 · 16 November 2009]

This is a fairly gripping drama with good performances all around. It's always fun to see the veteran Louis Calhern who's good in just about anything. Lana Turner was the real surprise here although it seemed that at 29 she was a bit too old for that part. Her performance drew me into this sordid little tale of an ambitious small town girl who becomes a top New York model and takes up with a married man. I knew it couldn't end well but I kept watching and waiting. Ann Dvorak was another standout. She made me feel the pain and anguish of the forgotten model who's descended into a life of misery and booze. Ray Milland was the sore spot. He's a fine actor and performed well here as well but I just couldn't see him as the rough and tough Montana copper mine operator, at least not with an English accent. The fact that Welsh actor Margaret Phillips played his wife perhaps was meant to imply they were transplants from England but it was never made clear. In any case it's a good way to spend an hour and forty-eight minutes. Despite occasionally yielding to the temptation of melodrama it's not dull and definitely worth watching.

One more thing: the trivia section lists an alternate ending where the Lana Turner character ends up committing suicide like the Ann Dvorak character. It was changed when the test audience hated it. The current ending is not the greatest but I'm not sure it I would have liked the original ending any better. It just didn't seem likely that someone that had worked so hard and diligently to become a top model would have committed suicide for any reason. I think the current ending better reflects such a personality.

Marvelous melodrama!

[FilmOtaku · 7/10 · 25 June 2005]

I'm not sure at what point Lana Turner went from being "The Sweater Girl" to super-sonic Drama Queen, but it certainly could have been around the time George Cukor's "A Life of Her Own" was released in 1950. Lily James (Turner) is a young woman from a small town who comes to New York based on a letter she received from a modeling agency owned by Tom Caraway (Ewell). Upon their first meeting, Caraway hires her, and she quickly gets schooled in the highs and lows of modeling, thanks to a fading fashionista with whom she becomes friends. Unfortunately, the friendship is short-lived when Lily's friend hurls herself out of her apartment window in a drunken fit of loneliness. Lily becomes a top model herself, and along the way becomes acquainted with a businessman from out of town, Steve Harleigh (Milland) that she meets through a mutual friend. Although Harleigh is married, the two cannot deny their connection and end up having a very intense affair. Unfortunately, Harleigh is caught in a rough position since his doting wife back in Montana is handicapped and in a wheelchair. The two must decide whether their love is worth pursuing until the bitter end, or if they should deny their feelings and let each other go.

In "A Life of Her Own", George Cukor, one of film history's most prolific and successful directors (The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, My Fair Lady – just to name three) provides great melodrama without losing the integrity of the story. Unlike a lot of films from this genre, most of which I'd admit to really liking, I didn't find myself rolling my eyes and grinning during some of the most dramatic scenes; rather, I found myself completely drawn in to the plot, due partly to the character development and their portrayers. I really enjoy both Turner and Milland, and have seen where they can both just go out of control with the drama, but I didn't feel that way during this film one bit. To be sure, there are times that you have to suspend your disbelief. Turner was 30 when she made this film, and while she was incredibly beautiful, she was not a "fresh faced" kid who is going to take the modeling world by storm from the second she sets foot in New York. The reasons behind the attraction between Milland and Turner are a bit nebulous as well, but I felt they pulled off their chemistry convincingly.

Personally, I love the lush Technicolor melodramas of the 1950's, and short of the great Douglas Sirk, this is almost as good as it gets. 7/10 --Shelly

Finding Yourself...and Lana Turner

[JLRMovieReviews · 7/10 · 13 October 2009]

Lana Turner goes into the modeling world hoping to get discovered. Along the way, she meets Ray Milland, who's a married man, and of course they start having feelings for each other. Ann Dvorak (from Paul Muni's "Scarface") is great in a supporting role. In fact, some would say she steals the show, because the viewer thinks of her even when she's not on the screen, due to circumstances I'm not going into. Barry Sullivan, who was frequent costar of Lana's, is on hand with his shoulder for Lana to cry on.

