I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Lillian Roth has it all: youth, beauty, movie and Broadway fame, and a devoted fiancé. Then her fiancé dies, and Lillian takes one drink to ease her grief. Then another. Then ten. Then thousands. And soon her youth, her career and her life are drowning in an ocean of booze. Susan Hayward earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Award for her searing portrayal of the real-life performer. Hayward’s achievements don’t stop there. She provides her own vocals for “Sing You Sinners”, “Happiness is a Thing Called Joe” and more standards.
- Actors:
- Susan Hayward, Richard Conte, Eddie Albert, Jo Van Fleet, Don Taylor, Ray Danton, Margo, Virginia Gregg, Don 'Red' Barry, David Kasday, Carole Ann Campbell, Peter Leeds, Tol Avery
- Directors:
- Daniel Mann
- Writers:
- Helen Deutsch, Jay Richard Kennedy
- Others:
- Cedric Gibbons, Malcolm Brown, Helen Rose, Edwin B. Willis, Arthur E. Arling, Hugh B. Hunt
- Studio:
- Warner
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Music & Musicals
- Collections:
- A Brief History of Singer Biopics, Acting Up: Top 10 Performances At Cannes, A Brief History of Film..., Top Films
- Awards:
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Reviews (1) of I'll Cry Tomorrow
Hayward Vehicle. - I'll Cry Tomorrow review by Steve
Musical biopic- cleaned up from Lillian Roth's bestselling memoir- which is transformed from standard '50s nostalgia for the musical theatre of the depression, into a vehicle for Susan Hayward's huge, dynamic performance. It tells of Lillian's upbringing by her stage-door mother (Jo Van Fleet) and Broadway success before succumbing to alcoholism.
There's a great big band sound from Alex North which adds a flavour of the vaudeville era, back when mother pushed her little girl to auditions, teaching her to fake her true feelings and desires. When stardom arrives, Roth fills her emotional emptiness with the booze that will drive her from pawnshop to fleapit to dives.
Susan Hayward got to sing her own numbers, but the film doesn't really feel so much like a musical. It's all about Lillian's self destruction, whether courtesy of the bottle, or men, or business choices. Alcohol completes her, and then it destroys her.
Daniel Mann creates a rich and credible ambience of backstage rootlessness and after show parties. He has a reputation as a good director of actors and credit to him for allowing Hayward to dominate to such fabulous effect. It's one of the great performances of the decade.