This movie will remind people of the famous (and, in my opinion, overrated) "Dark Victory", though it's more entertaining, less melodramatic, and you don't get any hokey "death is beautiful" lines.
What you do get is a great performance by Barbara Stanwyck as famous concert pianist Karen Duncan, who knows she's ill, doesn't know how seriously, and becomes restless with inactivity from being confined to a convalescent home, and resentful of the restrictions placed on her by her doctor, Tony Stanton (David Niven). The more determined he becomes the more rebellious she gets, while they both fight their attraction to each other. When her friend and fellow patient Celestine dies, it was the last straw, as Karen takes off for Monte Carlo with racecar driver Paul Clermont (Richard Conte) and ignores the warning signs of her illness). Soon, however, la dolce vita turns bitter.
Unlike the over-the-top final scenes of the earlier movie that obviously inspired this film, here the ending is inconclusive and not without hope.
Worth watching.
What you do get is a great performance by Barbara Stanwyck as famous concert pianist Karen Duncan, who knows she's ill, doesn't know how seriously, and becomes restless with inactivity from being confined to a convalescent home, and resentful of the restrictions placed on her by her doctor, Tony Stanton (David Niven). The more determined he becomes the more rebellious she gets, while they both fight their attraction to each other. When her friend and fellow patient Celestine dies, it was the last straw, as Karen takes off for Monte Carlo with racecar driver Paul Clermont (Richard Conte) and ignores the warning signs of her illness). Soon, however, la dolce vita turns bitter.
Unlike the over-the-top final scenes of the earlier movie that obviously inspired this film, here the ending is inconclusive and not without hope.
Worth watching.