For such an unknown movie of Lana's, one would think is just a hum-drum black-and-white movie. But, "A Life of Her Own" is a very well-written and insightful film which provides a mature approach to a woman's life at an older age, who is trying to find herself and what she really wants out of life, and what she doesn't want.

An added plus which most reviewers have already alluded to, is the great music score to this film. It makes Ray and Lana's scenes feel very intimate. But when reality hits and she meets the wheelchair-bound wife. it does get rather depressing and downbeat. But the ending is very soothing, as she "is herself" with Barry and visits the view one more time of Ann Dvorak's old apartment building and where she doesn't want to wind up. It's a shame to think only Lana fans would be attracted to this film. It's one for all those who want something intelligent and for people, who though older and not quite settled, are still yearning for "a life of their own."

Derivative Lana Sudser

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 24 June 2006]

Lana Turner heads an excellent cast in "A Life of Her Own," a 1950 film directed by George Cukor. Its other stars are Ray Milland, Louis Calhern, Margaret Phillips, Barry Sullivan, Tom Ewell, Ann Dvorak, and Jean Hagen.

Both the beginning of the film and the end are the best parts; the in between is incredibly slow. Turner plays a young woman from Kansas who comes to New York to break into the modeling business. She meets what could be her future if she's not careful: a washed up, alcoholic, desperate has-been, beautifully portrayed by Ann Dvorak. No need to tell you what happens there - you've seen it a million times.

As her career progresses, Turner meets a married millionaire, Steve, played by Ray Milland. She knows he's married and it starts off platonically enough. But, as we learn what seems like hours later, he's a lot more than married.

This is a great cast, right down to the smaller roles, which includes Phyllis Kirk, one of my favorites, and Hermes Pan, who so often worked with Fred Astaire on choreography.

Turner is excellent and has some fine dramatic scenes; Milland is handsome and sympathetic as her boyfriend. Margaret Phillips, as his wife, does a marvelous job, and Tom Ewell is a joy. Actually, everyone is very good.

Alas, there's not much of a script here and you know what's going to happen along the way. The very end shows Cukor's directing mastery. Given what he had to work with by way of a script, it's a very well done movie. I shudder to think what it would have been like in someone else's hands.

Glamorous Lana in drama of the modeling world

[jhkp · 7/10 · 18 April 2016]

Lana Turner plays a woman who leaves her small town to go to New York to get into the modeling business.

It's a magazine-fiction type of story that is given some depth, intelligence, and color by George Cukor's direction.

Cukor does all sorts of nice things with the milieu, the supporting cast, the situations, and the performances of the leads, perhaps to obscure the fact that this isn't a very compelling story.

Predictably, Lana's character gets involved with a married man (Ray Milland). Her lover's long- suffering wife (Margaret Phillips) is bedridden. The man cares about his wife, but also about his girlfriend. He nearly goes off the deep end worrying about it all.

Ann Dvorak in a supporting role as an aging, bitter model steals the show, more or less, though a little of her (and her role) goes a long way. We also get to see Barry Sullivan, Tom Ewell, Jean Hagen, Betsy Blair, Richard Hart, Louis Calhern, and many others. The supporting cast is really great.

By the way, Ray Milland was a replacement for Wendell Corey, who reportedly was fired after making a snide remark when Lana was late to the set (for an apparently legitimate reason having to do with her wardrobe). Supposedly, Corey told Turner that Barbara Stanwyck (with whom he had recently starred) never kept a cast and crew waiting. Since there were rumors Lana had had an affair with Stanwyck's husband, Robert Taylor, the crack seemed especially pointed. At any rate, Lana refused to work with him after that.

A Life Of Her Own was one of two pictures produced by MGM's influential Voldemar Vetluguin, a former editor of Redbook magazine. The other was East Side, West Side (1949).

Lana lured me in again...

