User Reviews

Based on the 1957 autobiography of Diana Barrymore, Too Much, Too Soon is one of a series of film biographies produced by Hollywood in the 1950's dealing with show business personalities. While the second half of the film dissolves into soap opera antics, the first hour is remarkably compelling.

This is entirely due to the touching and profoundly sad performance of Errol Flynn, cast as the legendary ruin of a once great actor, John Barrymore. Flynn had been a crony and admirer of the Great Profile in the latter's final years of alcoholic excess. The two men had much in common, talent, fame, and success, along with self-loathing and large streaks of self-destructive behaviour.

Tragically, Flynn, though he would never know it, even had his own version of Diana Barrymore, a daughter of whom he saw little who, like her father, would be cursed with personal demons, a life of potential squandered with drug addiction that preceded an early death. That, however, would be almost forty years after Flynn had performed his own incrementally slow suicide through alcohol and drugs.

Flynn adopts few of Barrymore's mannerisms. Instead, his performance splendidly captures the inner turmoil and vulnerability of the Great Profile in his wilderness years, as well as one startling scene in which he depicts the mean, violent drunk that could emerge. There is a sadness and loneliness at the soul of this characterization, made all the more powerful because what the viewer is seeing is largely a reflection of Flynn himself. After years of self-indulgence and with a great career that had all but vanished, Flynn knew only too well the anguish that Barrymore felt towards the end.

There is also the irony of a scene in which Flynn, as Barrymore, regales a small gathering of people in a closed theatre with anecdotes about some of the old-time Hollywood personalities he had known. A year after Too Much, Too Soon's release Flynn would be doing the same thing again, but now in real life at a private party, minutes before he suffered his fatal heart attack. Among the people that he discussed was John Barrymore.

The theme of the film is of a child of privilege, denied love by her self-absorbed parents, who spends her life seeking that love as she descends into an increasingly sordid world of alcohol and abusive relationships. It's a pretty grim story though actually cleaned up for this film version. Diana Barrymore's complete story was even more degrading than the one vaguely depicted in the screenplay of Art Napoleon, who also directed the film. Nor is any mention made of the fact that Diana's first husband, played by Efrem Zimbalist Jr., is based on the actor Bramwell Fletcher, who had actually co-starred with her father eleven years before, in one of Barrymore's greatest film triumphs, Svengali.

There are also, no surprise for a Hollywood product, some embellishments with the truth. One of the film's best scenes involves Flynn, as Barrymore, making a person-to-person call to Diana's mother, whom he had divorced years before, because he wants a second chance. It's a great moment for the actor, a closeup on his face as his eyes first register fear then hopeful anticipation as he hears the phone ring at the other end, followed by a look of dejection when the operator comes on line to announce that the call isn't being answered.

The real Barrymore, however, had two stormy marriages after that divorce (never mentioned in the screenplay, among many other things) and was engaged in an obsessive love-hate relationship with his fourth wife (Elaine Barrie) at the time that Diana briefly moved in with him. I've never read any indication that he still carried a torch for Diana's mother, as Napoleon's writing would have you believe.

Flynn's performance is haunting but once his character dies at the film's half way point there's little reason for the viewer to continue to watch. Diana Barrymore's own story is decidedly less interesting, as she runs through a succession of men, most of them predictably very bad for her. Dorothy Malone, fresh off her best supporting actress Oscar win for Written on the Wind, is quite good in the lead role but the viewer still feels robbed that Flynn is no longer on screen.

After a final hour of watching Diana Barrymore's descent into a personal hell, the film ends on a slightly upbeat note with the indication of a possible rehabilitation for the main character. Unfortunately, it was not to be for the real Barrymore who would die from a drug overdose less than two years after this film's release (and just four months after Flynn's demise).

It's a cautionary tale of celebrity self-destruction, made memorable by the heart rending performance of a man who channelled his own life story into that of the friend he portrayed.

Too Much, Too Soon, the film adaption of Diana Barrymore's memoirs if things went right for her should have been a final chapter with a they lived happily ever after closing on her real existence. Sad to say though that the writing of the book as a cautionary tale to others to avoid her pitfalls, she still couldn't avoid them herself. Two years after To Much, Too Soon came out, Diana Barrymore died of all the years of accumulated indulgences of many vices.

Having never seen any of her work I'm really not in a position to comment, but assuming she was as bad as most seem to think she was, she never had an opportunity to really learn her craft. Because of her name and a couple of bit parts on stage she was rushed out to Hollywood and given the big buildup. When she flopped all she could do was trade in on the name.

