Joan Crawford: The Warner Brothers Era

[Snarky Oracle!]

There have been so many films through the years who have developed reputations for being high-camp, knee-slapping, so-bad-they're-good. Usually when I watch these movies my reaction is, "that was dull". TROG is such a film. It's a passably competent movie -- to the extent that it's at least not ploddingly inept -- undone by cruddy production values. But mostly it's very, very boring. If not for being Joan's last film, it would be rightfully forgotten.

Crawford's career was never highbrow, but she didn't deserve to go out on such a shoddy production. There's very differing accounts of what Joan was like during filming; FEUD, at least, went with the version of her being a befuddled dunk giving a hapless performance. Whatever her drinking was or wasn't at the time, I don't see any evidence of it in her acting. She's fine in the role, considering she's was required to perform utter nonsense. The old command and star power was still there, if a bit dimmed. She was still a fine looking lady -- even if I think she should have kept the silverish coif rather than going auburn.

I probably overstated it, yet one can catch her drunk-lisping in places. But she does it with class!

She's much worse here, but then she's not acting (if Joan was ever "not acting"):

 

[ClassyCo]

She was still a fine looking lady -- even if I think she should have kept the silverish coif rather than going auburn.

Yes, Crawford should've kept the silverish hair she had in ROYAL BAY.

 

[Crimson]

Some of the comments from crew members of TROG, quoted in the Wiki article, are curious. The director recalled Joan being a sad old lady, drunk and unable to perform without cue cards. The actor who played the title character completely contradicted both that Joan was drunk or needed "idiot cards".

If you read about a person enough, you pick up differing perspectives; shades of grey interpretations that are still, usually, cohesive. Opinions on Joan are almost schizophrenically black or white. It happens over & over in accounts of her life and career: two people with the same experience with her giving completely different accounts. If nothing else, it makes me wonder what RASHOMON effect Crawford had on people.

 

[tommie]

If you read about a person enough, you pick up differing perspectives; shades of grey interpretations that are still, usually, cohesive. Opinions on Joan are almost schizophrenically black or white.

I'd assume they already might've had their perceptions of her the minute she stepped on set - ie, the director knew it was a low-budget movie and they only were able to get Joan because she was so down and out at that point, meanwhile for the actor was probably excited to play with Joan Crawford, the Hollywood legend and didn't see her obvious faults. I'm guessing the truth lies somewhere between that.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Some of the comments from crew members of TROG, quoted in the Wiki article, are curious. The director recalled Joan being a sad old lady, drunk and unable to perform without cue cards. The actor who played the title character completely contradicted both that Joan was drunk or needed "idiot cards".

If you read about a person enough, you pick up differing perspectives; shades of grey interpretations that are still, usually, cohesive. Opinions on Joan are almost schizophrenically black or white. It happens over & over in accounts of her life and career: two people with the same experience with her giving completely different accounts. If nothing else, it makes me wonder what RASHOMON effect Crawford had on people.

I suppose all of that's true. But I've seen a lot of Crawford movies, and don't recall thinking she was inebriated just because -- y'know -- MOMMIE DEAREST.

Rumors have always circulated that Joan was drunk on the set of THE LUCY SHOW during rehearsals, and that Lucille Ball threatened to replace her with Gloria Steinem; Joan was fine during filming. You may have heard other versions.

The first time i saw TROG in decades, there were scenes where she seemed a wee bit tipsy and she lisped. So to hear that some crew people said she was hitting the sauce isn't surprising. Perhaps Trog himself wasn't exposed to it, or maybe he was being professionally courteous in his comments.

That said, Crawford is the best thing in the movie -- as she usually is. A slightly drunk Joan still towers over her material.

 

[Crimson]

Lucille Ball threatened to replace her with Gloria Steinem

Boy would I have liked to see that episode.

You may have heard other versions.

