Scandal: The Trial of Mary Astor

Very good documentary on the struggle film star MaryAstor had after her husband got hold of her notorious diaries, and the two fought for custody of their daughter, Marylyn.

The daughter in question, Marylyn Roh, talks about her mother, as do Leonard Maltin, Molly Haskell, and others.

What emerges is the story of a strong woman under tremendous pressure, making a very big film at the same time she is supposed to appear at a trial to get custody of her daughter, and her willingness to give up her career if it meant, she could have her daughter back with her.

At one point, she goes to a department store and asks if she were looking for a job, would they hire her? They said they would be thrilled to hire her and would make them their European buyer. She then knew that she could continue the fight and have a way to take care of her child.

Asked by the top studio executives to settle the case, as they were sick of all the Hollywood scandals, she said no, it would have to play out, as she was in the fight for her child.

The beginning of Astor's life was very sad. She was a big star as a teenager, kept a virtual prisoner by her parents, and paid a very tiny allowance while they built a lavish home and lived a huge lifestyle. Her diary was the only outlet she had for her feelings.

I especially liked the description of the time, the 1930s, the novelty of a court case as compared to today, and how Mary's diaries and case knocked the Olympics off the front page of the newspapers.

As Haskell explained, people were not used to movie stars speaking as themselves. Everything they said in public was scripted. This made the diaries and the trial all the more interesting to the public.

Highly recommended. A fascinating woman, and if you aren't familiar with her films, you will want to become familiar after you see this documentary.

In 1936, Mary Astor was working a full day at the studio, shooting DODSWORTH. At night, she was in court in a custody battle for her daughter. Her diaries, which recounted her affairs, were in the possession of her ex-husband, and he was prepared to use them in court and the press. It reached the point where, after the shooting on DODSWORTH had wrapped, she was led into Goldwyn's office, where industry leaders asked her to settle the matter quietly, rather than triggering another "Sinful Hollywood" boycott. She told the men who could crush her career no and walked out.

This is not an unbiased documentary, nor does it pretend to be. Of course any finite collection of facts must inevitably tilt one way or another; this one takes Miss Astor's side and makes no bones about it, with narration by Lee Grant, on-screen commentary by Molly Haskell and Leonard Maltin, and the daughter at the center of the fight showing up to talk about her relationship with her mother, and to read excerpts from the diaries.

It's not a very deep or insightful documentary, but it does seem to get its facts unapologetically straight.

I just watched this documentary on TCM and I enjoyed it...though I also felt that the picture also seemed a tad one-sided and not exactly objective. Still, it is interesting and well worth seeing.

The film is about the famous custody battle between Mary Astor and her ex-husband. But first, the film backs up a bit to tell about Mary's childhood and how she was exploited by her parents. Then, it talks a bit (and only a bit) about the troubled marriage between Mary and her husband. Initially, Mary agreed to give her husband full custody of their daughter and a very healthy settlement....and then you learn it is because he was essentially blackmailing her, as he had her diaries which apparently had some very incriminating content. Essentially, she'd been having an affair while they were married...though to be fair, her husband also had been having an affair AND gave his girlfriend an abortion, as he was an OBGYN! What's next? Watch the film.

As I said, I enjoyed the film but also felt that in a couple ways it was flawed. The daughter, it turned out, did not have a happy childhood. It didn't indicate what sort of father her dad had been, but she described a sad life after going to her mother--growing up in a boarding school. But because this seemed to go against the spirit of the film that Mary was a great lady, it was only briefly mentioned. Additionally, the film really played up her role in DODSWORTH. It was perhaps the best film of the 1930s....possibly even better than GONE WITH THE WIND. But the documentary seems to credit ALL of this to Mary....and the writer (Sinclair Lewis), the great director (William Wyler) and amazing leading man (Walter Houston) were given little credit....or so it seemed to me. All in all, a good but flawed documentary that seemed more concerned with praising Mary Astor instead of giving a more objective overview of the custody battle and her life beyond that. I guess they choose to make it a film about Mary, whereas I was really looking for a film about the custody battle.

The fascinating story of the child custody trial that Mary Astor and her second husband went through in 1936, played out in the press while the star was making the film 'Dodsworth.' Any publicity like this was highly sensitive in Hollywood at the time, and Astor standing up to a gang of studio execs to prioritize her child over possible damage to her career was truly admirable. The story had a scandalous backdrop in both Astor and her husband having had affairs, as well as her having recorded her most intimate moments in her diaries over the years, which were stolen by him.

As documentaries go, though, it's pretty average, which is a shame given how interesting the subject matter is. It suffers from the summaries by the people interviewed, who weren't well polished and often repetitive (film critic Leonard Maltin is an exception). The visual sparkles added around old still photos (and transparently shimmering through them) were a distraction and a poor choice. The storytelling is mediocre as well, not all that well fleshed out in places, defocused in others, and certainly not coming across an unbiased, comprehensive account. I liked hearing the basic story and seeing some of the old photos and film clips, so it wasn't a waste of an hour though.

Somewhat interesting showbiz documentary that like most entries in this genre claims more weight for its subject than the evidence will bear. Writer/ director Alexa Foreman would have you believe that Ms. Astor was a great actress, good mother and liberated woman. I would amend that to good actress, ok mom (not big on parents who fight for custody of their kids only to pack 'em off to boarding school) and gutsy gal (standing up to Hollywood's moguls in the 30s was hard even for strong leading men, let alone ladies who were third billed). I also wearied of the constant talking head triple play combo of Haskell to Maltin to Bass (with an occasional assist by Young Weyler and some therapist whose name I forget and am too lazy to look up). And as an unwelcome corollary of this I missed the subject's own voice. Not only did the documentary feature merely one film clip (which kinda goes against Foreman's contention that Astor was a "great" thesp) but there were no interviews of her, either. Did Astor never grant a filmed interview? I doubt it. And if that was true wouldn't it be worthy of mention? In any case there is a strange silence emanating from the cacophony of other voices that is actually rather irritating.

However, there are some points of interest that partially redeem the otherwise overblown proceedings. Nice to know that Ruth Chatterton was, in real life, the opposite of the characters she played on screen. I also enjoyed the Didionesque intersection of Hollywood and California politics (the judge at the custody trial was a future Republican governor) as well as the unflattering portrayals of figures usually regarded as sacrosanct such as Thalberg and George Kaufman.

Give it a C plus.