A Life of Her Own (1950)

(On Cable TV, March 2020) There are so many examples of how the Production Code undermined the substance of films told between 1934 and the 1960s that it’s hardly useful to throw another example on the pile. Still, there’s A Life of Her Own as yet another example—a visibly toothless portrait of a young woman trying to make it in New York City that flirts with a more mature outlook than other 1930s films, yet can’t quite have the creative freedom to really make any kind of point. (It’s even worse when you measure the film against the original novel, which is remarkably darker.) Lana Turner stars as a Midwestern girl coming to Manhattan, meeting an older woman who didn’t make it (and who then kills herself), becomes successful, gets involved in an affair with a married man, and—well, this is where the film gets particularly fuzzy. The original ending had her kill herself in a cyclical commentary on the process that grinds young hopefuls into washed-up husks (and as evidence that under the Production Code, no one gets away with adultery); the rewritten ending is an unsatisfying step back from the ledge without much meaning to it. Clearly, A Life of Her Own isn’t one of director George Cukor’s finest works—but then again, the film’s production history suggests that he knew that the project was doomed under the Production Code.

(Second Viewing, On Cable TV, February 2021) Thanks to a large-capacity DVR, I record movies indiscriminately and while my memory (and record of movies watched) is good enough that I don’t accidentally end up re-watching too many things by accident, there’s an entire class of not-too-memorable movies that I don’t necessarily recall watching in the first place. (Also: The pandemic lockdown is playing tricks with my perception of time.) A Life of Her Own ended up (again) on my DVR based on it being directed by George Cukor, but it turns out that I didn’t have too many memories of my first viewing. The somewhat well-worn plot probably explains much of a lack of recollection: As a small-town beauty leaves town to enter the bustling world of Manhattan modelling, it quickly turns to melodramatic romance as she embarks on an affair with a man married to a paraplegic. It’s all quite dull, and my lack of particular affection for star Lana Turner probably further explains why the film washed over me a second time without registering anything specific. Not all of Hollywood’s golden-age movies were good, and even fewer of them were memorable: now that I’ve seen the top films of that era, it’s no accident if I’m going to end up seeing more and more forgettable ones, and be condemned to watch them again if I don’t cross-check my lists at some point.