Like the TROG accounts, there are differing versions in various 'Lucy' books. Lucy herself claimed that Joan was nearly blind drunk through rehearsals; others among the crew back up that version. But there are also those who claim that Joan was merely nervous and shaky or, at most, that she dipped into some liquid courage to get through a week of working with Lucy who seems to have come on rather strong, even by her standards.

Even the most sympathetic of Joan's biographers (Spoto, whose book I recently re-read) leaves no ambiguity that Crawford's drinking was bad by the late 60s. How much that affected her professionalism and actual performances is less clear. She's not very good on THE LUCY SHOW, but her performance seems timid and nervous more than tipsy. I haven't seen TROG in years. The clips on YT that I watched didn't show any obvious signs of performative decline, although it's certainly not implausible to me that her documented drinking problem slipped through in some scenes.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Boy would I have liked to see that episode.




Like the TROG accounts, there are differing versions in various 'Lucy' books. Lucy herself claimed that Joan was nearly blind drunk through rehearsals; others among the crew back up that version. But there are also those who claim that Joan was merely nervous and shaky or, at most, that she dipped into some liquid courage to get through a week of working with Lucy who seems to have come on rather strong, even by her standards.

Even the most sympathetic of Joan's biographers (Spoto, whose book I recently re-read) leaves no ambiguity that Crawford's drinking was bad by the late 60s. How much that affected her professionalism and actual performances is less clear. She's not very good on THE LUCY SHOW, but her performance seems timid and nervous more than tipsy. I haven't seen TROG in years. The clips on YT that I watched didn't show any obvious signs of performative decline, although it's certainly not implausible to me that her documented drinking problem slipped through in some scenes.

How about the famed Crawford quote of, "And they say I'm a bitch...!," from the LUCY set?

EDIT: I was so determined not to write "Steinem" instead of Swanson and thus doomed myself to do exactly that!

 

[Crimson]

The rehabilitation of Joan's reputation continues, and I'm here for it.

EDIT: Oh damn, I just realized this isn't a real documentary. Too bad.

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

The rehabilitation of Joan's reputation continues, and I'm here for it.

Oh damn, I just realized this isn't a real documentary. Too bad.

And they keep coming out with Lone Nut documentaries even after 60 years.

Oh, well. Being a dragon lady is just part of any diva's imagery -- and few divas were ever diva-ier than Joan Crawford.

Do they look into what happened to Alfred Steele? Or why she was in Dallas on 22 November 1963??

 

[RandallAdams]

She was a pitiful actress but she had an incredible presence, nobody can deny that.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

I thought Joan could be a very good actress at times. She gave great performances in A Woman
'S Face, Possessed, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane and Mildred Pierce. Did she have her over the top campy moments and movies that were more style and drama than substance? Yes, but she still had acting abilities.

 

[DallasFanForever]

Mildred Pierce

Her performance in this movie is by far my favorite of hers. It’s definitely the movie that made me a fan of Joan Crawford.

 

[ClassyCo]

She was a pitiful actress

I've never found this to be true. My thoughts on Crawford and her contemporaries has definitely shifted over the years, but I'd argue she was a good actress when given good directors and good material -- which, in fairness, is true of many actors and actresses.

Her Warner Brothers years -- from 1945 to 1952 -- offer the best of her screen career, although there are a few outliers elsewhere in her filmography. THE WOMEN (1939), STRANGE CARGO (1940), and A WOMAN'S FACE (1941) are probably the best of her pre-Warners career, as most of her MGM films in the 1930s were not particularly demanding of her as an actress.

I'll give Crawford credit for one thing -- she changed with the times. She was a flapper in the '20s, a rags-to-riches Cinderella and clotheshorse in the '30s, an elegant, noirish professional in the '40s, a middle-aged tearjerker in the '50s, and the face of hag horror in the '60s.

 

[Jimmy Todd]

There's a great(one of many) scene in Mildred Pierce in which she tells Veda she's calling the police. Joan does a lot with what follows without saying a word. Watch closely.

