Sitting through this exercise in self-congratulatory Hollywood tedium is enough to give you the shakes nearly as bad as those experienced by the title character.Helen Morgan (Ann Blyth) is a young singer from Danville, Illinois who dreams of seeing her name in lights. Stardom comes quicker than you can say the words "cheap montage," but with it comes gobs of heartache, mostly in the form of wrong guys and too much alcohol.Directed by Michael Curtiz and written by a credited committee of four, "Helen Morgan" throws up every convention of the time in which it was made, with no real heart in evidence. The New York Times called it "as heartwarming as an electric pad," which gets across the level of manipulation on offer even if it oversells the warmth by a few degrees.Blyth looks terrific, anyway, convincingly lip-synching Gogi Grant's off-camera singing. Paired up with a young and handsome Paul Newman as a shifty bootlegger named Larry Maddux, you get a lot of sex appeal, anyway.Right away you know you are in trouble, when we see Helen in a train while a group of Charleston-dancing men strum ukuleles and wear mink coats. It's the 1920s, in case you didn't know, a point that Curtiz continues to harp upon in scene after scene.Everything is force-fed to you in this film. It's all about the men in the world of Helen, as she gets pinballed from one bad thing to another, whether it's being left out to dry by Larry after a one-night fling, or later being caught masquerading as a Canadian for a beauty pageant.That's one of the few elements, by the way, which happened to the real Helen Morgan, but here it just serves as another installment of the pain parade Larry puts her through, not to mention her chance to meet another wrong guy who gets to disqualify her."I'm so ashamed," she tells him."There's one thing you don't have to be ashamed of," he replies. "Your looks. You're a very pretty girl."This counts for a gallant overture in this very dated, awkward film.Blyth isn't bad, just not very convincing. Forced as she is by a stupid script to never take a stand for herself, just drink more and more to register her pain, I'd say she does as good as she can.Newman's better, much better, mainly because he gets to make his choice comments from the sidelines while poor Ann has to drag this dead cat of a story on her petite shoulders. Playing anti-heroes became a specialty of his, and he does the best he can with this one.Judy Garland reportedly turned down the lead role in this production with the famous line "No more sad endings for me." Judy was smart; you can be, too. Unless you're a Newman completist, or a self-abusive depressive, give this one a miss.

With a song in her heart, Helen Morgan was one of the top Broadway divas of the pre-Ethel Merman era. By the 1950's, such chanteuses as Jane Froman, Lillian Roth, Blossom Seeley and Ruth Etting had their stories told on film, so it was inevitable that someone did Morgan's. Polly Bergen did this story for TV, but Ann Blyth, the lovely soprano of "Rose Marie" and "The Student Price", got the movie-and got dubbed by a recording star-Gogi Grant. In those operettas, Blyth totally tossed out the memory of Veda from "Mildred Pierce", but by 1957, musicals were slowly being phased out on the big screen. Perhaps formula stories like this (plus plenty of musicals filmed for TV) were responsible, as more and more they reeked of familiarity. With this one, the formula combined with two recent similar stories, "The Lillian Roth Story" ("I'll Cry Tomorrow") and "The Ruth Etting Story" ("Love Me or Leave Me") to glue its plot together.Lillian Roth fought alcoholism and Ruth Etting was at the mercy of a mobster, and here, Helen Morgan is both. This provides plenty of drama, but unfortunately it is mashed together in an unconvincing manner that the other films managed to dramatize. Here, Paul Newman is the duplicate of "Love Me or Leave Me's" James Cagney. Unfortunately, as magnetic as Newman is, his character is weakly developed and lacks the heart Cagney displays in his Oscar nominated role. Richard Carlson is good as the equivalent to Cameron Mitchell's "Love Me or Leave Me" character, a basic good guy stuck in a loveless marriage. It's all predictable what happens in both relationships.As for Blyth, she does very well exploring Morgan's downfall and in spots, really captures her changing image. Gogi Grant's vocal range is appropriate to the downfall as well, and at times has voice mannerisms close to Judy Garland whom it is rumored was a contender for this role which may have been too close to home. But what fails to come through in her performance is the ambition, overwork and despair that would drive her to become a lush.There are many great standards and of course the two songs from "Show Boat" which have become her signature songs. Unfortunately, they are only heard as cabaret numbers, not shown being performed in the Broadway production or shown being filmed for the magnificent 1936 film version. In black and white more suited for early TV, the film lacks the impact the same story would have had if it was made 15 years before, as do many films of that era set in the 1930's. Then, the ending comes along, repeating one seen in one of the musical bios I discussed earlier, and on comes a major let down and lack of originality. Blyth shines, however, in a drunk scene in a New York dive where she badly sings along to a recording of herself on the radio.

