This musical biopic cleaned up from Lillian Roth's bestselling memoir is transformed from standard fifties nostalgia for the musical theatre of the 1920-30s into a vehicle for Susan Hayward's huge, dynamic performance. It tells of Lillian's upbringing by her stage-door mother and her eventual alcoholism and hard-won recovery.
There's a great big band sound from Alex North which adds a flavour of vaudeville era Broadway, back when Lillian's mother (Jo Van Fleet) pushed her child to auditions, teaching her to fake her true feelings and desires. When stardom arrives, Roth fills her emotional emptiness with the booze that drives her from pawnshop to fleapit to dives.
Susan Hayward got to sing her own numbers, but the film doesn't really feel like a musical at all. It's all about Lillian's self destructive impulses, whether for the bottle, or men, or business choices. Alcohol completes her, and then destroys her.
Daniel Mann creates a rich and credible ambience of backstage rootlessness and after show parties. He has a reputation as a good director of actors and credit to him for allowing Hayward to dominate to such fabulous effect. She is a sensation in one of the best performances of the decade.