“Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool,” (2017) July 6, 2018, DVD, home. Most folks seem rather down on this well done and very interesting look at the life and death of Gloria Grahame, an American starlet/actress and Oscar winner from the noir period, whose career declined in her later years along with her four marriages She’s played very bravely by Annette Bening. I say brave in that the film gives us an aging and dying Grahame/Bening, not the young beauty. Based on the book by Peter Turner, it follows her serious, sincere, but complicated and challenging relationship as a 56-yo with the then 26-yo author (excellent work from Jamie Bell), a struggling English actor still living at home in Liverpool. It moves back and forth in time and space (in the UK and in the USA) from their first meeting in a London rooming house to her death, and it’s not a pretty one, four years later. The two of them have real chemistry. Julie Walters and Kenneth Cranham as Peter’s parents show a different side of English working class life in their support and openness to their son’s life choices and their acceptance of Grahame in all her idiosyncrasies. Excellent work from Vanessa Redgrave as Grahame’s mother. This is a fun and sad film. It includes a wonderful period soundtrack including music for the film from Elvis Costello, himself a huge Gloria Grahame fan. The DVD came with a very lame and irritating set of interviews with the cast, Turner, and the director, Paul McGuigan. I’m not clear why this one didn’t do better, but both Bronwen and I really liked it.