I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Daniel Mann

Writers:

Lillian Roth (book) and
Mike Connolly (book) ...

Release Date:

25 December 1955 (USA)

Genre:

Biography | Drama | Music

Tagline:

Filmed on location; inside a woman's soul.

Plot:

Deprived of a normal childhood by her ambitious mother, Katie (Jo Van Fleet), Lillian Roth (Susan Hayward)...

Plot Keywords:

Marriage | Hollywood | Broadway | Alcoholic | Divorce

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 1 win & 5 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Mon. July 13

3:30 PM

TCM

Cast

Susan Hayward	...	Lillian Roth
Richard Conte	...	Tony Bardeman
Eddie Albert	...	Burt McGuire
Jo Van Fleet	...	Katie Roth
Don Taylor	...	Wallie
Ray Danton	...	David Tredman
Margo	...	Selma
Virginia Gregg	...	Ellen
Don 'Red' Barry	...	Jerry (as Don Barry)
David Kasday	...	David as a child
Carole Ann Campbell	...	Lillian as a child
Peter Leeds	...	Richard Elstead
Tol Avery	...	Joe - drunk party guest
Anthony Jochim	...	Paul (butler)
Jack Daly	...	Cab driver

Runtime:

117 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Canada:PA (Ontario) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:PG

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

Lillian Roth was disappointed that MGM did not ask her to sing for Susan Hayward on the soundtrack. Concurrently with the movie's release, Epic Records issued an album of Lillian reprising tunes associated with her eminent career in vaudeville, on Broadway and in Hollywood. The LP used the same title -- "I'll Cry Tomorrow" -- as Miss Roth's 1954 autobiography (co-written with Mike Connolly and Gerold Frank, plus the 1955 biopic. Lillian did not sing the film's promotional theme song (music by Alex North, lyrics by Johnny Mercer), a mournful ballad sung by Susan Hayward, backed by Johnny Green and His Quartette, initially issued on a 45 by MGM Records.

Goofs:

Continuity: Lillian sits at a desk and begins to write a suicide note on a pad of paper. When she rises from the desk to walk to the window the pad of paper, as well as the pen, are nowhere in sight.

Quotes:

[alcoholic Lillian is desperate for a drink - mother drops the glass bottle on the floor, shattering it]
Lillian Roth: OH! Look what ya did! And ya DID IT ON PURPOSE! You're still trying to make me do what you want, to be what you want! I can't be anything except what I am! Look, look what did you drop that bottle for? What are you trying to do, drive me crazy? Go on, GET THE BOTTLE! GET IT NOW!
Katie Roth: All right! All right! All right, it's my fault, huh? I made you become an actress, you didn't want to, all right. I've been a bad mother, you had to support me, all right! All right! ALL RIGHT, EVERYTHING! Just this, and for once in your life you're gonna hear it...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in An Early Frost (1985) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe

Fascinating but overwrought performances...

SUSAN HAYWARD has some strong, searing scenes full of fireworks in I'LL CRY TOMORROW--as does JO VAN FLEET as her overbearing stage mother--but there are times when you just wish Daniel Mann would keep the theatrical melodramatics a bit more under his control.

The story of a confessed alcoholic singer is an unpleasant one and this is all the more reason why a little soft pedaling now and then would have helped. As it is, Mann has chosen to pull out all the stops and give us a saga of grim and unrelieved suffering for too lengthy a time.

All of the performances are respectable enough--including EDDIE ALBERT and MARGO as a couple who try to help the alcohol addicted Roth back on her feet again after an attempt at suicide forces her to go to the AA clinic. And Hayward does well by the songs that Roth supposedly performed in nightclubs, using her own voice and gestures she undoubtedly picked up from Jane Froman, whose biography she also did on screen a bit earlier.

A toning down of the shrill melodramatics would have helped--but, nevertheless, this is a frank and disturbing portrait of a woman on the skids and Miss Hayward does her best to give a convincing portrait.