Too Much, Too Soon

Dorothy Malone does very fine work portraying Diana Barrymore, the daughter of alcoholic actor John Barrymore, a young woman with dreams of carving out her own niche in show business before succumbing to the same demons which dogged her father. The picture, however, is little more than a potboiler, co-written by director Art Napoleon with Jo Napoleon, from the book by Diana Barrymore and Gerold Frank. Errol Flynn is solid as John Barrymore, and there's a sweet supporting performance from Martin Milner as a family friend (Milner's final scene, revealing a bald head, is especially good). Still, this movie about the movies seems lackluster and naive, not to mention under-produced. For buffs, a somewhat enjoyable wallow with a quiet, even pace, and Malone manages to be sympathetic on the road to ruin without becoming a nuisance. **1/2 from ****

Biopic of Diana Barrymore, failed actress and daughter of John Barrymore, who took after her father in the "demons" department, becoming an alcoholic. This film covers her bad relationships, including the one with her estranged father, and her descent into addiction. It's all mostly from Diana's autobiography of the same name. Obviously given the time in which it was made, this offers a somewhat sanitized version of Diana's story but they do what they can. As with most biographical pictures, liberties are taken with the truth. The film stars Dorothy Malone but what drew me (and I suspect many of you) to see it is Errol Flynn as John Barrymore. The best scenes in the film are those with Flynn. There's a wonderfully atmospheric scene where he recites Shakespeare to a yacht full of his disreputable friends, all of them filmed in eerie silhouette so you can't see their faces, like something out of the Twilight Zone. Dorothy Malone's performance is not exactly impressive, especially compared to some of the contemporary 'lady alcoholic' parts played by the likes of Susan Hayward. She's not bad, at least not always. It's just not a particularly memorable job. Errol Flynn is the reason to see this. It's his last good role and one he was (sadly) more qualified than anybody to play, given his own demons. He does a sensational job. It's one of his best performances. The real Diana Barrymore died two years after this was released. Flynn beat her to it, dying in 1959. Neither died of old age. By the way, the original movie poster (and subsequent DVD cover) is among the worst I've ever seen.

Based on the 1957 autobiography of Diana Barrymore, Too Much, Too Soon is one of a series of film biographies produced by Hollywood in the 1950's dealing with show business personalities. While the second half of the film dissolves into soap opera antics, the first hour is remarkably compelling.

This is entirely due to the touching and profoundly sad performance of Errol Flynn, cast as the legendary ruin of a once great actor, John Barrymore. Flynn had been a crony and admirer of the Great Profile in the latter's final years of alcoholic excess. The two men had much in common, talent, fame, and success, along with self-loathing and large streaks of self-destructive behaviour.

Tragically, Flynn, though he would never know it, even had his own version of Diana Barrymore, a daughter of whom he saw little who, like her father, would be cursed with personal demons, a life of potential squandered with drug addiction that preceded an early death. That, however, would be almost forty years after Flynn had performed his own incrementally slow suicide through alcohol and drugs.

Flynn adopts few of Barrymore's mannerisms. Instead, his performance splendidly captures the inner turmoil and vulnerability of the Great Profile in his wilderness years, as well as one startling scene in which he depicts the mean, violent drunk that could emerge. There is a sadness and loneliness at the soul of this characterization, made all the more powerful because what the viewer is seeing is largely a reflection of Flynn himself. After years of self-indulgence and with a great career that had all but vanished, Flynn knew only too well the anguish that Barrymore felt towards the end.

There is also the irony of a scene in which Flynn, as Barrymore, regales a small gathering of people in a closed theatre with anecdotes about some of the old-time Hollywood personalities he had known. A year after Too Much, Too Soon's release Flynn would be doing the same thing again, but now in real life at a private party, minutes before he suffered his fatal heart attack. Among the people that he discussed was John Barrymore.

The theme of the film is of a child of privilege, denied love by her self-absorbed parents, who spends her life seeking that love as she descends into an increasingly sordid world of alcohol and abusive relationships. It's a pretty grim story though actually cleaned up for this film version. Diana Barrymore's complete story was even more degrading than the one vaguely depicted in the screenplay of Art Napoleon, who also directed the film. Nor is any mention made of the fact that Diana's first husband, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., is based on the actor Bramwell Fletcher, who had actually co-starred with her father eleven years before, in one of Barrymore's greatest film triumphs, Svengali.

There are also, no surprise for a Hollywood product, some embellishments with the truth. One of the film's best scenes involves Flynn, as Barrymore, making a person-to-person call to Diana's mother, whom he had divorced years before, because he wants a second chance. It's a great moment for the actor, a closeup on his face as his eyes first register fear then hopeful anticipation as he hears the phone ring at the other end, followed by a look of dejection when the operator comes on line to announce that the call isn't being answered.

