Good concept, poorly executed.

Absolutely Brilliant!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Kansas girl makes a splash in New York City as a print model, but her love affair with a married man may ruin her. From the era where independent career girls were only ambitious until a man entered the picture, this "woman's movie" is naive and rather unconvincing, though it is seldom soft; the knowing dialogue has a sharp, bitter edge, and the performances are solid, making it a cut above the usual soap opera. Isobel Lennart's screenplay is dotted with cutting little truths--too many, perhaps; often, the greedy masochism is underlined with a moral conscience (and tinkling piano keys) which turns the whole thing into a heavy-breathing melodrama for sufferers on the high road. Lana Turner does a lot of striding up and down, and she seems too seasoned to be a novice in the film's opening scenes, but her desperate gaiety is touching. Ray Milland does his usual colorless nice-guy turn, but Ann Dvorak is startling playing an over-the-hill model and Margaret Phillips (as Milland's wife--an invalid who beams with sanity and understanding like a saint) is excellent in the film's big scene, where the two women meet. Not an important picture, nor a provocative one, but a star-vehicle that does manage to touch upon some resonant truths about women, their careers, and their fragile hearts. **1/2 from ****

This is a fairly gripping drama with good performances all around. It's always fun to see the veteran Louis Calhern who's good in just about anything. Lana Turner was the real surprise here although it seemed that at 29 she was a bit too old for that part. Her performance drew me into this sordid little tale of an ambitious small town girl who becomes a top New York model and takes up with a married man. I knew it couldn't end well but I kept watching and waiting. Ann Dvorak was another standout. She made me feel the pain and anguish of the forgotten model who's descended into a life of misery and booze. Ray Milland was the sore spot. He's a fine actor and performed well here as well but I just couldn't see him as the rough and tough Montana copper mine operator, at least not with an English accent. The fact that Welsh actor Margaret Phillips played his wife perhaps was meant to imply they were transplants from England but it was never made clear. In any case it's a good way to spend an hour and forty-eight minutes. Despite occasionally yielding to the temptation of melodrama it's not dull and definitely worth watching.One more thing: the trivia section lists an alternate ending where the Lana Turner character ends up committing suicide like the Ann Dvorak character. It was changed when the test audience hated it. The current ending is not the greatest but I'm not sure it I would have liked the original ending any better. It just didn't seem likely that someone that had worked so hard and diligently to become a top model would have committed suicide for any reason. I think the current ending better reflects such a personality.

I loved Lana Turner in" The Postman Always Rings Twice", and was interested to see her portray what was considered a top model in the 1950's.She basically portrays a bored woman from Kansas who comes to NY to "become someone".She meets Ann Dvorak as Mary, who is a top model on her way down,presumably from getting too high too fast, and drug use. Some of her scenes are the most memorable as she reflects on the void and banality of her profession.It is a double-edged sword once a girl has reached the top.7urner does not see this, climbs her way to the top and has an affair with married executive Ray Milland.He does not come off as a sympathetic character, his wife is disabled.Some of the scenes with Turner as his mistress are a bit forced,and hard to believe. Chalk this up to the time period, as the reality of her situation could not be portrayed.Overall worth seeing for Lana and performance by Ann Dvorak.8/10.

Lana Turner was off screen for two years and came back with this dull film. And what happened to her? The ravishing beauty of 'The Postman Always Rings Twice' from only a few years before is gone. At only 29 years of age when filming this, she looks 39. Not only that, but she appears tired and uncomfortable throughout, as does co-star Ray Milland. She's supposed to be a spirited young wannabe from Kansas but she looks and acts like a cynical fashion plate sharpie from New York who is slumming. Milland is supposed to be a Montana copper miner unfamiliar with the Big City, but you don't believe it for a second. This is one odd little soap opera, with the ultimate point being that our little Kansas-innocent-in-the-big-city has attained that Coming of Age discovery, realizing she'll have to go on without her Great Love and forge that "Life Of Her Own." Sure, but Lana's worn face and manner makes her coming-of-age appear more like a mid-life crisis. Sadly, the film stacks the deck against her by putting her up against crashing bores like Milland and Barry Sullivan. And once Margaret Phillips shows up as Milland's crippled wife, and is so lovable in both her scenes, you know the Turner-Milland relationship is hopeless.The true sin of this film is that it becomes increasingly boring. It starts fine, with Ann Dvorak taking hold as a fading model turned sour drunk. She exits early, unfortunately, but she gives the film a charge. Tom Ewell, as the manager of the modeling agency who gives Lana her start, is excellent in a fast-paced, fast-talking scene. But when Milland shows up the film slows down, then crawls. A romance between the two is manufactured out of slopped-together bits, from a piano player in a nightclub playing the same theme over and over, a kid getting Lana and Milland involved in buying a jalopy, and (no kidding) a ventriloquist goofing around with them. So, it goes, yawn by yawn, but during all this forced dramatic hoo-hah is a parade of eye-blink bits by many familiar film/TV faces. There's Kathleen Freeman as a switchboard operator, Richard Anderson as a note-taker, wheezy-voiced Percy Helton as a diner owner, Hermes Pan as (of course) a dancer, Frankie Darro (all grown up) as a bellboy, Frank Gerstle (the Jeff Chandler-like actor who played the doctor who tells Edmond O'Brien he's a dead man in 'D.O.A.') as a party guest, along with Beverly Garland as a fellow party guest, and Ann Robinson (of 'War Of The Worlds' fame) as a model. There's also Madge Blake (Aunt Harriet from the 'Batman' TV show) and Whit Bissell. It never seems to stop. Fortunately, the film does stop... or more likely runs into a dead end and gives up.