tles7-676-109633 The movie doesn't come up to the height of Love Me or Leave Me. The reviews of the day called it a soap opera and it has that feeling. Love Me or Leave had a better script and a better cast. The reason that Blyth was miscast is the same reason that they didn't use her voice (Gogi Grant dubbed over all the singing). Blyth doesn't have the emotional heft to match the torch-singing quality that is necessary for the part or necessary to match the dubbed singing by Gogi. A more powerful actress would have made the scenes with her and Newman much better. His acting ability stands out of course, but it is mostly wasted on this script. Who would have been perfect for this?...easy...Judy Garland. She may have looked to old for the part at this point...she didn't have the beauty of Blyth...who was a good singer in her own right...but not for this. Blyth looked like Morgan...and she was fantastic in Kismet...perfect. I had the pleasure of meeting her about 10 years ago and shared some coffee with her and her husband. She's a lovely lady. This movie is just lacking.

callanvass (Plot) An aspiring singer named Helen Morgan achieves stardom, only to have it snatched away from her due to poor decisions in her love life, and constant alcohol abuse. I knew nothing about Helen Morgan going in. The only reason I decided to watch this movie, is because of Paul Newman's presence. I'm a huge Paul Newman fan. This is one of his first roles. The movie is a rather drab and joyless experience, for almost two hours or so. I'm sure the real Helen Morgan was a fascinating person, with many issues that were sympathetic, but Ann Blyth's portrayal of her is simply boring. This movie does a very poor job telling her story. Her love story with Larry Maddux (Paul Newman) seems quickly thrown together without proper thought, and shows contempt for its audience. I got quite annoyed with the on and off relationship between Blyth & Paul Newman. She's also somewhat of a home- wrecker. She falls for a married man named Russell Wade (Richard Carlson) Its tough to empathize with a person like that, even though she seemed to be good hearted. From what I've read, they depicted Helen Morgan correctly. Her alcoholism is shown in decent detail, but it's far from vivid like it's trying to be. It might be cruel of me to say, but I didn't give a damn anymore about Helen Morgan after about the 50 minute mark. I was simply waiting for this mess to end. *SPOILERS* If you don't wish to be spoiled, don't read any further!After doing some research, I found out the happy ending was completely fabricated. The real Helen Morgan died at the age of 41, when she collapsed on a stage while performing. She died due to years of alcohol abuse. The ending of the movie heavily implies that Helen Morgan has turned her life around. I think it's a bit of a slap to the face of the real Helen Morgan. Final Thoughts: Leave this in obscurity where it belongs. As good as Paul Newman is, I don't have many good things to say about this movie. Look elsewhere for info on Helen Morgan. This mediocre biopic isn't it4.2/10

Bill Slocum Sitting through this exercise in self-congratulatory Hollywood tedium is enough to give you the shakes nearly as bad as those experienced by the title character.Helen Morgan (Ann Blyth) is a young singer from Danville, Illinois who dreams of seeing her name in lights. Stardom comes quicker than you can say the words "cheap montage," but with it comes gobs of heartache, mostly in the form of wrong guys and too much alcohol.Directed by Michael Curtiz and written by a credited committee of four, "Helen Morgan" throws up every convention of the time in which it was made, with no real heart in evidence. The New York Times called it "as heartwarming as an electric pad," which gets across the level of manipulation on offer even if it oversells the warmth by a few degrees.Blyth looks terrific, anyway, convincingly lip-synching Gogi Grant's off-camera singing. Paired up with a young and handsome Paul Newman as a shifty bootlegger named Larry Maddux, you get a lot of sex appeal, anyway.Right away you know you are in trouble, when we see Helen in a train while a group of Charleston-dancing men strum ukuleles and wear mink coats. It's the 1920s, in case you didn't know, a point that Curtiz continues to harp upon in scene after scene.Everything is force-fed to you in this film. It's all about the men in the world of Helen, as she gets pinballed from one bad thing to another, whether it's being left out to dry by Larry after a one-night fling, or later being caught masquerading as a Canadian for a beauty pageant.That's one of the few elements, by the way, which happened to the real Helen Morgan, but here it just serves as another installment of the pain parade Larry puts her through, not to mention her chance to meet another wrong guy who gets to disqualify her."I'm so ashamed," she tells him."There's one thing you don't have to be ashamed of," he replies. "Your looks. You're a very pretty girl."This counts for a gallant overture in this very dated, awkward film.Blyth isn't bad, just not very convincing. Forced as she is by a stupid script to never take a stand for herself, just drink more and more to register her pain, I'd say she does as good as she can.Newman's better, much better, mainly because he gets to make his choice comments from the sidelines while poor Ann has to drag this dead cat of a story on her petite shoulders. Playing anti-heroes became a specialty of his, and he does the best he can with this one.Judy Garland reportedly turned down the lead role in this production with the famous line "No more sad endings for me." Judy was smart; you can be, too. Unless you're a Newman completist, or a self-abusive depressive, give this one a miss.

writers_reign This is as if one of the Lilliputians had been tapped by Hollywood to top-line The Lemuel Gulliver Story. If that doesn't fly how about Tab Hunter in The Frank Sinatra Story. Th't how ludicrous it is to cast Ann Blyh, a minor talent at best, as a charismatic star of the 20s and 30s. You can see the thinking. Morgan's hey day was the 20s and 30s and by 1941 she was dead, the handful of films she played in weren't being shown on TV so who - of the Hollywood target audience, approx 15 to 25 - is going to say THAT'S not Morgan. By far the best thing about it is the score, as loaded with standards as MGM's Love Me Or Leave Me two years earlier, another tale of a real life singer of the 20s and 30s done wrong by a gangster. Thing is Doris Day was far more credible than Blyth and has a better voice than Gogi Grant. Alan King is effective in support but this isn't a keeper.