[abcj-2 · 7/10 · 12 April 2011]

A LIFE OF HER OWN (1950) TCM It's 1950, it's pure melodrama, and it's anchored on the star being and staying gorgeous from beginning to end. No one does this better to me than Lana Turner and she does it again here. Someone else can spill out the plot. I mainly want to add that I watch very few dramas, and I was so hooked from the beginning that I passed up a potentially good mindless romcom for this. So Lana, her beautiful clothes, and fine acting sucked me in again, but I don't mind because she was in top form here despite the script not being up to the standard of "Imitation of Life" which is one of the greatest melodramas ever. I seriously doubt I'll ever watch this movie again, but if you love melodramas and Lana Turner, then this is a classic to see at least once.

"Studio Mixing"

[harry-76 · 23 January 2004]

By the time Lana Turner and Ray Milland were paired in this romantic drama, they both seemed to have the "mark" of their respective studios written over them.

Turner's was MGM, and indeed this film was made at that studio. Milland's was Paramount, and he seemed a "guest visitor" to the Metro ambiance.

While both actors were certainly equally successful in their respective careers, their casting did seem a bit strange to me. I kept thinking, what's Paramount doing at MGM?

Not that Milland offered anything but his usual solid work; he just seemed a bit unusual in the total scheme of things. However, being the solid pro he was, he carried off his "slumming millionaire" role with aplomb; likewise Turner gave her part her all.

The script was fair, and Director George Cukor made the most of what he had to work with. In the end an interesting "hybrid," adequately carried off by two thespian entities of varying affiliations.

"All I really want is to be happy...what button do you press for that?"

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 3 January 2011]

Kansas girl makes a splash in New York City as a print model, but her love affair with a married man may ruin her. From the era where independent career girls were only ambitious until a man entered the picture, this "woman's movie" is naïve and rather unconvincing, though it is seldom soft; the knowing dialogue has a sharp, bitter edge, and the performances are solid, making it a cut above the usual soap opera. Isobel Lennart's screenplay is dotted with cutting little truths--too many, perhaps; often, the greedy masochism is underlined with a moral conscience (and tinkling piano keys) which turns the whole thing into a heavy-breathing melodrama for sufferers on the high road. Lana Turner does a lot of striding up and down, and she seems too seasoned to be a novice in the film's opening scenes, but her desperate gaiety is touching. Ray Milland does his usual colorless nice-guy turn, but Ann Dvorak is startling playing an over-the-hill model and Margaret Phillips (as Milland's wife--an invalid who beams with sanity and understanding like a saint) is excellent in the film's big scene, where the two women meet. Not an important picture, nor a provocative one, but a star-vehicle that does manage to touch upon some resonant truths about women, their careers, and their fragile hearts. **1/2 from ****

George Cukor & Lana Turner! But Ann Dvorak steals the show!

[bobbyatgloss · 5/10 · 28 July 2000]

Lana Turner fresh off a two year "break" in film-making, returns to the screen with MGM and George Cukor. Her time off (due to suspension from refusing MGM's crappy scripts) resulted in a marriage to multi-millionaire Bob Topping and the resulting (and slightly double-chinned) effects of partying and drinking champagne for the duration.

She's supposed to be a "fresh-faced" model from a small town who makes it big in NYC. It's quite a stretch at her age (30)since the role belongs to a MUCH younger actress, but she IS Lana Turner and still beautiful. But don't expect an explosion of Cukor's magic combined with Lana's beauty; it's not happening.

This movie is watchable if you love Lana or Cukor, but the real draw in this film is Ann Dvorak. She plays a washed-up, alcoholic and depressed super-model who mentors Lana briefly upon her arrival in the Big Apple and she steals EVERY scene she's in. The first 20 minutes of this film are the best and belong to Ann Dvorak all the way.

Ray Milland is sleepwalking, boring and unbelievable as the married man smitten with Lana. Not to mention that someone who looks like Lana would hardly be attracted to him! But his wheelchair-bound, suffering and loving wife is played beautifully, deeply and touchingly by Margaret Phillips in one of her only 3 film roles. She is so good that she actually inspires Lana to "act" in the scene they share (gasp!). Barry Sullivan can always be relied upon to play the creepy guy and Lana gets off some good n' nasty verbal shots at him.

