Showing posts with label Diana Barrymore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diana Barrymore. Show all posts
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| Diana Barrymore |
This very frank memoir written by the daughter of John Barrymore was published in 1957 but reads like one of the "warts and all" embarrassingly frank Hollywood autobiogs of today. Barrymore seems to leave nothing out -- her three marriages, her promiscuity, her nearly hopeless alcoholism -- but one still gets the sense that this self-destructive individual didn't want to take full responsibility for her actions. True, her famous father [who was on a serious down-slide when Diana began her career] and mother, who wrote under the pen name "Michael Strange," were rather self-absorbed people and not the best of parents, but it's not as if Diana, on a trust fund, was raised in the ghetto -- although in later years when the money ran out she certainly got a stark taste of poverty and harsh reality. Thanks to co-author Frank, "Too Much, Too Soon" is compelling and often powerful in its delineation of the depths to which Ms. Barrymore would sink. She managed to throw away many opportunities others would have killed for, such as when she showed up for the first live telecast of "The Diana Barrymore Show" dead drunk and immediately lost the show and the lucrative contract. The anguish of her third marriage to washed-up actor and fellow drunk Robert Wilcox is sharply etched [her first husband was older actor Bramwell Fletcher of The Undying Monster, whom she was wretched to]. She can be capable of some raw assessments of herself, such as when she chastises herself for being outraged by her father's wanting her to phone a call girl service for him [which was a little tacky] when she later realizes she should have shown compassion for his being "sick and broken and lonely and old and unhappy." Whatever you think of Diana -- pathetic, out-of-control alcoholic, or simply a major fuck-up -- the book is a fascinating expose of the dark side of Hollywood that pulls you along from the first page. Diana managed to make about half a dozen films, but she died of an overdose only three years after this book was published. The film version of the book starred Dorothy Malone as Diana and Errol Flynn as her father. John Barrymore and future son-in-law Fletcher appeared together in Svengali.
Verdict: Pride goeth before a fall. ***1/2.
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| John (Ray Danton) gives Diana (Dottie Malone) a back rub |
"I don't want to write a book about my life. Living it was bad enough." -- Diana Barrymore.
"I am fifty-nine years old. And not as drunk as you think. Why don't you take what I offer and not make me jump through hoops?' --John Barrymore.
In this somewhat sanitized version of Diana Barrymore's memoir of the same name, Diana (Dorothy Malone) wishes she could get to know her father, John Barrymore (Errol Flynn) better, but her mother, Blanche (Neva Patterson) isn't too thrilled with the notion. Diana decides to follow in her great family's footsteps and become an actress, discovering that her famous name opens doors but won't necessarily deliver decent scripts. As he was still alive at the time of filming, her first husband, Bramwell Fletcher, is represented by the made-up character of "Vincent Bryant" (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.), who comes home to find Diana diddling in their bedroom with sleazy tennis bum, John Howard (Ray Danton), a real-life man who becomes her second husband. Diana's third husband, actor Robert Wilcox, is portrayed by Ed Kemmer [Earth vs the Spider]; she and Wilcox become mired in a maze of booze, poverty and blown opportunities. Writer Gerald Frank, who helped craft the memoir, is portrayed by Robert Ellenstein. Too Much, Too Soon is psychologically simplistic, but well-acted, with Malone doing a swell job as Diana, with fine support from Patterson and the others. Errol Flynn is the big surprise, turning in a fine performance as the dissipated Barrymore [ironic, considering what lay in Flynn's future]. Smaller roles are performed by Kathleen Freeman and Martin Milner, and there's a nice score by Ernest Gold.
Verdict: Lurid but quite entertaining and reasonably well-made. ***.
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| Diana Barrymore and Kay Francis as mother and daughter |
In this very oddball comedy, the actress Carrie Bishop (Diana Barrymore) learns that her mother, Chris (Kay Francis), is engaged to a man, Steven (John Boles), who thinks her daughter is just a little girl. Afraid that he will jilt her mother when he learns that the "little girl" is actually twenty-years-old, she decides to pretend to be a girl of about 12. Things get especially complicated when Steven's associate, Jimmy (Robert Cummings), accuses the "real" Carrie of child abuse after she supposedly hits the child, and then literally socks her, Carrie, in the jaw. Still Carrie stupidly continues the deception ... Francis and Cummings are fine, as is Andy Devine in a lively, likable performance as Carrie's manager, and the picture is nearly stolen by Ethel Griffies as the stony Irish housekeeper, Gallagher. [The scene when Gallagher threatens to quit and packs her bags to the consternation of mother and daughter is the best in the movie]. As for Barrymore, she reveals a real talent in this, but unfortunately is forced to play an idiotic part and perform in several embarrassing sequences. On the other hand she has a splendid moment performing with talented little Scotty Beckett when Carrie plays Queen Victoria in a play. (Her attempts at Sadie Thompson are less successful perhaps because she's deliberately playing too broadly, and her Joan of Arc at the end is only adequate.) Another scene stealer is Lillian Yarbo as the funny, ever-complaining black maid, Phoebe, who claims it was more fun when she was working in a funeral parlor. Francis' hairdo in this is especially grotesque. Between Us Girls has a couple of amusing moments, but it's too strange, poorly scripted, and has a fairly moronic premise as well, from which it never quite recovers.
Verdict: A bizarre curiosity but hardly a good movie. **.
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| Abel, Allbritton, Paige and Barrymore all cut up |
FIRED WIFE (1943). Director: Charles Lamont.
"You're so wonderfully repetitious."
In this largely forgettable and desperately frenetic farce, Hank Dunne (Robert Paige) has married career woman Tahitha (Louise Allbritton), who is keeping the marriage secret from her boss, Chris (Walter Abel). Besides the fact that Tahitha has to work on her honeymoon, and that Hank wants her to quit her job, another complication is Hank's friend and associate, radio hostess Eve (Diana Barrymore), who is carrying a torch for him. Hardly any cliche is left unturned in the mediocre screenplay, although the performers are certainly game; Allbritton and Paige are fine, Barrymore adds some zest in her lively portrayal of difficult Eve, and although Walter Abel gives a very good performance, as usual, his character is too loathsome to be funny -- the film's best moment comes when he finally gets his comeuppance. Walter Catlett [It Started with Eve] gives perhaps the funniest performance as Judge Allen, the bemused Justice of the Peace, and Rex Ingram [Anna Lucasta] is also notable as Hank's major domo, Charles. There are a few sporadic chuckles in the movie so it's not a complete waste of time. Paige also starred in Flying G-Men.
Verdict: With pictures like these no wonder Barrymore got disillusioned with Hollywood. **1/2.