#smash-up

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If The Villain Was The Hero (Gallery)

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SMASH-UP: Alcoholism in Cinema By Jessica Pickens

Whether it’s a flapper dancing with a bubbling glass of champagne or a funny drunk in a tuxedo, imbibing has been depicted several different ways since the dawn of film. In the 1920s and 1930s, drinking was often used as comedy — the funny drunk doing funny things. But occasionally, alcoholism was seen in a more serious light. A STAR IS BORN (’37) showed that even the wealthiest and most successful people had their demons.

One of the first films to show alcoholism as a social issue was THE LOST WEEKEND (‘45) starring Ray Milland. And with the success of the Billy Wilder-directed film, several other pictures focusing on the issue followed. Two years after Wilder’s Oscar winner, came one of the first films focusing on a woman as an alcoholic: SMASH-UP: THE STORY OF A WOMAN (’47) starring Susan Hayward, Lee Bowman, Eddie Albert and Marsha Hunt.

The film follows rising singing star Angelica “Angel” Evans, played by Susan Hayward, who puts her career on the backburner when she marries singer Ken Conway, played by Lee Bowman. Angel puts all of her energy into Ken’s career, and her agent is disappointed that she is throwing away her talent. Soon after their marriage, Angel gets pregnant and Ken gets a job as a singing cowboy on an early morning radio program.

After Angel gives birth, Ken performs the song “Life Can Be Beautiful” over the radio for his wife and baby. The performance immediately catapults him into fame, and he is the new singing sensation. Stardom brings big parties, overnight trips and a beautiful secretary named Martha Gray, played by Marsha Hunt. But as Ken walks in the clouds, Angel is spiraling out of control. The parties and big crowds make her anxious, and she is jealous of Martha. She turns to alcohol for relief. Ken frequently finds her passed out and she makes a scene at parties. At one point, Angel begs Ken for help, but he is unsympathetic.

“I read someplace, it said these are the three worst things: to lie in bed and sleep not; to wait for one who comes not; to try to please and please not. They all fit me, don't they?” Angel laments.

Interestingly, a doctor in the film notes that Angel’s trouble is a disease and not simply a desire to drink. The role of Angelica Evans brought Hayward her first of five Academy Award nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role. (Hayward finally won for her 1958 role in I WANT TO LIVE!). It also was one of her first serious leading lady roles. But despite the career accolade, SMASH-UP was met with some controversy.

Before shooting started, Hollywood censor Joseph I. Breen tried to stop production, because he didn’t like the trend of alcohol-focused films following The Lost Weekend. Of Smash Up, Breen said, “Showing a drunken woman moving about is both distasteful and repulsive, and the sound moral to your story will be forgotten in the reaction of disgust,” according to Thomas Doherty’s book Hollywood's Censor: Joseph I. Breen and the Production Code Administration.

But the real controversy came when similarities were noted between the characters of Lee Conway and Angelica Evans to real life celebrities, husband and wife Bing Crosby and Dixie Lee. When Crosby and Lee married in 1930, Lee was already a singer and acting in films, and Crosby’s career was climbing. Unlike, SMASH-UP, Lee’s career continued, though she eventually retired from show business in 1936. In the film, Ken calls Angelica “Angel,” which was also Lee’s nickname for Crosby. Six months into their marriage, Lee told an Associated Press reporter that they were going to separate, because they never saw each other and Crosby enjoyed the nightlife. Lee would stay home waiting for him and drinking to get herself to sleep, according to Bing Crosby biographer Gary Giddins in his book, Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams - The Early Years 1903 – 1940. Crosby and Lee remained married until her death in 1952.

Despite the similarities, producer Walter Wanger “vehemently denied” that Smash Up: The Story of a Woman was about the Crosbys. However, the comparison was strong enough that Crosby considered a lawsuit, but his attorney John O’Melveny advised against suing. The Crosbys were considered one of Hollywood’s perfect couples and O’Melveny said the public would never make a connection. Legal action would only draw attention to themselves, as noted in Giddins’ Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star: The War Years, 1940-1946.

SMASH-UP: THE STORY OF A WOMAN failed to do well in the box office, losing $111,664. Regardless of who SMASH-UP is about — or isn’t about— the screenplay written by Dorothy Parker and Frank Cavett is a heartbreaking look at substance abuse. Films like SMASH-UP were able to shift moviegoers perception on drinking depicted in cinema. The topic of alcoholism switched from a punchline to shining light on a serious issue that still resonates today.