There's definitely some glamour moments, but they are far too rare. As George Cukor had noted during filming, costumer Helen Rose was "bereft of talent" and Lana wears some of the geekiest looking and unflattering outfits. But every now and then a mink coat, the right angle and lighting and some stylish camera work highlight the magic of director Cukor and star Turner. But poor Sidney Guilaroff must have been on valium; watching the tight curls on the the side of Lana's head multiply, shrink or stare at you like a group of peonies is part of the show.

The original ending was met so badly at pre-release screenings that a new ending was filmed later on command of the studio. Could it really have been worse than the one released?!?!!

A Model's Life For Me

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 12 November 2009]

A Life Of Her Own casts Lana Turner as a small town girl who with her beauty goes to New York for a career as a model. She's got the looks, but has she the character for the profession?

She reports some six months after the agency that Tom Ewell runs called for her. It was a simple matter of economics, Lana just didn't have the train fare from Kansas. But very much like Lana Turner in real life, discovered in Schwab's Drugstore in Hollywood because of her beauty and made a film star, Turner becomes a success in the modeling profession.

Anything's better than life in Kansas and Turner's after more than a career. She meets Ray Milland who is a mine owner from Montana back east to raise some money with the help of lawyer Louis Calhern. Of course the inevitable happens as it usually does in these films, but the problem is Milland is slightly married to Margaret Phillips.

Here's where the film gets real sudsy. Phillips is a paraplegic as a result of an automobile accident. The subject is rather delicately handled with the Code still in place, but the clear inference is that Milland is not enjoying any kind of sex life any more. So he's more than willing to get involved with Turner.

The Code parameters both limit how the subject is handled and the inevitable outcome of the film which I won't reveal. George Cukor directed A Life Of Her Own and the film is definitely missing his usual flair for 'women's' pictures. And the film is clearly Lana's with the rest of the cast in support.

Some younger players at MGM like Jean Hagen and Phyllis Kirk play other models, but Ann Dvorak in one of her last films has a couple of scenes as an older woman trying to make a comeback in a profession that lives and dies on youth. She only has a couple of scenes, but they've got some real bite to them. I wish we had a lot more of her in the film.

A Life Of Her Own is not one of the better films for Cukor, Turner, or Milland, but it's entertaining enough given the Code parameters it was made under.

a life of her own

[mossgrymk · 5/10 · 21 January 2022]

Never a good idea when making a movie to kill off your best character twenty some odd minutes in. Referring, of course, to the unhappy, aging, neurotic, dipso model played to self destructive, sardonic perfection by Ann Dvorak. When she throws herself out of a top story apartment window a lot of the quality and all the energy of this film goes with her. Did you notice, for example, how Isobel Lennart's dialogue, so sharp and insightful when Dvorak is around, turns mushy and labored? And how George Cukor's directorial pacing seems to be off a tic or two once Ray Milland (rhymes with bland) and his dull love interest character enters the picture? Gone is the breezy tone of the first fifteen minutes when Lana Turner's character gets a crash course from Tom Ewell in Modeling 101 and the tension inherent in the nightclub scene with sleazy Barry Sullivan, Dvorak, Turner and nice but not too nice Louis Calhern.

Bottom line: It's not the worst Cukor film ever made (that dubious distinction goes to "Chapman Report") but we're a long way from "Adam's Rib" or even "The Actress", for that matter. Give it a C.

PS...Milland as a copper baron from Montana is about as convincing as John Wayne playing a librarian.

solid drama

[hildacrane · 8/10 · 20 September 2005]

This film has a memorable opening sequence: under the credits, we see a cab driving slowly through the deserted streets of a small town, to the accompaniment of Bronislau Kaper's haunting theme. It sets the tone of the whole film, which is about longing. (The theme was re-used in "Invitation.") Several years earlier Kaper had written another beautiful theme for Turner's "Green Dolphin Street." Turner does very well in a role that one feels may have had a certain resonance for her: when her Lily talks about the emptiness of her life as a model, one senses that the actress really drew upon thoughts of her own life. Somewhat paradoxically she is presented with ugly hair styles and dresses that were presumably meant to imply elegance.

