TOO MUCH TOO SOON
US, 1958, 121 minutes, Black and white.
Dorothy Malone, Errol Flynn, Efrem Zimbalist Jnr., Neva Patterson, Martin Milner, Ray Danton, Murray Hamilton.
Directed by Art Napoleon.
Too Much Too Soon refers to fame, wealth, glamour and alcohol. It is the biography of classic actor John Barrymore's daughter Diana. It was adapted from a biography by Diana Barrymore and Gerold Frank (who appears as a character in the film). As with many Hollywood biographies, excerpts from the life of the subject are taken and dramatised (and somewhat fictionalised). Diana Barrymore appeared in a few films, not to any great success. She seems to have been very much in the shadow of her famous father.
Dorothy Malone, soon after her Oscar-winning performance in Written on the Wind, tackles the heroine and gives some strength to her character. Errol Flynn (art echoing nature?) is John Barrymore. Efrem Zimbalist at the beginning of his career is the hero. The film is interesting in its picture of Hollywood, glamour and the 'great'. However, it is also the Hollywood-style glamour and harrowing downfall of a human being.
1. Audience interest in biographies? Hollywood stories? The lives and downfalls of the stars?
2. Black and white photography? Musical score? re-creation of the '30s and '40s? Hollywood? The film as a piece of Americana?
3. The conventions of the Hollywood biography? The focus on the subject? Melodrama? Problems? Happiness? Success and failure? Personal lives? Privacy? The background of affluence? How well did this film compare with other such biographies?
4. The plausibility of this story: the background of the Barrymore family and their acting? John Barrymore and his success? His sinking, failures, hamming his acting? Interest in his family, neglect of it? The reputation of the Barrymores? Diana within this context? Her desire to love her father? Reconciliation with his wife? The career, the failure? The men, exploitation? The poor films? The dancing and burlesque? Alcoholism?
5. Dorothy Malone's portrait of Diana Barrymore - early years, family relationships, concern about her father and his drinking, her mother, reconciliation? His death? The effect of his death on her life, loneliness blaming herself? Her attitude towards her acting ability? Failure in films? Her turning to drink? Her capacity for relationships, the collapse of her marriage, affairs? A life of squalor? The attempts to get jobs, the burlesque? Her hospitalisation? The work on her autobiography? The new encounter? The relationship with the friend ? and the mutual revelation of their secrets ? his baldness? The possibility of a life?
6. Errol Flynn's portrait of John Barrymore? Flamboyance, style, acting ability, drinking, failure of a great actor? The stage? Money, alcohol? His wife? The pathos of his death?
7. The Barrymore family? Diana and her relationship with her mother? The effect on her life ? wealth, reputation, expectations?
8. The men: her husband and the collapse of the marriage, her relationships and affairs, her childhood friend, a possible bond for the future? The burlesque manager? Exploited by men?
9. Problems of fame, despair, loneliness, alcoholism, rehabilitation? Entertainment? Interest? Americana?
