A Life of Her Own
Encyclopedia
A Life of Her Own is a 1950
1950 in film
The year 1950 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* February 15 - Walt Disney Studios' animated film Cinderella debuts.-Top grossing films : After theatrical re-issue- Awards :Academy Awards:*Ambush...

 American
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...

 melodrama
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...

 film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 directed by George Cukor
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...

. The screenplay by Isobel Lennart
Isobel Lennart
Isobel Lennart was an American screenwriter and playwright.A native of Brooklyn, New York, Lennart moved to Hollywood, where she was hired to work in the MGM mail room, a job she lost when she attempted to organize a union...

 focuses on an aspiring model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

 who leaves her small town in the Midwest
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....

 to seek fame and fortune in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

.

Plot

Lily Brannel James leaves her small home town in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...

 for New York City, where she gets herself hired by the Thomas Caraway Model Agency. She befriends former top model Mary Ashlon, who becomes her mentor. Mary is depressed about her foundering career and, following a night of excessive drinking, she commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

.

Lily eventually becomes a very successful model. As a favor to her attorney friend Jim Leversoe, she spends some time with Steve Harleigh, a Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...

 copper-mine owner in New York on business. The two fall in love, but both realize nothing can come of it. After Steve goes home, he has Jim buy Lily a bracelet, but she refuses to accept it.

Lily finds that success does not fill the void in her life. When Steve returns to New York to secure a loan, he runs into her. He tells her he is married. His wife Nora was left a paraplegic
Paraplegia
Paraplegia is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek: παραπληγίη "half-striking". It is usually the result of spinal cord injury or a congenital condition such as spina bifida that affects the neural elements of the spinal canal...

 in an automobile accident for which he was responsible. Despite this, their feelings for each other are too strong, and they embark on an affair.

Matters come to a head when Nora visits him to celebrate his birthday. On the night of Steve's birthday, Lily hosts a party too, even though Steve stays with Nora, who is making some progress in relearning to walk with crutches. Steve slips out to Lily's party and is taken aback by her self-destructive behavior.

Lily decides to confront Nora and asks family friend Jim to accompany her. However, when she sees how nice Nora is and how dependent she is on her husband, Lily cannot bring herself to tell her about her involvement with Steve. On the way out, she bumps into Steve at the elevator and tells him it is over.

Some time later, Lily runs into advertising executive Lee Gorrance, who had been dating Mary just prior to her death. When Lily resists his romantic advances, he predicts she will end up lonely and depressed like Mary. Upset by his comments, Lily considers ending her own life, but finally resolves to remain strong, even if she is lonely.

Production

Joseph Breen
Joseph Breen
Joseph Breen is an American soap opera actor.He played contract parts on both Guiding Light and Loving before being offered his most front-burner role to date: that of Lisa’s long-lost son, Scott Eldridge, on As the World Turns...

 rejected the original script as unacceptable and termed it "shocking and highly offensive" for its portrayal of "adultery
Adultery
Adultery is sexual infidelity to one's spouse, and is a form of extramarital sex. It originally referred only to sex between a woman who was married and a person other than her spouse. Even in cases of separation from one's spouse, an extramarital affair is still considered adultery.Adultery is...

 and commercialized prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

." A revised version was found to have "insufficient compensating moral values." In order to bring the story into agreement with the Production Code, screenwriter Isobel Lennart was required to "show that the adulterous situation is wrong and that sinners must be punished for their sin."

Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli
Vincente Minnelli was an American stage director and film director, famous for directing such classic movie musicals as Meet Me in St. Louis, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. In addition to having directed some of the most famous and well-remembered musicals of his time, Minnelli made...

 originally was assigned to direct the film, but numerous script revisions and problems with casting delayed the start of production by several months, and Minnelli began work on Father of the Bride
Father of the Bride (1950 film)
Father of the Bride is a 1950 American comedy film about a man trying to cope with preparations for his daughter's upcoming wedding. The movie stars Spencer Tracy in the titular role, Joan Bennett, Elizabeth Taylor, Don Taylor, Billie Burke, and Leo G. Carroll. It was adapted by Frances Goodrich...

instead. Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...

 initially refused to star in the film, but MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 executives Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer
Louis Burt Mayer born Lazar Meir was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in its golden years. Known always as Louis B...

 and Dore Schary
Dore Schary
Isadore "Dore" Schary was an American motion picture director, writer, and producer, and playwright who became head of production at MGM and eventually president of the studio...

 demanded she honor her contract with the studio. Howard Keel
Howard Keel
Harold Clifford Keel , known professionally as Howard Keel, was an American actor and singer. He starred in many film musicals of the 1950s...

, Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...

, George Murphy
George Murphy
George Lloyd Murphy was an American dancer, actor, and politician.-Life and career:He was born in New Haven, Connecticut of Irish Catholic extraction, the son of Michael Charles "Mike" Murphy, athletic trainer and coach, and Nora Long. He was educated at Peddie School, Trinity-Pawling School, and...

, and James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...

 were among those considered for the role of Steve Harleigh, which eventually went to Wendell Corey
Wendell Corey
Wendell Reid Corey was an American actor and politician.He was born in Dracut, Massachusetts, the son of Milton Rothwell Corey and Julia Etta McKenney . His father was a Congregationalist clergyman...

, who worked on the production through mid-February 1950 but then allegedly asked to be released from the film because he felt he wasn't right for the role. Other sources claimed he was dismissed at the request of Turner and director George Cukor following an argument between the two stars. He was replaced by Ray Milland
Ray Milland
Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...

.

The film's original ending had Lily leaping to her death, but the studio insisted on a happier finale. Cukor disapproved of the studio's interference and was unhappy with the film as it was released.

Cast

  • Lana Turner ..... Lily Brannel James
  • Ray Milland ..... Steve Harleigh
  • Tom Ewell
    Tom Ewell
    Tom Ewell was an American actor.-Early life and career:Born Samuel Yewell Tompkins in Owensboro, Kentucky, where his family expected him to follow in their footsteps as lawyers or whiskey and tobacco dealers....

     ..... Tom Caraway
  • Louis Calhern
    Louis Calhern
    Louis Calhern was an American stage and screen actor.- Early life :Louis Calhern was born Carl Henry Vogt on February 19, 1895 in Brooklyn, New York. His family left New York City while he was still a child and moved to St. Louis, Missouri where he grew up...

     ..... Jim Leversoe
  • Ann Dvorak
    Ann Dvorak
    Ann Dvorak was an American film actress.Asked how to pronounce her adopted surname, she told The Literary Digest: "My name is properly pronounced vor'shack. The D remains silent...

     ..... Mary Ashlon
  • Margaret Phillips ..... Nora Harleigh
  • Barry Sullivan
    Barry Sullivan (actor)
    Barry Sullivan was an American movie actor who appeared in over 100 movies from the 1930s to the 1980s.Born in New York City, Sullivan fell into acting when in college playing semi-pro football...

     ..... Lee Gorrance

Critical reception

Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

observed, "The soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 plotting has been polished to considerable extent, the playing by the femme cast members is topnotch and the direction aids them, but it is still a true confession type of yarn concerned with a big city romance between a married man and a beautiful model. Script is spotted with feeling and character, and also a lot of conversation that doesn't mean much. A decided asset is Lana Turner's performance."

Music

As revealed in the liner notes of the Film Score Monthly
Film Score Monthly
Film Score Monthly is an online magazine founded by editor-in-chief and executive producer Lukas Kendall in June 1990 as The Soundtrack Correspondence List...

release of the music from the film, the main theme for this film would be reused by the composer in the 1952 MGM film Invitation
Invitation (film)
Invitation is a 1952 melodrama starring Van Johnson and Dorothy McGuire as a happily married couple, until the wife learns a secret about her husband. The film was based on the short story "R.S.V.P." by Jerome Weidman.-Plot:...

.

Awards and nominations

Bronisław Kaper was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score
The Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score is one of several categories presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association , an organization of journalists who cover the United States film industry, but are affiliated with publications outside North America, since its institution in 1947...

 but lost to Franz Waxman
Franz Waxman
Franz Waxman was a German-American composer, known for his bravura Carmen Fantasie for violin and orchestra, based on musical themes from the Bizet opera Carmen, and for his musical scores for films....

 for Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard (film)
Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American film noir directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, and produced and co-written by Charles Brackett...

.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK