It was arguably a bold move to portray a female alcoholic on screen in 1947, indeed alcoholism itself was a subject largely unexplored prior to Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend which theoretically opened the floodgates. In 1947 only insiders would have connected the characters played by Lee Bowman and Susan Hayward as thinly disguised portraits of Bing Crosby and his wife Dixie Lee. It was, of course, well documented that at the time of the marriage Lee had the higher profile whereas Crosby was just getting started. It's equally true that Lee retired from showbusiness to become a full-time wife and mother; all this is public knowledge but it is surely speculation, at least for the average cinema audience, that Lee became an alcoholic and this is academic because what concerns us here is a work of fiction which we must judge on its own merits in terms of screenplay, direction and acting. Dorothy Parker had a hand in the script and it's possible to spot the odd pithy line - I've got a date with a headache - in Parker's style. The film is, of course, built around one star part and in Susan Hayward we get someone more than capable of sinking her teeth into it with adequate support from Lee Bowman and another quietly effective performance from Eddie Albert. A fine effort.
Review of Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman
