Ginger's Susan Hayward Message Board: To reach If You Knew Susie by Trish Sharp, click the profile photo at www.facebook.com/susanhaywardclassicfilmstar and you will see the link.
I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying about "With a Song In My Heart." I know it was the best musical of 1952, as opposed to "Singing in the Rain." My point was that critics and so-called film experts have never given it the credit it deserved. They fell in love with "Singing" and totally dismissed "Song."
Frankly, I think that's because they saw "Song" as strictly a biopic and not a musical film, and that's stupid, because at least half -- if not more -- of the film was music!
Errol, I am one of maybe three people in the U.S. who doesn't have cable, so I was not aware that TCM didn't give Susan her due on her birthday. But what else is new? Even when critics do condescend to mention her in a serious way, they often get things wrong. Case in point: Leonard Maltin actually said that Susan lip-synched the songs in "I'll Cry Tomorrow," and that the voice was Lillian Roth's!
I would not pretend that Susan didn't make mistakes in some of the movies she chose to make. But that shouldn't sway critical opinions of those films she made that WERE meaningful, like "I Want to Live," "WASIMH," "I'll Cry Tomorrow," "The Lusty Men" (I hate rodeos, but it was a very good film about rodeo life, and she was great in it), "The President's Lady," which, as I mentioned to Ginger, has been shown in part on PBS as depicting Andrew Jackson's life.
I also think that "My Foolish Heart" was an honest story of the here-today, gone-tomorrow angst of World War II for many young lovers.
And I'm sure critics could find several very good films in Susan's earlier years, if they took the time to look, i.e., "Reap the Wild Wind," "I Can Get It For You Wholesale," "House of Strangers, "Deadline at Dawn"(a perfect example of film noir), "Adam Had Four Sons," "I'd Climb the Highest Mountain" and "The Hairy Ape."
But, unfortunately, they don't take the time to look. Instead, they denigrate her because she made "woman's pictures," so popular in the '50s and '60s. Gee, what a shame we didn't have today's gratuitous sex and violence flicks with their special effects and had to resort to stories with a beginning, middle and end, and good characterization to muddle through back then, eh?
Sorry, Errol, I didn't mean to go on like this. But like you and other Susie fans, I get so tired of people (who should know better) denigrating her and her work!
Also sorry to hear you're feeling sub-par. We miss you on here. I hope you'll come back more often. We need all the true movie -- and Susan -- fans we can get!
