Une femme marquée

Flynn was released from his Warner contract in 1953, he returned in 1958 to play his dear friend John Barrymore in this autobiographical film. Due to legal complications at the time the resulting script was intentionally vague.

I enjoy this film because of Errol Flynns' sympathetic and moving performance of a charming rogue at war with himself.

A moody drama The film concentrates on Barrymores' daughter and her need for love in life.The film was based on her book. Dorothy Malone is wonderful in that role. It also is done well in black and white. The vague script means alot is missed, we only glimpse the complex characters.

The film is worth watching for Malones' performance and Flynns' sympathetic turn in a rare dramatic part.

(On a lighter note, while he knew John Barrymore well he didn't look at all like 'the great profile', so Flynn was assisted by makeup and given Mr Barrymores' distinctive Nose.)

The tragic, wasted life of Diana Barrymore sanitized for 1950s audiences. One can't wonder if part of her problem was having no parental guidance during her formative years. She was pushed off to boarding schools and later given a lavish allowance. Once her movie career floundered she had no direction and too much time on her hands.

This movie is painful to watch, not only for Diana's sad story but to see Errol Flynn near death. The poor man looks as though every organ in his body is failing. He died within a year.

Of course most bios have laughably bad scenes. This one is no exception. Diana hits the skids and is reduced to performing in a dive bar. She is fired for being too drunk to speak. She wanders the streets in a full length evening gown and cloth coat (the minks long gone). She's arrested for vandalism and sent to an asylum for a year. She is released at 6am on a Sunday in the gown she came in wearing and no money! They couldn't have possibly done something so cold and stupid back then. Now, YES.

Too Much, Too Soon, the film adaption of Diana Barrymore's memoirs if things went right for her should have been a final chapter with a they lived happily ever after closing on her real existence. Sad to say though that the writing of the book as a cautionary tale to others to avoid her pitfalls, she still couldn't avoid them herself. Two years after To Much, Too Soon came out, Diana Barrymore died of all the years of accumulated indulgences of many vices.

Having never seen any of her work I'm really not in a position to comment, but assuming she was as bad as most seem to think she was, she never had an opportunity to really learn her craft. Because of her name and a couple of bit parts on stage she was rushed out to Hollywood and given the big buildup. When she flopped all she could do was trade in on the name.

Dorothy Malone after her Oscar winning role as the hedonistic heiress in Written On The Wind was perfect to play Diana who decided to explore all the vices in a desperate search for love. Being caught between two estranged parents she wasn't at home in either of their worlds. She was the offspring of John Barrymore and Blanche Oelrichs aka Michael Strange. It was the second marriage for both. Succeeding husbands and wives are not in this film, nor are her half brothers, sons of Oelrich from her first marriage. Blanche Oelrich had a succeeding marriage after Barrymore, and The Great Profile had two more wives after divorcing Diana's mother.

One thing that is very delicately hinted at with Kathleen Freeman's brief role is the lesbianism of Blanche Oelrich. After three marriages Blanche Oelrich had a relationship with a woman in the last years of her life. If Too Much, Too Soon were made today that would be more fully explained. Neva Patterson is a concerned Oelrich in this, a beautiful performance as a woman who can't reach her out of control daughter falling under the influence of her father.

Errol Flynn had quite a bit of life experience to draw on for playing John Barrymore. He knew Barrymore quite well in Hollywood and partied hearty with him as Barrymore died slowly of dissipation. Flynn was dying from it as well and he knew it. This has to be the only time in history where an actor was playing older than his years without makeup. Flynn was 49 playing a 60 year old Barrymore who was that when he died in 1942.

Diana had three husbands all different types played in succession by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Ray Danton, and Ed Kemmer. She should have hung on to Zimbalist who was playing in actuality Bramwell Fletcher under a pseudonym. He leaves to go on a movie location and she starts fooling around with tennis bum/gigolo Ray Danton. He's great in the part of a truly sadistic evil man. As for number three, he was a bit actor who was as much an alcoholic as she and Kemmer and Malone were a bad combination, but great in their performances.

Too Much, Too Soon is very similar to a film Warner Brothers did the year before about another alcoholic performer, Helen Morgan. Morgan was a star and on talent, not starting at the top because of a name. Still she went through a few husbands and many a binge and the ending their was a cop out with the promise of a recovery which never happened in real life. Diana Barrymore's self destruction was down the same road Morgan took only she died after Too Much, Too Soon came out.

It should have ended better for Diana Barrymore. But Dorothy Malone brings her vividly to life and she's got a book and a film to commemorate what might have been.

But then that is par for the course for biopics of the 50s. Diana Barrymore was a tragic figure, she was ignored by her parents, actor John Barrymore and author Michael Strange, and she did make lots of bad choices over the years. However, so much is incorrect in this film. I don't know exactly how Diana Barrymore started drinking, but in the film, after her father dies and she feels guilty for not having being there, she literally picks up a bottle of her dad's liquor and starts chugging after a lifetime on lemonade. She is shown as having what appears to be a perfectly fine first husband with a good job who is age appropriate when in fact husband number one was a fellow actor almost 20 years her senior during their marriage when she was in her early 20s. Husbands number two and three are pretty much on course, especially husband number two who was a tennis player simply out to exploit Diana for the Barrymore millions.

Errol Flynn gives a fine performance as John Barrymore and life sadly imitates art here as Flynn would die within the year at least partly from his own lifestyle. You really feel sometimes you are looking right at Barrymore, from Flynn's carriage to just his appearance. Flynn actually knew Barrymore, so he did have actual memories from which to draw on in his performance.

Another point - the film makes it look like Diana is John Barrymore's only child - she wasn't - and that Diana's mother was the love of his life the others just being "images on a screen". Given the short time they were married I doubt that too. In fact, Diana was with her dad when he died. Actually, while his legs were bloated stiff from kidney failure and he was lying in a hospital bed, John Barrymore was begging his daughter to go out and find prostitutes for him and bring them back to the hospital!

I'd watch this because the overall tragic stories of John and Diana Barrymore are true and the acting is great, but the devil is in the details. Strangely enough this showed up on TCM's Father's Day programming. I guess, for a change, they were trying to balance the "good dad" movies with the "bad dad" films.

Dorothy Malone does very fine work portraying Diana Barrymore, the daughter of alcoholic actor John Barrymore, a young woman with dreams of carving out her own niche in show business before succumbing to the same demons which dogged her father. The picture, however, is little more than a potboiler, co-written by director Art Napoleon with Jo Napoleon, from the book by Diana Barrymore and Gerold Frank. Errol Flynn is solid as John Barrymore, and there's a sweet supporting performance from Martin Milner as a family friend (Milner's final scene, revealing a bald head, is especially good). Still, this movie about the movies seems lackluster and naive, not to mention under-produced. For buffs, a somewhat enjoyable wallow with a quiet, even pace, and Malone manages to be sympathetic on the road to ruin without becoming a nuisance. **1/2 from ****