Dorothy Malone after her Oscar winning role as the hedonistic heiress in Written On The Wind was perfect to play Diana who decided to explore all the vices in a desperate search for love. Being caught between two estranged parents she wasn't at home in either of their worlds. She was the offspring of John Barrymore and Blanche Oelrichs aka Michael Strange. It was the second marriage for both. Succeeding husbands and wives are not in this film, nor are her half brothers, sons of Oelrich from her first marriage. Blanche Oelrich had a succeeding marriage after Barrymore, and The Great Profile had two more wives after divorcing Diana's mother.

One thing that is very delicately hinted at with Kathleen Freeman's brief role is the lesbianism of Blanche Oelrich. After three marriages Blanche Oelrich had a relationship with a woman in the last years of her life. If Too Much, Too Soon were made today that would be more fully explained. Neva Patterson is a concerned Oelrich in this, a beautiful performance as a woman who can't reach her out of control daughter falling under the influence of her father.

Errol Flynn had quite a bit of life experience to draw on for playing John Barrymore. He knew Barrymore quite well in Hollywood and partied hearty with him as Barrymore died slowly of dissipation. Flynn was dying from it as well and he knew it. This has to be the only time in history where an actor was playing older than his years without makeup. Flynn was 49 playing a 60 year old Barrymore who was that when he died in 1942.

Diana had three husbands all different types played in succession by Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Ray Danton, and Ed Kemmer. She should have hung on to Zimbalist who was playing in actuality Bramwell Fletcher under a pseudonym. He leaves to go on a movie location and she starts fooling around with tennis bum/gigolo Ray Danton. He's great in the part of a truly sadistic evil man. As for number three, he was a bit actor who was as much an alcoholic as she and Kemmer and Malone were a bad combination, but great in their performances.

Too Much, Too Soon is very similar to a film Warner Brothers did the year before about another alcoholic performer, Helen Morgan. Morgan was a star and on talent, not starting at the top because of a name. Still she went through a few husbands and many a binge and the ending their was a cop out with the promise of a recovery which never happened in real life. Diana Barrymore's self destruction was down the same road Morgan took only she died after Too Much, Too Soon came out.

It should have ended better for Diana Barrymore. But Dorothy Malone brings her vividly to life and she's got a book and a film to commemorate what might have been.

Flynn was released from his Warner contract in 1953, he returned in 1958 to play his dear friend John Barrymore in this autobiographical film. Due to legal complications at the time the resulting script was intentionally vague.

I enjoy this film because of Errol Flynns' sympathetic and moving performance of a charming rogue at war with himself.

A moody drama The film concentrates on Barrymores' daughter and her need for love in life.The film was based on her book. Dorothy Malone is wonderful in that role. It also is done well in black and white. The vague script means alot is missed, we only glimpse the complex characters.

The film is worth watching for Malones' performance and Flynns' sympathetic turn in a rare dramatic part.

(On a lighter note, while he knew John Barrymore well he didn't look at all like 'the great profile', so Flynn was assisted by makeup and given Mr Barrymores' distinctive Nose.)

But then that is par for the course for biopics of the 50s. Diana Barrymore was a tragic figure, she was ignored by her parents, actor John Barrymore and author Michael Strange, and she did make lots of bad choices over the years. However, so much is incorrect in this film. I don't know exactly how Diana Barrymore started drinking, but in the film, after her father dies and she feels guilty for not having being there, she literally picks up a bottle of her dad's liquor and starts chugging after a lifetime on lemonade. She is shown as having what appears to be a perfectly fine first husband with a good job who is age appropriate when in fact husband number one was a fellow actor almost 20 years her senior during their marriage when she was in her early 20s. Husbands number two and three are pretty much on course, especially husband number two who was a tennis player simply out to exploit Diana for the Barrymore millions.

Errol Flynn gives a fine performance as John Barrymore and life sadly imitates art here as Flynn would die within the year at least partly from his own lifestyle. You really feel sometimes you are looking right at Barrymore, from Flynn's carriage to just his appearance. Flynn actually knew Barrymore, so he did have actual memories from which to draw on in his performance.

Another point - the film makes it look like Diana is John Barrymore's only child - she wasn't - and that Diana's mother was the love of his life the others just being "images on a screen". Given the short time they were married I doubt that too. In fact, Diana was with her dad when he died. Actually, while his legs were bloated stiff from kidney failure and he was lying in a hospital bed, John Barrymore was begging his daughter to go out and find prostitutes for him and bring them back to the hospital!