The early scenes in the office of the modeling agency have a nice fluidity and capture the controlled chaos of the milieu. Cukor brings vivid performances from Tom Ewell and Jean Hagen (both of whom he directed in "Adam's Rib") and especially Ann Dvorak. The shattering of the porcelain shoe at the end of the film is a kind of reversal of the Cinderella slipper idea, and is emblematic of the fact that Lily's life is indeed her own, and not dependent on any kind of prince charming for meaning.

A Life Of Her Own- Was Definitely Her All the Way ***

[edwagreen · 7/10 · 13 December 2009]

Tale of a woman coming from Kansas to New York only to hit it big as a model, but unable to capture the man she loved.

Lana Turner is that woman and at the beginning of the film, she acts just like that girl who had been discovered in a drug store sipping soda some years before.

There is one terrific performance by Ann Dvorak, an aging model, whose life is on the skids. Dvorak represents what can happen to women as they get older and are not able to cope with the changes that it brings. Miss Dvorak is the embodiment of that discontented woman, bitter and not knowing what else life will bring her. Unfortunately, her appearance in the film is a brief one, as she commits suicide.

The rest of the story is devoted to Turner falling in love with Ray Milland, a wealthy married man whose wife is wheel-chair bound due to a car accident that he caused.

When love blossoms between the two, Turner becomes hard-boiled in her intentions to tell the wife of what is going on. Of course, kindness and reality set in when Turner sees how dependent the wife is.

Louis Calhern is very good as the man about town with a heart and Barry Sullivan is quite adequate as a gigolo, who knows what life can be all about.

Lugubrious and downbeat take on marital infidelity as model covets dull businessman

[Turfseer · 4/10 · 6 November 2022]

The film is advertised as a well-known model's romance with a married millionaire. But it takes about 30 minutes before we meet the rich guy, Steve Harleigh (Ray Milland).

During all the lugubrious Act I exposition director George Cukor takes too much time showing us how greenhorn Lily James (Lana Turner) breaks into the tough modeling business and befriends Mary Ashton (Ann Dvorak), a former successful model now down on her luck and depressed to boot.

Some posters love Ms. Dvorak's performance, but I didn't understand why so much time was taken dwelling on the character-especially after she exits so ungracefully as a suicide (jumping out of the window of her apartment).

We do finally get the point of the suicide at the very end of the picture, but I only wish all of Act 1 moved a lot quicker.

The bulk of Act II is a melodramatic romance between Lily and Steve who is married to Nora (Margaret Phillips) now an invalid after she was paralyzed in a car accident while Steve was at the wheel.

Milland was not the first choice to play Steve and he ended up replacing another actor once production began. Unfortunately, he's completely miscast as a romantic leading man.

Turner, turning thirty when the film was made, was no longer the sultry pinup girl audiences craved. She still had a beautiful face but somehow the outfits she wore in this film made her look a little bit on the heavy side. It would have been better if Cukor had cast a younger actress.

Nothing much happens between Lily and Steve-they have a couple of inconsequential "dates" where we find out little about them leading to the birthday bash that Lily throws for Steve in which she throws a fit over his indecisiveness in leaving Nora.

The story was subject to numerous rewrites due to the touchy subject of marital infidelity which exasperated the director and later leading to his declaration that the film was an unmitigated failure.

The production code required that the lovebirds had to break up and that's what happens. Margaret Phillips, basically a stage actress for most of her career, steals the show as the enormously sympathetic handicapped spouse who dodges a proverbial bullet when Lily gives up on her quest to claim Steve as her own.

The original ending called for Lily to commit suicide. Given the already downbeat denouement (the breakup of the affair along with Steve going broke), that would have been a disaster of an ending.

Fortunately, we learn how the earlier suicide is tied in with Lily's fate. She breaks the figurine that Mary had given her, symbolizing that she's determined to go forward despite all the disappointments.