 

[tommie]

The rehabilitation of Joan's reputation continues, and I'm here for it.

The kid deserved it!

I kid... I kid...

Spoiler

... maybe.

 

[Crimson]

Joan's loan to FOX, for Daisy Kenyon in 1947, is a sort of middle point of her Warner years and represents a bit of a departure. I love this movie and it's a shame most people don't know about it or don't really care. I saw it 2 times and it strikes me as a bit of an oddity, in both Joan's career and 40s Hollywood. Joan plays a very modern, independent woman, who almost dates two guys at the same time and is torn between them. It's quite mature in its depiction of relationships and it's certainly not your typical 40s melodrama, there's more to this movie and some of the small twists and turns are quite surprising. In a way it feels like 1940s, post war Sex and the City. I hope some of you give it another chance.

I watched DAISY KENYON again last night; my reaction to it continues to be mixed. I agree with all of your points. The film is unusually un-melodramatic for its era. It's neither a grand romance nor a noir tinged soap. Rather, it's a fairly grounded drama about a woman choosing between two men. The leading men are the problem for me. Joan had no chemistry with either Henry Fonda or Dana Andrews. It probably didn't help that neither wanted to make the film. Even the director, Preminger, later claimed to barely remember making it. Joan carried the whole thing on her shoulders.

She's very good in the film. I reject the notion that she was no actress. Her performance here is nothing like those in her noir dramas of the time. None of the flintiness of Warners-era Joan is on screen; this is a callback to her 30s heroines and the last time she'd play such a role. I don't often like Joan in "heroine" mode, but she pulled it off here. Her performance is understated but effective; she's likeable and relatable. It's also, perhaps, the last time she was softly beautiful and youthful on screen. 42 (ish) at the time, with good makeup and lighting, she could still pass for early-30s. After this, her looks got harder.

I prefer flinty, noir Join, but this is an effective, if uneven, interlude to that era.

 

[Alexis]

Joan carried the whole thing on her shoulders.

Well if anyone could carry a film on their shoulders it would be Joan Crawford.

 

[Alexis]

And, see, that's the thing -- Old Hollywood (or New Hollywood for that matter) never even seemed to try. They could fake snow in the studio and sometimes did, but despite Los Angeles relative lack of fall or winter, there was almost no real attempt to cinematically conjure up an autumn.

There are lots of ways to fake it, even if the geographic location in which you're shooting is lacking in fall leaves.

Whenever I imagine a movie in my head, I tend to envision an intensively autumnal atmosphere. I've yet to see a definitive Hollywood movie to really tap into that.

It's true, autumn has been evoked, either as a season or a vibe, very rarely in movies. That's how I ended up watching the Crawford film -- I wanted something that would feel fall-ish, since I'm not ready to start with October Halloween films. About the only movies that tap into an autumnal atmosphere are horror movies, and even then not too often.

Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes' Sirk tribute is a film I always think of as autumnal. It's got some really beautiful cinematography. Even Julianne Moore's hair, wardrobe and makeup are just of the season.

 

[ClassyCo]

DAISY KENYON

This movie appears to have been the outlier of Crawford's Warner Brothers era. I've heard of others having some difficulty classifying the film's genre, but the Fox Film Noir label specifically calls it film noir.

 

[Crimson]

Well if anyone could carry a film on their shoulders it would be Joan Crawford.

No pads needed!

Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes' Sirk tribute is a film I always think of as autumnal.

I haven't seen that one, but I will keep it in mind next autumn.

This movie appears to have been the outlier of Crawford's Warner Brothers era. I've heard of others having some difficulty classifying the film's genre, but the Fox Film Noir label specifically calls it film noir.

Classifications tend to be loosey-goosey; there are a lot of movies that get lumped into noir that barely qualify, basically any drama in B&W. DAISY KENYON is about the least noir-ish of those movies classified as noir. Other than being a bit shadowy, there's hardly anything noir about it. And the shadows are mostly to hide Joan's age!