She didnt have what they wanted
Talented she was.This is easy to prove when you watch Come and Get It, Son of Fury and specially and underrated B thriller called Among the Living.
But the movie we are talking about omits very carefully real names and you just feel like dismissing it as another Hollywood biography. For instance, her first husband was Leif Erikson who didnt have the idiotic handsomeness of the one in the film -with a phone name, of course-.
As for the moguls, who and where are they? We see Paramount entrance but then this was the only one left in the place. At least in Sunset Boulevard we knew something about this studio. Yes, we have Lolly Parsons, but who cares?
Of course Ms. Farmer´s mother was a monster. The actress was an unwanted child in the first place.But this doesnt justify alcoholism and she was an alcoholic. What critics said about this strange woman -who was she really?- is darkened by this film and Ms. Lange performance. As for her sister, no news about her.
Lobotomy? No, its not true. Ms. Farmer was married to a Frisco legal consultant when she died in Indiana in 1970 and in 1958 she had been offered a thankless role in a dreadful product called The Party Crashers.
And then, the political side of the script. Yes, you couldnt believe Mr. Odets, not even when he said AND. He´s become a bit old-fashioned nowadays but at least he appears in the film with the so called leftist ideas. If Hollywood moguls did Farmer in, why the script doesnt bother to name names? It seems the writers of this turkey tried to hide who were the powers that destroyed somebody who, in the first place, didnt want to play Hollywood´s game.
We better watch the telefilm Will There Really Be a Morning?. just in case we want to understand something about that peculiar, individualistic personality whoname was Francis Farmer. Or we better read the biography written by her sister.
The movie is nothing but a showcase for Ms. Lange and the long and never ending romance with a non existent man is as false as the whole story.
abel posadas