Cinema: Hillbilly Shakespeare

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Your Cheatin' Heart, like many another mediocre film biography, threatens a legend with oblivion. Based on the life of Singer Hank Williams, Heart throbs to the proper words and music but misses the chaotic inner rhythm of a man who rose from boyhood poverty in Alabama to become the idolized author of such country-and-western hits as Jambalaya, Cold, Cold Heart, and the movie's title tune. Williams lived hard, worked hard and drank hard until the January day in 1953 when he leaned back in his white Cadillac and died of a heart attack at the age of 29.

As Williams, Tennessee-born George Hamilton gives mere lip service to his role. Alternately sulky or smiling, he drawls convincingly but never seems deeply touched by the megrims of the "hillbilly Shakespeare" whose reaction to fame is to mistreat his wife (Susan Oliver) and bedevil his loyal manager (Red Buttons). Meanwhile, life flits by with all the tired gimcrackery of a vintage M-G-M musical—stock shots of triumphant headlines, cheering crowds and bestselling sheet music. The only difference is that Hamilton, star of a group called the Drifting Cowboys, is signed up by Grand Ole Opry instead of the Palace. "Wait'll I tell the fellas," he beams, cuing the inevitable "No, Hank, they just want you."

Hank Williams wrote his own epitaph many times over, with simple guitar accompaniment. In this shallow tribute, the singing voice on the sound track belongs to his 16-year-old son Hank Jr., who lends a few notes of distinction to a movie that is better heard than seen.