I'LL CRY TOMORROW

I'LL CRY TOMORROW (1955). Director: Daniel Mann.

The more or less true story of singer Lillian Roth (Susan Hayward) and her battle with alcoholism. Although Hayward has a couple of self-conscious moments, basically she gives a very strong performance as this tormented woman who lost the first man (Ray Danton) she loved to illness and an early death, married a heavy-drinking gigolo and party boy (Don Taylor), then -- worst of all-- got hitched to a wife-beating thug played by Richard Conte [pictured]. Virginia Gregg and Veda Ann Borg show up in much smaller roles. Carole Ann Campbell is excellent as Roth as a young girl, but the movie is basically stolen by Jo Van Fleet, who is simply superb as Lillian's mother. Nice score by Alex North. Hayward sings her own numbers, and isn't bad, although one can't imagine she would have been as successful a singer as she was an actress. Reviews of the film have noted that the atmosphere is more of the fifties when it was made than the period during which most of the story takes place.

Verdict: Watch Susan Suffer! ***.