Sed de triunfo

Poor Susan Strasberg. She had not an easy life. She was so lovely. But her delivery in this movie - a remake of a Katharine Hepburn 30s vehicle called "Morning Glory" - is simply not good. It doesn't help that the script is a cliché of a cliché of a cliché, if there is such a thing. Henry Fonda does the best he can with the bad, hoary lines. The supporting cast of Joan Greenwood and Christopher Plummer are excellent and fascinating as usual, but they're stuck with bad lines. In Greenwood's case, bad lines complaining about bad lines!!! And even though Fonda is good, you can't believe Susan would really go for him.

The best thing about the movie is the scene backstage towards the end when the show that might make Strasberg a star, is just about to start. The movie's director shows the stagehands being called their cues by the stage manager, and you get the suspense of what it's like to be backstage just before the curtain goes up.

The stage manager by the way is played by Jack Weston, who played a stage manager the next year in Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life," which is also about "the theatuh," and in its complex phoniness and artificiality it rings truer than "Stage Struck." Beloved Herbert Marshall is also in this movie and you can see very easily that he is really walking on a wooden leg.

The street scenes of New York are interesting in this movie. Also interesting is the name of a Greenwich Village nightclub where Strasberg cringingly reads poetry and verse: The Village Voice!

Vermont girl Gertrude Langenfelder (Susan Strasberg) has come to New York City to be a Broadway star under the stage name Eva Lovelace. She's desperate to get any part with producer Lewis Easton (Henry Fonda). Joe Sheridan (Christopher Plummer) is the writer. Despite not liking the role, Rita Vernon (Joan Greenwood) is the leading lady.

This movie depends a lot on Susan Strasberg's performance. All I can say is that she enunciates her lines very knowingly. She's playing a part when the role requires her to be an IT girl. She has to be a newly born diamond outshining all the other diamonds. It's asking a lot and she struggles. I'm sure that her father taught her well but there is something innate about stardom. Every moment with her is a performance when she needs to simply be a superstar. The role may be classified as a try-hard but the actress cannot be just try-hard. The difference is the margin between functional and greatness. This movie has enough acting power to light up Broadway but Susan's flickering light leaves a dull spot at its center. The simple story is not original enough to overpower its flaws.

Along with "All About Eve" this is one of the finest films dealing with the American theatre. I don't understand why it is a lost film and would urge anybody who enjoys great acting to hunt this film down any way they can. It is also about time it was released on video. Susan Strasberg was clearly one of Hollywood's casualties and it's tragic that the films she made after this were perhaps determined by the mediocre reaction at the time to this film.

Although Susan Strassberg has been unfairly compared to Katharine Hepburn from the original Morning Glory, it's not quite a fair comparison. Forgetting that there is no one like Hepburn, Strassberg does do a decent job with the material given in Stage Struck. The problem is that the story has been changed and not for the better.

Romance was added to this production and it weakens the basic story of a young girl who is so single minded in her determination to be a success in the theater. The characters played by Adolphe Menjou and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in Morning Glory are now played by Henry Fonda and Christopher Plummer. The producer and the playwright now engage in a rivalry for Strassberg which weakens the story.

In the original Morning Glory it's made clear from the beginning that Menjou is a love 'em and leave 'em type and he's really got no interest in Hepburn in that direction as he sees she's not the type. Pipe smoking Fairbanks after Hepburn makes good would like to get something going with her, but she's into her art first and for always.

But Fonda and Plummer have a civilized rivalry for Strassberg and the story is which one will she choose. That I'm not telling.

Stage Struck has some nice location shots of New York in the late Fifties, Broadway and the Greenwich Village area and a bit of Park Avenue. Joan Greenwood is here as the star who falters and allows Strassberg her big break. Greenwood's quirky personality that British films utilized so well is strangely missing here. Herbert Marshall is great as the older actor that C. Aubrey Smith played in Morning Glory.

Stage Struck is a nice film, but definitely a come down from Morning Glory.

Strasberg gives what is perhaps one of the worst performances by an actress in an "A" film. Her acting is jaw-droppingly terrible, and "over-the-top" is too kind of a phrase. She obviously took her father's instruction to heart - he being Lee Strasberg of the Actor's Studio. The "waiting-for-the-reviews" party during the first thirty-minutes of the film actually contains a cring-worthy rendition of the famous balcony scene from "Romeo & Juliet."

Of course, director Lumet has a tendency to allow his performers to chew the scenery. Fonda is an exception, though. He provides his usual subdued interpretation. Plummer comes across quite nicely, as well.

However, the "romantic" conclusion is totally ridiculous, as there is zero chemistry between the characters who finally end up with one another.

I forced myself to watch this film till the end, but it wasn't easy. Not surprisingly, Strasberg's career eventually settled into "B" movies, and hammy TV roles.