Susan Hayward

Lee Bowman

Marsha Hunt

Eddie Albert

Carl Esmond

Carleton Young

Charles D. Brown

Janet Murdoch

Sharyn Payne

Robert Shayne

Larry J. Blake

George Meeker

Erville Alderson

George Meader

Ruth Sanderson

Steve Olsen

Fredi Walker-Browne

Barbara Wooddell

Cecil Elliott

Alice Fleming

John Wald

James Craven

Frances Morris

Connie Leon

William Gould

Vivien Oakland

Robert Verdaine

George Ramsey

Ed Randolph

Eddie Coke

Ann Toth

Stuart Heisler

Dorothy Parker

Frank Cavett

John Howard Lawson

Lionel Wiggam

Walter Wanger

Frank Skinner

Stanley Cortez

Milton Carruth

Martin Gabel

Alexander Golitzen

Russell A. Gausman

Ruby R. Levitt

David Tamkin

Charles Felstead

Joe Lapis

Carmen Dirigo

Drama

Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman

Universal International Pictures

United States of America

CinemaSerf

A sort of role-reversal of "A Star is Born" as Susan Hayward portrays a successful nightclub singer who marries a struggling lyricist - Lee Bowman. When his career takes off, she becomes disheartened and turns to the bottle - putting herself and her young daughter at risk. Hayward is rather good in this - she is convincing as both a singer (thanks, largely, to the tones of Peg La Centra) and a drunk; and does engender a feeling of sympathy. Regrettably, the rest of the cast are unremarkable and the ending reduces her performance to little more than that of a pathetic failure. It's worth a watch, but only because you can see the star quality in Hayward's performance rather than anything peculiar to this story.

English