Gloria Graham is probably best rememberd by modern audiances, to the extent they are aware of her at all, as Violet Bick in 'It's a Wonderful Life'. Graham, considerd a great beauty in her time had a decades long film and stage career, was twice nominated for an Oscar and won once. She also had an unusually scandalous personal life, including 4 marriages, two of which were with a father/son pair, with her 4th husband being her first sons half brother.
'Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool' tells the story of a late in life romance Graham had with English actor Peter Turner, 30 years her junior. Jamie Bell does a good job as Turner and Annette Bening manages to convey what made Gloria beguiling, even as she got on in years and even as her behavior could be erratic. This movie managed to get a good 40 minutes of interest out of me, problem is its an hour and 45 minutes long.
While the two central performanes are strong they are also better then the movie they are in. The melodrama got plodding and overly streached out, there wasn't really a full movie worth of stuff there, I got bored. There is a clever late in film revel that then goes back to show us some earlier events from a different perspective, kudos to that but it wasn't enough to save the film. **
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