STAGE STRUCK (1958)

STAGE STRUCK is a remake of MORNING GLORY (1933), the film that won Katharine Hepburn an Oscar for only her third screen appearance. This time out, the role of an aspiring actress who'll give up anything (including love) to become a star went to another actress making her third screen appearance, Susan Strasberg, daughter of legendary acting teacher Lee Strasberg (the writers even inserted a few lines about Lee’s Actors Studio into their script). Strasberg plays Eva Lovelace, an aspiring Broadway actress whose persistence and personality capture the attention of a boyish playwright (Christopher Plummer, in his debut screen role), an aging actor (Herbert Marshall), and a suave producer (Henry Fonda). Strasberg's performance makes yet at times almost breaks this picture, managing both to be captivating and annoying, often simultaneously. But when she delivers Juliet's lines on the stairway of the producer's swank townhome in front of a party of theater luminaries after drinking many glasses of champagne, she breaks your heart. In other scenes, her delivery is so artificial that you want to strangle her. Nonetheless, if you love movies, theater and lots of sentimentality and are willing to overlook Strasberg's uneven performance, get a front row seat for this one. Marshall, a wonderful actor who had been making films for three decades, is superb in every scene, as are both Fonda and Plummer. Sydney Lumet directed.