I have little familiarity with Crawford's work from the early- to mid-30s and absolutely none with Davis'.
The only Crawford films from the 30s I've seen are GRAND HOTEL, RAIN and THE WOMEN. The later two were atypical of her image at the time, I believe. GRAND HOTEL may be more representative of her work of the time -- the plucky career gal -- but, if so, it left me with little desire to see more. Even if they may have been her peak years, it seems the least interesting of her epochs -- I'll take the harder-edged Joan of the late 40s, the tough-as-old-boots Joan of the 50s, or even the Silent flapper of the 20s.
Nothing Davis did prior to JEZEBEL (1938) looks interesting to me; not even OF HUMAN BONDAGE or THE PETRIFIED FOREST. I've never seen either, but they both appear shabby and shoddy.
I should add, too, that I'm not excessively fond of the films of the early- to mid-30s; it's my least favorite period of Old Hollywood. If nothing else, the tendency of those years to have an obnoxiously loud musical score playing over dialogue drives me nuts! It's like watching a movie with someone playing the radio in the background.
It's that I have a weird interest in some things that aren't always common among fans of Davis and Crawford. I have a desire to see, well not what they did earlier in their career, but more along the lines of where they came from, y'know? Again, I know it's a little odd, but I'm really wanting to do it.
Yeah, Crawford was typically cast in those rags-to-riches Cinderella-type tales at the dawn of the talkies. Joan was always from the poor side of the tracks, working as a secretary or in a factory, but usually found a more glamorous life within the working girl's reach, and would become a model, showgirl, or socialite by marrying a wealthier man. This was her niche of the era, especially early in the 1930s, and she was stereotyped in these types of pictures. So yes, her role as a secretary in the all-star
Grand Hotel was definitely her playing right into her stereotype at the time. What's funny, though, is even while she was playing a familiar role, so was actually put on the same level with the likes of Garbo, John and Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. It's was MGM's way of saying, "Yes, Joan Crawford is indeed as big a star as these people." Her pictures were enormously popular, some of the early sound's highest-earning pictures. So woven into the poor-girl-makes-good formula was Crawford that she had to fight for the role of Sadie Thompson in the film version of
Rain in 1932, which earned her the strongest reviews of her career up until that point, even if the film didn't do too well in theaters.
Crawford matured a little in the mid-thirties, but was still the glamorous center of attention in a succession of feathery romantic comedies, including
No More Ladies and
Love on the Run. She appeared with Clark Gable in a total of eight films. As one biographer stated, Crawford and Gable were considered a almost sure-thing at the box office, owing to their public popularity and chemistry on the screen. Joan was crowned the first "Queen of the Movies" in 1937, but that year saw her drop drastically from seventh to fortieth place in box office polls. Her next few pictures, like
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney and
The Shining Hour, were not successes, and MGM began edging her out the door. She took a supporting role in the 1939 film
The Women, playing a villainous homewrecker who steals Norma Shearer's husband. She shuffled in and out of quality work until she finally left MGM for Warner in 1943.
Bette Davis was one of the many actors recruited from the stage at the start of sound films. Movie studios, who were nervous about making the transition from silent to sound, felt that having voice-trained actors in their pictures would make the transition go more smoothly. During her earliest days at Universal and eventually Warner Brothers, she was given a lot of ingenues. The brass was not terribly kind to her looks, and felt unsure exactly how to market her because her appearance and manner was not typical of other leading women of the day. She finally got a good role in
The Man Who Played God, only because English actor George Arliss wanted her for the part, although she later remembered the majority of her films of the period as "junk". Warner tried unsuccessfully to mold her as different types: she was a straitlaced professional in
Three on a Match and
Ex-Lady; she was given the Garbo-esque glamour treatment for
Fashions of 1934; and was in a host of quick dramas and comedies from
Satan Met a Lady to
The Golden Arrow. These films were poor, and Davis felt embarrassed to have them on her resumé. She did have stronger roles in
Of Human Bondage,
Bordertown,
Dangerous, for which she won the Oscar, and
The Petrified Forest, but found the majority of her roles unfulfilling. Bette eventually demanded that Warner give her better scripts, even famously taking them to court in England in 1937 to hopefully get released from her contract.
While she ultimately lost the case, she was rewarded with better scripts when she relented and finally returned to the United States. She given more substantial roles in films like
Marked Woman and
It's Love I'm After. Her career entered its greatest period with her Oscar-winning role in
Jezebel, which was a major success. For the next decade, she starred in a string of critically and financially motion pictures, usually playing some variation of a tough-as-nails woman in what became nicknamed "women's pictures". She racked up an impressive total of Oscar nods, but never won again after 1939. Her career dipped in the late forties, but she found success once she left Warner in 1949. Bette brushed off the dust and did some very good work post-Warner during the 1950s and 1960s.
I'm not expecting Shakespeare with these movies. In fact, I'm basically expecting the exact opposite. I just want to see for myself how they looked and acted in their younger, lesser-known days.
+(Joan+Crawford).jpg)