I'd watch this because the overall tragic stories of John and Diana Barrymore are true and the acting is great, but the devil is in the details. Strangely enough this showed up on TCM's Father's Day programming. I guess, for a change, they were trying to balance the "good dad" movies with the "bad dad" films.

Dorothy Malone does very fine work portraying Diana Barrymore, the daughter of alcoholic actor John Barrymore, a young woman with dreams of carving out her own niche in show business before succumbing to the same demons which dogged her father. The picture, however, is little more than a potboiler, co-written by director Art Napoleon with Jo Napoleon, from the book by Diana Barrymore and Gerold Frank. Errol Flynn is solid as John Barrymore, and there's a sweet supporting performance from Martin Milner as a family friend (Milner's final scene, revealing a bald head, is especially good). Still, this movie about the movies seems lackluster and naive, not to mention under-produced. For buffs, a somewhat enjoyable wallow with a quiet, even pace, and Malone manages to be sympathetic on the road to ruin without becoming a nuisance. **1/2 from ****

It is difficult to understand why film makers of this era would depart from the facts in retelling a life story.Barreymore wasn't a washed up actor at the time of his death.True he couldn't remember lines and at times he looked rather pathetic he was making films and appearing on radio.As for Diana,i just couldn't understand references to All Through the Night,which she did not appear in,and which was certainly not a bomb. Both Malone and Flynn give good performances.Flynn may have reflected how like Jack he had ruined his life.

Flynn is very touching, and Malone is marvelous. Martin Milner and Efrem Zimbalist are sympathetic. But I have got to say something about Ray Danton, as a professional tennis player and sexual opportunist. As the guy who gets the married Malone into bed within minutes of meeting her, and persuades her to divorce her husband and marry him just about as fast, Danton is utterly convincing. It's one of the most flat-out sexy male performances I've ever seen. Actually, there are two that spring to mind, both in not particularly famous movies, and the other one is Ben Gazzara in "A Rage to Live." I just have to give a shout-out to Danton. He died a few years ago (only 61!), but his hot stuff lives on.

The tragic, wasted life of Diana Barrymore sanitized for 1950s audiences. One can't wonder if part of her problem was having no parental guidance during her formative years. She was pushed off to boarding schools and later given a lavish allowance. Once her movie career floundered she had no direction and too much time on her hands.

This movie is painful to watch, not only for Diana's sad story but to see Errol Flynn near death. The poor man looks as though every organ in his body is failing. He died within a year.

Of course most bios have laughably bad scenes. This one is no exception. Diana hits the skids and is reduced to performing in a dive bar. She is fired for being too drunk to speak. She wanders the streets in a full length evening gown and cloth coat (the minks long gone). She's arrested for vandalism and sent to an asylum for a year. She is released at 6am on a Sunday in the gown she came in wearing and no money! They couldn't have possibly done something so cold and stupid back then. Now, YES.

Biopic of Diana Barrymore, failed actress and daughter of John Barrymore, who took after her father in the "demons" department, becoming an alcoholic. This film covers her bad relationships, including the one with her estranged father, and her descent into addiction. It's all mostly from Diana's autobiography of the same name. Obviously given the time in which it was made, this offers a somewhat sanitized version of Diana's story but they do what they can. As with most biographical pictures, liberties are taken with the truth. The film stars Dorothy Malone but what drew me (and I suspect many of you) to see it is Errol Flynn as John Barrymore. The best scenes in the film are those with Flynn. There's a wonderfully atmospheric scene where he recites Shakespeare to a yacht full of his disreputable friends, all of them filmed in eerie silhouette so you can't see their faces, like something out of the Twilight Zone. Dorothy Malone's performance is not exactly impressive, especially compared to some of the contemporary 'lady alcoholic' parts played by the likes of Susan Hayward. She's not bad, at least not always. It's just not a particularly memorable job. Errol Flynn is the reason to see this. It's his last good role and one he was (sadly) more qualified than anybody to play, given his own demons. He does a sensational job. It's one of his best performances. The real Diana Barrymore died two years after this was released. Flynn beat her to it, dying in 1959. Neither died of old age. By the way, the original movie poster (and subsequent DVD cover) is among the worst I've ever seen.

It's a little tough to rate this film, and as I try to drill down into that feeling, I think it's because it seems a little less than fully honest in its portrayal of Diana Barrymore, despite some of the depths we see her sink to, and the humiliations she endures. It also seems like a much more interesting biographical movie would have been one based on her carousing father, the great actor John Barrymore.