Given the weak script and dubious characterizations of the principals, this is a film that only confirmed soap opera addicts will truly find endearing.

Tomorrow will come

[dbdumonteil · 1 May 2010]

As usual ,George Cukor directs his actresses masterfully;not only Lana Turner -who was rarely as good as here ,except for Sirk's ,Garnett's and Minelli's works)but also Ann Dvorak as a jaded aging model and Margaret Philips as the disabled wife who steals every scene she is in;on the other hand ,Ray Milland does not seem to be very interested in his part (I could mention at least ten movies in which he is much better than here ).

The script is average- for Cukor whose standards were often high-, borrowing from an older movie by John M.Stahl ,the prince of the thirties melodrama :"when tomorrow comes "(1939) later remade by Sirk as the mediocre "Interlude"; the trick of the sick wife was a bit hackneyed even in 1950.This is a rather talky movie,with an interminable final conversation between Turner and Barry Sullivan to make the viewer understand that now the model is in the same situation as Mary,which we already knew.

A mixed bag...very mixed

[vincentlynch-moonoi · 6/10 · 2 February 2011]

When I was young I always thought that one of the two most beautiful women in the world was Lana Turner (the other being Sophia Loren). 40 years later I haven't changed my mind. But the verdict on Lana Turner's acting is, for me, still out. I remember seeing her in a long interview a few years before her death, and being disappointed that while she wasn't a dumb blond, she also was no rocket scientist. Be that as it may, she has some fine moments in this melodrama, but you have to understand from the beginning, that this is not an uplifting film. In fact, it's downright depressing...well, "depressing" may be overstating it.

In the opening, the Turner character is leaving her small town to become a model in NYC. At first it goes well. Tom Ewell knows she "has it" and hires her and helps make her a success. But her first new friend in the big city is an alcoholic has-been model who quickly commits suicide. She also falls in with Barry Sullivan...clearly a downbeat.

Then she meets Ray Milland, who is excellent here. They fall in love, knowing that Milland is married...and what's more to an invalid who became crippled in a car accident he caused. Eventually, Lana decides to confront the crippled wife (excellently played by Margaret Phillips), but discovers she's a wonderful woman, so she decides to end the relationship with Milland.

I typically enjoy supporting actor Louis Calhern, but he's not so likable here...he's the cad who introduces Lana to his friend (Milland), whom he knows is married. Tom Ewell's role, while key to the story is not large, but he plays it very well...a little bit different than what I typically expect of him.

But, considering that this was directed by George Cukor, I was disappointed. Apparently the filming was problematic from the beginning. Most disappointing was the ending. Was she going to commit suicide or was she just depressed? Was she going to return to her hometown or get on with her modeling? Your guess is as good as mine...because as you leave the film she is just walking down a NYC street. Perhaps if the ending had been more concrete I would have been more satisfied with the film.

I Was Glad to See "The End"

[TanakaK · 6/10 · 2 March 2021]

Turner certainly earned her pay in this soaper. She really carries the weight of the show. The supporting cast also does good work, especially since the script keeps them all pretty small parts. But Ray Milland is just badly miscast here. He's just not a romantic leading man. That, plus a needlessly elongated and gassy script makes for a dull, forgettable movie that'll have you checking your watch.

Dull drama with bad chemistry of Turner and Milland...

[Doylenf · 5/10 · 23 September 2006]

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.

Disappointing given the talents involved.

[atlasmb · 5/10 · 6 September 2013]

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 what 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?

Watching the stars.