The real Barrymore, however, had two stormy marriages after that divorce (never mentioned in the screenplay, among many other things) and was engaged in an obsessive love-hate relationship with his fourth wife (Elaine Barrie) at the time that Diana briefly moved in with him. I've never read any indication that he still carried a torch for Diana's mother, as Napoleon's writing would have you believe.

Flynn's performance is haunting but once his character dies at the film's half way point there's little reason for the viewer to continue to watch. Diana Barrymore's own story is decidedly less interesting, as she runs through a succession of men, most of them predictably very bad for her. Dorothy Malone, fresh off her best supporting actress Oscar win for Written on the Wind, is quite good in the lead role but the viewer still feels robbed that Flynn is no longer on screen.

After a final hour of watching Diana Barrymore's descent into a personal hell, the film ends on a slightly upbeat note with the indication of a possible rehabilitation for the main character. Unfortunately, it was not to be for the real Barrymore who would die from a drug overdose less than two years after this film's release (and just four months after Flynn's demise).

It's a cautionary tale of celebrity self-destruction, made memorable by the heart rending performance of a man who channelled his own life story into that of the friend he portrayed.

It's a little tough to rate this film, and as I try to drill down into that feeling, I think it's because it seems a little less than fully honest in its portrayal of Diana Barrymore, despite some of the depths we see her sink to, and the humiliations she endures. It also seems like a much more interesting biographical movie would have been one based on her carousing father, the great actor John Barrymore.

Over the first half of the movie, we see John (Jack) Barrymore played by Errol Flynn, and he alone makes the film worth seeing. It's such a poignant role, portraying his real life friend's decline from alcoholism in his later years, while Flynn himself was suffering from the same thing, and would die just one year later at 50. We see him still craving the attention of a star, wishing he had behaved better with his daughter, and sneaking bottles of alcohol by hiding them in the knight's armor he has in his depressing and barren old mansion. He's also an angry and violent drunk. The call where he tries to connect with Diana's mother (Michael Strange, played by Neva Patterson) is touching, as is the scene where Diana eventually leaves him.

To some extent, Dorothy Malone is thus overshadowed. Early on she looks and acts far too old to play a teenager (she was 34, and Patterson, playing her mother, was 38). She comes across as simply in need of parental affection, which was undoubtedly true, but a little too squeaky clean, for example, only beginning to drink when her father dies. It is also a little odd that we're not even made aware that America was at war when she started her film career, though perhaps that is true to this person's life and just how insulated she was.

Malone's performance and the character come to life in the second half of the film, and there are some pretty sad moments. We see her flirting at a lavish party in her home while her first husband is on location shooting a film, then sleeping with one of the guests and getting caught when he returns. We see her second husband, an amateur tennis star, hitting tennis balls at her during an argument. She lives in a tawdry apartment with her third husband, with the power cut off because they haven't paid the bill, and while a neon sign flashes incessantly outside their window in the night, he throws a drink in her face. Later as her career has fizzled and she's spiraling, she gets up on stage in a cheap joint after a stripper performs, to do impressions to a jeering crowd.

It would be easy to not feel sorry for someone who was given so much of an opportunity in life but threw it away, but that's too harsh. I think it's important to understand why a person has turned out a certain way and to empathize, but at the same time, there is accountability, and here, probably because the tale was told by Diana herself, the scale seems tipped too much away from the latter. We do see her in self-destructive acts such as not showing up to finish a film, driving drunk, and arriving in a small town to act in a play hammered and face down on the floor in her train compartment, so it's not completely sugar-coated, however, the film seems to be saying that if only her parents or these men in her life had treated her better, she wouldn't have had the trouble she did.

The rosy hued tone of the end seems suspiciously syrupy, and of course, as Diana would die just two years later at 38, there is a certain bitter irony in it. It's as if the autobiography and resulting movie had the veneer of an actor, always looking to act. Regardless, there is enough in the film to make it worthwhile - Errol Flynn in the first half, Dorothy Malone in the second half, and this look into the sad endings to the lives of John and Diana Barrymore.

Flynn is very touching, and Malone is marvelous. Martin Milner and Efrem Zimbalist are sympathetic. But I have got to say something about Ray Danton, as a professional tennis player and sexual opportunist. As the guy who gets the married Malone into bed within minutes of meeting her, and persuades her to divorce her husband and marry him just about as fast, Danton is utterly convincing. It's one of the most flat-out sexy male performances I've ever seen. Actually, there are two that spring to mind, both in not particularly famous movies, and the other one is Ben Gazzara in "A Rage to Live." I just have to give a shout-out to Danton. He died a few years ago (only 61!), but his hot stuff lives on.