Rockabye

Directed by George Cukor, Rockabye follows a stage actress (Constance Bennett’s Judy Carroll) as she loses custody of a young orphan after testifying on behalf of an accused embezzler (Walter Pidgeon’s Al Howard) – with the narrative subsequently detailing Judy’s efforts at moving on with her life and embarking on a relationship with a married playwright (Joel McCrea’s Jacob Van Riker Pell). It’s unabashedly melodramatic subject matter that would seem to lend itself perfectly to a briskly-paced and consistently watchable piece of work, and yet filmmaker Cukor, armed with a screenplay by Jane Murfin, delivers a sluggish, progressively tiresome misfire that contains few attention-grabbing elements – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by an episodic, momentum-free midsection in which nothing much of interest occurs (ie it’s all just so tedious). And while the picture’s second-half turn towards melodrama does stand as an obvious improvement, Rockabye has, by that point, cemented its place as an aimless failure that squanders a predictably solid turn by Bennett. (The revelation that large chunks of the film were reshot doesn’t come as much of a surprise, ultimately.)

*1/2 out of ****