Over the first half of the movie, we see John (Jack) Barrymore played by Errol Flynn, and he alone makes the film worth seeing. It's such a poignant role, portraying his real life friend's decline from alcoholism in his later years, while Flynn himself was suffering from the same thing, and would die just one year later at 50. We see him still craving the attention of a star, wishing he had behaved better with his daughter, and sneaking bottles of alcohol by hiding them in the knight's armor he has in his depressing and barren old mansion. He's also an angry and violent drunk. The call where he tries to connect with Diana's mother (Michael Strange, played by Neva Patterson) is touching, as is the scene where Diana eventually leaves him.

To some extent, Dorothy Malone is thus overshadowed. Early on she looks and acts far too old to play a teenager (she was 34, and Patterson, playing her mother, was 38). She comes across as simply in need of parental affection, which was undoubtedly true, but a little too squeaky clean, for example, only beginning to drink when her father dies. It is also a little odd that we're not even made aware that America was at war when she started her film career, though perhaps that is true to this person's life and just how insulated she was.

Malone's performance and the character come to life in the second half of the film, and there are some pretty sad moments. We see her flirting at a lavish party in her home while her first husband is on location shooting a film, then sleeping with one of the guests and getting caught when he returns. We see her second husband, an amateur tennis star, hitting tennis balls at her during an argument. She lives in a tawdry apartment with her third husband, with the power cut off because they haven't paid the bill, and while a neon sign flashes incessantly outside their window in the night, he throws a drink in her face. Later as her career has fizzled and she's spiraling, she gets up on stage in a cheap joint after a stripper performs, to do impressions to a jeering crowd.

It would be easy to not feel sorry for someone who was given so much of an opportunity in life but threw it away, but that's too harsh. I think it's important to understand why a person has turned out a certain way and to empathize, but at the same time, there is accountability, and here, probably because the tale was told by Diana herself, the scale seems tipped too much away from the latter. We do see her in self-destructive acts such as not showing up to finish a film, driving drunk, and arriving in a small town to act in a play hammered and face down on the floor in her train compartment, so it's not completely sugar-coated, however, the film seems to be saying that if only her parents or these men in her life had treated her better, she wouldn't have had the trouble she did.

The rosy hued tone of the end seems suspiciously syrupy, and of course, as Diana would die just two years later at 38, there is a certain bitter irony in it. It's as if the autobiography and resulting movie had the veneer of an actor, always looking to act. Regardless, there is enough in the film to make it worthwhile - Errol Flynn in the first half, Dorothy Malone in the second half, and this look into the sad endings to the lives of John and Diana Barrymore.

This is not a great movie. But the first half is often remarkable. Why Errol Flynn, near the end of his own life, agreed to play the last days of another alcoholic actor, John Barrymore, I don't know. But play the part he did, and the result is a deeply moving performance. Flynn makes no effort to look or sound like Barrymore, so we are left to imagine that he is playing himself, showing us how HE felt after having made a mess of HIS life and career. Yet he doesn't ask for our pity. He sometimes makes Barrymore - or is it Flynn? - a very hateful individual.

I've seen a lot of Flynn's movies. Some of the later ones seem telephoned in; he just doesn't do much with the roles. But in this one, he does a remarkable job of making us see - but not necessarily sympathize with - a man who has turned himself over to alcohol.

I strongly recommend watching it through his character's death, about half-way through the picture.

Dorothy Malone was fantastic in this somewhat depressing film. Her outstanding performance really captured the rise of a promising real actress, Diana Barrymore, and her ultimate downfall. Malone seems to be a very under-appreciated actress. She was so good in this film as well as The Last Voyage (a disaster film reminiscent of "Titanic" that was made in the early 60's) and in Man of a Thousand Faces, a biography of Lon Chaney.

This could have been just another 50's melodrama, but Malone brings so much poise, authenticity, pathos, and spirit to the role of Diana that it raises the film above similar Hollywood biographies.

Does anyone know where Malone is now? She must be in her 80's.

There are too many films and stories like this, all being true stories, all being equally pathetic going irrevocably from bad to worse without exceptions, and the wallowing in pathetic alcoholism gradually makes your empathy dry out - like Michael Strange, John Baarymore's second wife and mother of Diana Barrymore, you are brought up to callousness, and although you'll never hate the alcoholic, yoiu will the more hate his self-destructiveness, which really isn't an illness as much as a failure and bankruptcy of self control and self discipline. Like Vincent Bryant (Efrem Zimbalist Jr) you find the only answer to the problem is hard work. The film is too long, while the two great credits of the film is Errol Flynn (who knew John Barrymore well and described the same decline and fall from greatness) and the music by Ernest Gold which is strikingly good from the very beginning, like from any great romantic film of the 40s, showing her budding as a school girl to eventually grow up to a Barrymore family star in the 40s to then follow in her father's footsteps into alcoholism, decline and fall -- she died the year after Errol Flynn at 39. Susan Hayward made a similar film in 1955 ("I'll Cry Tomorrow") which is much better and more interesting and also more human, where there is full space for empathy, that can't run out. This is just a slow, long and painful ordeal of a pitfall that never ends, and the happy end of the film was just some kind of a temporary solution - like in "Tle Lost Weekend", perhaps the most classic of drunkard films, where Ray Milland finally is saved, while the real author ceventually committed suicide. Sorry, the topic is hopelessly not constructive and never can be.