[lullabythree · 9/10 · 4 June 2006]

Call me an old romantic fool, but I liked this film. If you've ever been foolishly in love, you'll relate. But just watching the beautiful Lana ~ though yes, age was creeping up ~ you knew she was a favorite of audiences NOT only because she was gorgeous. Ray Milland plays it tightly, but good heavens, in those days men did not emote, so give the guy a break. Barry Sullivan, always a loved slightly seedy fellow, handsome as ever, and Jean Hagen and Margaret Phillips lent solid support. Phillips, who played the disabled wife, died at age 61; now I have to go research how and why. She was a very active performer. And how about the unusually elegant Tom Ewell? Great stuff. Enjoy it on a rainy Sunday morning.

worth watching, but second-rate Cukor

[mukava991 · 5/10 · 5 June 2006]

Small-town girl goes to big city to break into modeling, falls in love. Conflicts arise, are resolved. I would call this second-rate Cukor. The pluses: A good amount of wise, perceptive dialog in the cynical vein, well choreographed ensemble scenes in claustrophobic interiors (the hubbub at a busy modeling agency, a crowded restaurant, a hotel visitors' lounge, a wild party in Turner's apartment) and two strong supporting performances: Ann Dvorak as a has-been alcoholic model at the beginning and Margaret Phillips as the stoic, paraplegic wife toward the end (lesser turns have won Oscars). Lana Turner is appealing to the eye but miscast - too slick and mature for a Kansas girl trying to break into the modeling world. She is persuasive only when she is playing anger, disgust or drunkenness. Ray Milland with his patrician accent convinces no one that he runs a copper mine in the boonies of Montana and has seldom seen a big city. Neither performer even attempts an appropriate regional accent. The central problem, however, is that Turner and Milland do not click as a couple. And both seem bored.

Forget the plot, look for the bit players

[vandino1 · 5 June 2006]

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.

Competent, but not all that absorbing

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 14 November 2007]

Wow, my summary sounds like comments made about an off-brand paper towel! Lana Turner is a nice girl from Kansas who comes to the big city to become a model. Because of her grit, determination, moxie AND, most importantly, fantastic looks, she makes it big. But instead of being on top of the world, she is depressed because she falls for a married man.

Overall, is a thoroughly adequate film with decent acting but a story that just never engaged me very well--partly because the relationships seemed rather silly and superficial and also because it was hard to feel sorry for Lana in the film. Despite her complaining about how "life isn't fair", it's really hard for the average person to feel sorry for this woman, as she's a very successful super-model who is sad she can't have a particular married man (Ray Milland). Since she lives in New York, I assume there must be at least a few nice single guys! Also, because Milland wants to sleep with Lana while he's married to a very nice lady, he comes off as a bit of a jerk as well.

On the positive side, though the film seems to initially make their romance seem like a good thing, it later shows that there is a wife and she truly loves her hubby. This is NOT a victimless crime. It's not a bad morality tale, but had I cared more about Lana and Ray, it would have been a lot better.

Staggeringly banal junk

[BatonRougeMike · 3/10 · 11 April 2021]

Lana Turner did a couple of good pictures I suppose, but I always found her utterly superficial and there are few pictures as profoundly superficial as this one. From the trite, dumbass dialogue, to the jaw droppingly ugly swell clothes, the sleepwalking assistance of Ray Milland and the mind numbingly pretentious speechifying...there's a ventriloquist's dummy in the film that arguably gives the best performance, it's certainly every inch as wooden as Turner...there is, at practically every turn, a brick wall in terms of "where are we going with this?" Those who make it to the end will have been bored to the point of screaming, I know I was. Glossy trash of the very highest magnitude.

Actor's showcase

[bowiebks · 9/10 · 9 January 2011]

Well...most of the people who have reviewed this movie don't seem to think much of it, even the ones who like it. So I'll go out on a limb and praise it to the skies. I think it contains one of Lana Turner's most interesting and powerful performances. The supporting cast is brilliant, right down to the smallest roles, but the highest marks go to Ann Dvorak and the frequently underrated (to my mind) Barry Sullivan. The musical score by Kaper is one of the finest of all time, with the main theme echoing throughout the film in the manner of Raksin's Laura. It's all fresh on my mind because I watched it again last night...I enjoy it more and more every time I watch it. And...I think the ending is one of the most life-affirming moments in movies, as Lana trashes the bogus "good luck charm" and truly understands that no one else can "make" her happy...A Life of Her Own indeed! Thanks for reading.