For its time, this movie was pretty good and somewhat gritty. It's black and white in an era when color was being used, so there was a sort of deliberately artsy quality about the effort. A lot of the movie, however, is plagued by melodrama, which cursed many of the films of the Sixties, Fifties and Forties. Today, the result doesn't wash. George Hamilton over- acts, but I suspect it's not entirely his fault. I blame the direction, the camera work (mostly the product of cumbersome technology at use in its day) and the editing. It was a good attempt, though, and a better than average effort for George Hamilton and for the film industry of its day. The music is good but the selections included in the film are too clipped, you hear a few bars of this and a few bars of that, but not the entire songs. This story needs to be retold with the quality of music as in the Johnny Cash story and the Ray Charles story, two fine biopics of recent vintage. If you are interested in Hank Williams and his prolific musical output, a better movie is "Hank Williams, The Concert He Never Gave." Now that's gritty, the acting, editing and storytelling are better, the music is superb.
Review of Your Cheatin' Heart
