Where Love Has Gone is a 1964 film drama made by Embassy Pictures , Joseph E. Levine Productions and Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Edward Dmytryk and produced by Joseph E. Levine from a screenplay by John Michael Hayes based on the novel of the same name by Harold Robbins. The music score was by Walter Scharf, the cinematography by Joseph MacDonald and the costume design by Edith Head.
The film stars Susan Hayward and Bette Davis with Mike Connors, Joey Heatherton, Jane Greer, DeForest Kelley and George Macready.
Plot
The film begins with headlines stating that a young woman, Danny (Joey Heatherton) has murdered a man, who was the latest lover of her mother Valerie Hayden (Susan Hayward). Danny's father, Luke Miller (Mike Connors) describes the events that led to the tragedy.
After the end of World War II, Miller is in San Francisco for a parade in his honor, and meets Valerie Hayden at an art show where one of her works is being exhibited. He is invited to dinner by Valerie' mother, Mrs. Gerald Hayden (Bette Davis), who offers him a job and dowry as an enticement for him to marry Valerie. He storms from the house but is followed by Valerie who says she is unable to go against her mother's wishes but that she admires him for having refused her. A relationship develops and the two marry, although a former suitor, Sam Corwin (DeForest Kelley) predicts that the marriage will fail.
As time passes, Luke Miller becomes a successful architect and refuses another offer of employment from his mother-in-law, however the influential Mrs. Hayden uses her contacts in the banking industry to ensure that Miller is refused loans to help him build his business. He relents and accepts a position in Mrs. Hayden's company. Their daughter, Danny, is born but the relationship of the couple begins to deteriorate with Miller declining into alcoholism, and Valerie indulging in a promiscuous lifestyle. The marriage ends when Miller finds her having sex with another man.
Years pass and Danny grows up, and eventually Valerie and Danny become rivals for the same man. When Danny kills the man, she claims that she was defending Valerie against attack, and when the case is brought to court a verdict of justifiable homicide is ruled. When Mrs. Hayden petitions for custody of Danny, Valerie reveals that Danny was trying to kill her, and that the man was only killed when he tried to defend Valerie. Valerie returns home and commits suicide, and after her death Luke Miller tries to help Danny rebuild her life. [1]
Critical comments
Although Robbins and the studio refused to acknowledge a connection, some publications such as Newsweek noted the similarities between the movie and the real-life case of Cheryl Crane, the daughter of actress Lana Turner, who in 1958 stabbed and killed her mother's boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, claiming that she was defending Turner from attack. Newsweek wrote that the case seemed to have influenced the "foolish story" and described it as "a typical Harold Robbins pastiche of newspaper clippings liberally shellacked with sentiment and glued with sex". [2]
The Saturday Review criticised the script saying that it "somehow manages to make every dramatic line (particularly when uttered by Susan Hayward) sound like a caption to a cartoon in The New Yorker. [3]
Nominations
The theme song Where Love Has Gone by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn was nominated for both an Academy Award and Golden Globe as "Best Song".
Notes and references
- ^ Ringgold, Gene (1966). The Films of Bette Davis. Cadillac Publishing Co.. pp. 180–182.
- ^ Ringgold, Gene (1966). The Films of Bette Davis. Cadillac Publishing Co.. p. 183.
- ^ Ringgold, Gene (1966). The Films of Bette Davis. Cadillac Publishing Co.. p. 183.
External links
