The fascinating story of the child custody trial that Mary Astor and her second husband went through in 1936, played out in the press while the star was making the film 'Dodsworth.' Any publicity like this was highly sensitive in Hollywood at the time, and Astor standing up to a gang of studio execs to prioritize her child over possible damage to her career was truly admirable. The story had a scandalous backdrop in both Astor and her husband having had affairs, as well as her having recorded her most intimate moments in her diaries over the years, which were stolen by him.
As documentaries go, though, it's pretty average, which is a shame given how interesting the subject matter is. It suffers from the summaries by the people interviewed, who weren't well polished and often repetitive (film critic Leonard Maltin is an exception). The visual sparkles added around old still photos (and transparently shimmering through them) were a distraction and a poor choice. The storytelling is mediocre as well, not all that well fleshed out in places, defocused in others, and certainly not coming across an unbiased, comprehensive account. I liked hearing the basic story and seeing some of the old photos and film clips, so it wasn't a waste of an hour though.
As documentaries go, though, it's pretty average, which is a shame given how interesting the subject matter is. It suffers from the summaries by the people interviewed, who weren't well polished and often repetitive (film critic Leonard Maltin is an exception). The visual sparkles added around old still photos (and transparently shimmering through them) were a distraction and a poor choice. The storytelling is mediocre as well, not all that well fleshed out in places, defocused in others, and certainly not coming across an unbiased, comprehensive account. I liked hearing the basic story and seeing some of the old photos and film clips, so it wasn't a waste of an hour though.