The 1950s gave us such great musical biographies and "The Helen Morgan Story" is another one of them.Ann Blyth is fabulous as she conveys the tormented life of this great performer. She made a success of herself in show business but threw it all away to alcohol and the inability to choose the right man for herself. Blyth was fabulous in the lead. It's a part that will remind you of Doris Day's Ruth Etting in "Love Me or Leave Me," or Susan Hayward in "I'll Cry Tomorrow."With those blue eyes, Paul Newman was phenomenal here. He was born to play the part of Larry, the man who loved Morgan deeply, but he himself said that he came first. Her other lover, played by Richard Carlson, who gave a very weak performance in the role.The songs are belted out and often the voice sounded somewhat like Lena Horne-Horne made many of the Morgan songs quite popular as well.Alan King appears in a straight dramatic role as Larry's associate. Cara Williams, who would be nominated for best supporting actress the following year in "The Defiant Ones," was good as his girlfriend and there is a stopping scene by Virginia Vincent, who commits suicide. Vincent was often seen on television's "The Untouchables" in the '50s as well.The movie does a great job of depicting Morgan's torment and success. Many of the dames of the period got themselves involved with gangsters and liquor and Morgan was no exception.

After Doris Day scored a success with Ruth Etting in Love Me or Leave Me and Susan Hayward did well with both Jane Froman and Lillian Roth in With a Song In My Heart and I'll Cry Tomorrow, it was decided that chanteuses of the past were good box office. So Ann Blyth gave it her best effort in a whitewashed version of The Helen Morgan Story.Problem is that those other women had reasonably happy endings to their stories. Helen Morgan died in 1941, ready to make a comeback, but the years of booze, legal and illegal, took their toll on her body. She was only 41 years old, but packed a lot of hard living and heartache into her body and soul.I guess it was decided that the audiences wouldn't take to her real unhappy ending so an ending that was out of This Is Your Life was tacked on to this film. It ends roughly in the middle thirties.Although it's not mentioned at all in the story, Helen Morgan had a Hollywood career. She did an early sound film Applause, shot in New York while she was still on Broadway and introduced in that What Wouldn't I Do For That Man. That was one of her biggest hits and absent from this film. I guess Warner Brothers couldn't secure the rights.Of course her two best known shows were Showboat and Sweet Adeline. Irene Dunne played her role in the film adaption of Sweet Adeline, but we are fortunate to have Helen doing her original role of Julie in the 1937 Universal film of Showboat. It's where fans today can see and appreciate her best. She also has a number in Al Jolson's Go Into Your Dance and sings another of her hits, The Little Things You Used to Do. Now Warners had the rights to that one.The Helen Morgan presented here is a hard luck woman who had the misfortune to love and be loved by two wrong men for her. Bootlegger Paul Newman and married attorney Richard Carlson are the men in her life. Actually she did have two marriages, late in her life, and way after the action of this film takes place.Newman plays one of the first in a long line of cynical characters he breathed life into in his career. To paraphrase a current hit film, he just can't seem to quit Helen nor she him. And Richard Carlson just wants to have his cake and eat it to, wife and kiddies at home and a tootsie on the side, many in fact.Ann Blyth does a fine acting job. Why she wasn't allowed to use her own fine voice is a mystery since she actually sounds more like the real Helen Morgan than the dubbed Gogi Grant does. You'll see that for yourself in Showboat. Personally I'd have told Jack Warner to take the part and put it in an inconvenient place with that kind of arrangement.It's hardly the real Helen Morgan Story, but it's a grand excuse to hear some fabulous Tin Pan Alley tunes of an era never to return.