***SPOILERS*** The movie "A Rage to Live" is based on a John O'Hara novel about a young socialite Grace Cardwell, Suzanne Pleshette,who just can't stay away from men to the point where she's practically ostracized from her high society circles by an outraged group of parents who's sons she's accused of "corrupting". Grace's widowed mom Emily Cardwell, Carmen Mathews, tries to deal with her daughters problems and after a very emotionally packed exchange that ended with Grace telling her mom that she'll always be with her and try to make her proud of being her daughter her mom collapses in the living room from a stroke. Trying to live a normal life with sex only when she's married for Grace wasn't easy but for her mom's sake she tried as hard as she could.
One night when they were both on vacation Grace snuck out of their hotel room and has a tryst with one of the busboys. When she came back later that night she found, to her great shock, her mom dead on the floor from a heart attack. Grace holding herself responsible for her mom's death. Even though her mothers doctor Dr. O'Brien, James Gregory, told her that her mom had a very weak heart and that her night out with the busboy had nothing to do with her death. Later she finally found the man of her dreams Sidney Tate, Bradford Dillman, a stock turned real estate broker from San Francisco. Telling him the truth about herself, her wild life-style that she long ago abandoned, only impressed Sidney even more because of her honesty and married her and had a child, a boy, with him.
Everything was going swell until contractor Roger Bannon, Ben Gazzara, came over to the house to fix the barn. Roger had a crush on Grace ever since he met her some five years ago and now out of the army and working for himself wanted her to light the torch that he held for her all those years. Forcing himself on Grace she gave in and had an affair with him but later tried to break it off which led Roger to go insane. One night he get very drunk with a hooker at a motel and almost killed her. Screaming Grace's name and what a tramp she is, Roger thought that Grace left him for handsome news editor Jack Hollister, Peter Graves, he runs out of the motel and drives his truck into a tree killing himself. Hollister who tried to have an affair with Grace but was kindly rebuffed by her feels guilty about the whole mess and it makes his wife Amy, Bethel Leslie, suspect that he's having an affair with Grace and that drives her to drink and almost kill herself.
All this leads to where Grace's husband Sidney finds out about her affair with Roger in the newspaper and leaves her. Sidney later changes his mind when Grace tells him that the affair with Roger was only a more or less one night stand and that was the only time that she cheated on him. The movie ends at a social gathering with an almost unbearable confrontation with Amy and Grace where she accuses Grace of stealing her husband Jack. Grace's stunned husband Sidney present at the scene took away the gun that Amy pulled out and tried to shoot herself with then walking away from Grace, with their baby boy, and from out of her life forever. Grace in the end is left a broken and crying women who lost everything that she loved in the world. I found the film "A Rage to Live" not sleazy at all even though it's subject matter was highly explosive in the sleaze department. The writing directing and acting, especially that of young Miss. Pleshette, made the movie both touching and interesting without the sensationalism that you would have expected from a movie like the movie that it was.
One night when they were both on vacation Grace snuck out of their hotel room and has a tryst with one of the busboys. When she came back later that night she found, to her great shock, her mom dead on the floor from a heart attack. Grace holding herself responsible for her mom's death. Even though her mothers doctor Dr. O'Brien, James Gregory, told her that her mom had a very weak heart and that her night out with the busboy had nothing to do with her death. Later she finally found the man of her dreams Sidney Tate, Bradford Dillman, a stock turned real estate broker from San Francisco. Telling him the truth about herself, her wild life-style that she long ago abandoned, only impressed Sidney even more because of her honesty and married her and had a child, a boy, with him.
Everything was going swell until contractor Roger Bannon, Ben Gazzara, came over to the house to fix the barn. Roger had a crush on Grace ever since he met her some five years ago and now out of the army and working for himself wanted her to light the torch that he held for her all those years. Forcing himself on Grace she gave in and had an affair with him but later tried to break it off which led Roger to go insane. One night he get very drunk with a hooker at a motel and almost killed her. Screaming Grace's name and what a tramp she is, Roger thought that Grace left him for handsome news editor Jack Hollister, Peter Graves, he runs out of the motel and drives his truck into a tree killing himself. Hollister who tried to have an affair with Grace but was kindly rebuffed by her feels guilty about the whole mess and it makes his wife Amy, Bethel Leslie, suspect that he's having an affair with Grace and that drives her to drink and almost kill herself.
All this leads to where Grace's husband Sidney finds out about her affair with Roger in the newspaper and leaves her. Sidney later changes his mind when Grace tells him that the affair with Roger was only a more or less one night stand and that was the only time that she cheated on him. The movie ends at a social gathering with an almost unbearable confrontation with Amy and Grace where she accuses Grace of stealing her husband Jack. Grace's stunned husband Sidney present at the scene took away the gun that Amy pulled out and tried to shoot herself with then walking away from Grace, with their baby boy, and from out of her life forever. Grace in the end is left a broken and crying women who lost everything that she loved in the world. I found the film "A Rage to Live" not sleazy at all even though it's subject matter was highly explosive in the sleaze department. The writing directing and acting, especially that of young Miss. Pleshette, made the movie both touching and interesting without the sensationalism that you would have expected from a movie like the movie that it was.