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Cosplay Under the Stars: Susan Hayward

In the latter half of the 1940s, Susan Hayward was establishing herself as a top-flight dramatic actress. It’s this period I based my closet cosplay on–roughly 1947, when Hayward starred in Smash-Up, The Story of a Woman (1947). Hayward’s performance in the film as an alcoholic nightclub singer garnered her an Academy-Award nomination and the opportunity to rise up the cast list in future films.

But, Hayward had already been in Hollywood for a decade before Smash-Up. A Flatbush, Brooklyn baby–Hayward had dreams of being a film actor since childhood. However, when she finished school, Hayward first ended up pursuing secretarial and modeling work. It was a modeling job for The Saturday Evening Post that brought Hayward to the attention of Hollywood producers. Despite not having acted professionally before, Hayward landed a screen test for Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). Hayward didn’t land the role, but did secure a contract with Warner Brothers. By 1939, Hayward was in a featured role in another historical epic film–Beau Geste (1939), for Paramount.

So, Hayward certainly wasn’t toiling in obscurity before Smash-Up. In fact, by the mid 1940s, Hayward had become a popular pin-up and chose to go independent. She quickly found a new partnership with producer Walter Wanger. This pairing put Hayward on the road to becoming a full-fledged drama queen. By the mid-1950s, her career peak, Hayward had starred in films for practically every major studio in Hollywood.

READ ON below the jump!

It was also in this transitional period that Hayward made two small-but-unique changes to her appearance that made her stand out just a bit more. I’m emulating both in my cosplay (with admittedly mixed success!) Hayward started wearing her hair in, what I would describe as, a 1940s-version of the bouffant flip–a lot of volume up top, with a very deep side part and hair draping the sides of the face. Hayward still kept to this basic pattern even after getting the 1950s chop. (A cut it almost seems all Hollywood actresses were contractually obligated to at the time)

Hayward also started drawing in her eyebrows in a sharper more angular manner. These two factors along with her fantastic deep voice and ever-so-slightly pouty mouth gave Hayward an unmistakable look of her own. And, yes, even though dramatic actresses of this period were/are usually characterized by more “high-minded” things like the types of roles they specialized in or their strong dramatic chops, image still mattered a whole hell of a lot.

All told, Hayward had a steady though somewhat idiosyncratic rise to film stardom. Hayward’s career also came with an idiosyncratic end. While dealing with the turmoil of her first marriage ending, Hayward was at the top of her game. But, Hayward purposefully chose to slow up a bit. In 1957, Hayward met and married her second husband, a businessman from Georgia. The very next year, Hayward starred in I Want to Live! (1958) for Wanger and took home an Oscar (and a decent cut of the film’s profits) to Georgia. Though Hayward slowed her film career to focus on a domestic career, she continued appearing in films into the early seventies–until she was diagnosed with brain cancer. (Cancer that she may have developed because of her work on the film The Conqueror (1956), which I really need to do an essay on someday because that’s one doozy of a story and one doozy of a movie.)

While I don’t have an exhaustive knowledge of Hayward’s filmography, I do think she’s a wonderful actress. Hayward stars alongside my boy Ray Milland in two films and is in one of my all-time favorite movies: Valley of the Dolls (1967). From my own experience, I’m recommending Smash-Up, playing at 2:30am E tonight (and also available streaming on Amazon). But, I’m really looking forward to seeing Girls on Probation (1938) and Ada (1961) for the first time.

While I was putting this essay together, I was watching The Lusty Men (1952). I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend that one too: Nicholas Ray in the director’s chair with Robert Mitchum and Arthur Kennedy working through their feelings while riding bulls. I didn’t know I was here for it and yet, here I am.

Originally posted on Watch More Movies

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smash-up: the story of a woman |1947|

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LOVE - WRECKED!  The Story of a Woman!

1947.

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http://geekandsundry.com/this-charity-fundraiser-will-have-you-playing-smash-up-for-a-great-cause/

Smash Up‘s Zombie Lord returns this weekend with a mission that’s quite the opposite of the sort of nefarious schemes we might expect from him. He’ll be participating in GameBlast17, one of the United Kingdom’s biggest gaming marathons–raising money for the Special Effect...