Movie based on Diana Barrymore's book. First half involves her trying to have a relationship with her distant father, John Barrymore. Second half chronicles her failed marriages and personal decline.

Errol Flynn shines as Barrymore, with or without the parallels between his and Barrymore's alcoholic decline. He's riveting, frankly.

Dorothy Malone is less convincing. Oh, she's gorgeous enough. And there are certain scenes where she really puts across the desperation Diana must have felt. At other times she seems to be trying too hard.

Nevertheless, I found this to be a compelling look at empty bottles and shattered lives. And more proof - as if any were needed - that Errol Flynn was an under-rated actor, right up to the end.

Dorothy Malone's performance is unbelievable. From a teenager to a middle aged woman. It is truly like seeing Diana Barrymore. Errol Flynn also was so outstanding. It was one of the greatest performances I have ever seen for him. The movie is one of the best I have seen. I highly recommend it.

After ten years with a domineering mother, pretty teenager Dorothy Malone (as Diana Barrymore) goes to visit her father, legendary actor Errol Flynn (as John Barrymore). They get along well, but Mr. Flynn reveals himself as irresponsible and leaves Ms. Malone for a yacht party. When she grows up, Malone moves into her father's Hollywood mansion. The Gothic palace has been stripped of most furniture. Flynn lives with a caged eagle and companion John Dennis (as Walter Gerhardt), who tries to keep the boss sober. Malone decides to follow in her father's footsteps and become an actress...

"Too Much, Too Soon" (subtitled "The Daring Story of Diana Barrymore") is fine when dealing with Flynn, the eagle and Mr. Dennis. Flynn's follow-up to "The Sun Also Rises" (1957) gave him an opportunity to cap his career as "best dissipated supporting actor"; no doubt drawing from experience, his sobering characterization gives the film some real depth. But, he's far from the story's main subject. Poor Malone, shot to look like a little girl in the opening scenes, is put through episodic segments resembling 1950s documentaries warning young women that alcohol will lead them to nymphomania.

***** Too Much, Too Soon (4/17/58) Art Napoleon ~ Dorothy Malone, Errol Flynn, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Ray Danton

Malone does some of her best work ever--and Flynn is wonderful in this part... Too bad this film has been so neglected thru the years. If you ever have a chance to see it---worth the two hours out of your life!

Diana Barrymore (Dorothy Malone) is the daughter of legendary actor John Barrymore (Errol Flynn). She idolizes her estranged father from afar. After a ten years absence, he finally reconnects with her. She would try to follow his footsteps in more ways than one.

This is a biopic of Diana Barrymore. In a way, it's also a biopic of John Barrymore from a specific point of view. He was over a decade dead by this point and Diana would soon commit suicide after this film. In that sense, her tragedy in this film is incomplete. This film feels too slow. I don't know if this soft-peddles anything. This certainly doesn't feel overly dramatic. The slow pacing doesn't give enough tension. As for the performances, Errol Flynn does exude enough charisma to sell John Barrymore as the center of attention. Both are cut from the same cloth.

Errol Flynn was united with his old nemesis Jack Warner. "Too Much Too Soon" was a one off film for Flynn at "Warner Bros." Released in 1958, the film didn't make much progress at the box office and Flynn's career didn't benefit. The star was not a well man when he was cast as his real life idol John Barrymore. It is a role he was born for and at least Errol Flynn makes the first half of the film quite interesting. There aren't many camera shots of Flynn walking around as his own life style had taken its toil. During production, he collapsed on the set was rushed to hospital. In spite of all this, Errol Flynn shows that underneath his charm and charisma, there is something of an actor in evidence. For once, he makes more of an effort to act and he is easily the best thing about "Too Much Too Soon." Once he is written out, all interest goes with him. The film becomes very boring and the grimness of the plot takes centre stage. Poorly made indeed. Like a lot of film biographies, no one behind the cameras bother to research their subject. There is more fiction than fact.