Your Cheatin' Heart Reviews

Hamilton chalks up one of his best screen performances as the legendary country-and-western singer Hank Williams in this small but enjoyable musical biography. After learning to play the guitar as a boy, Hamilton joins up with a traveling medicine show and meets Oliver. She is mightily impressed by his song "Your Cheatin' Heart" and secretly sends it off to a publisher. They marry. Then he auditions for, and is a great success on, the famous "Louisiana Hayride" radio show. Later he joins the Grand Ole Opry and becomes a C&W hit. His fame, however, brings with it a drinking problem that disrupts his career and personal life. After plenty of help and support from lifelong-buddy Buttons, he gets his life together and returns to performing, but he dies from heart failure at the shockingly tender age of 29. Although it's told in classic rise-and-fall show-business style, YOUR CHEATIN' HEART is a marvelous showcase for its cast, and it is the performances that make this film interesting--particularly those by Hamilton and Buttons. The early scenes, with Losby as the 14-year-old Williams learning to play the guitar from Ingram, are especially impressive. Hank Williams, Jr. (whose own life story was made into a TV movie), dubbed his voice for Hamilton's on some of the other songs his father made famous: "Long Gone Lonesome Blues," "I Saw the Light," "I Can't Help It," "Jambalaya," " Cold, Cold Heart," "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," "Hey Good Lookin," "Ramblin' Man," "Kaw-Liga," "You Win Again."