Somewhat interesting showbiz documentary that like most entries in this genre claims more weight for its subject than the evidence will bear. Writer/ director Alexa Foreman would have you believe that Ms. Astor was a great actress, good mother and liberated woman. I would amend that to good actress, ok mom (not big on parents who fight for custody of their kids only to pack 'em off to boarding school) and gutsy gal (standing up to Hollywood's moguls in the 30s was hard even for strong leading men, let alone ladies who were third billed). I also wearied of the constant talking head triple play combo of Haskell to Maltin to Bass (with an occasional assist by Young Weyler and some therapist whose name I forget and am too lazy to look up). And as an unwelcome corollary of this I missed the subject's own voice. Not only did the documentary feature merely one film clip (which kinda goes against Foreman's contention that Astor was a "great" thesp) but there were no interviews of her, either. Did Astor never grant a filmed interview? I doubt it. And if that was true wouldn't it be worthy of mention? In any case there is a strange silence emanating from the cacophony of other voices that is actually rather irritating.
However, there are some points of interest that partially redeem the otherwise overblown proceedings. Nice to know that Ruth Chatterton was, in real life, the opposite of the characters she played on screen. I also enjoyed the Didionesque intersection of Hollywood and California politics (the judge at the custody trial was a future Republican governor) as well as the unflattering portrayals of figures usually regarded as sacrosanct such as Thalberg and George Kaufman.
Give it a C plus.
