Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #24835 in VHS
• Released on: 1998-09-01
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Format: NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Customer Reviews

Jenny Dearest.... !!!NOW IN (lots of) GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR!!!
If ever proof positive of the genius talent of Joan Crawford were needed to, say, save children from a burning building, all the fire department need do is look no further than this horrifying shambles of a movie. Yes, boys and girls, such is the strength of Crawford's performance as heartless tuneless theatre virago Jenny Stewart, that it propels this dull little movie from the lowly ranks of Pointlessness, right into the glorious lap of You Have Got To See This Right Now.

Put simply, Joan's an Atlas, carrying the combined weight of a pointless screenplay and an even more uninspiring supporting cast on her bullish, fabulous shoulders, and before God, she makes this otherwise-awful mess into an enjoyable laugh-a-minute tale of hate, love and redemption.

Swaddled in !!!GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR!!! (honestly, there's a peignoir so !!!YELLOW!!! draped around Ms. Crawford in one of the earlier scenes that it's wont to give you shingles), Jenny Stewart begins to fall in love with her new blind piano accompanist Tye Graham (artless Michael Wilding, delivering his lines with about as much passion as a dead rock), but, since the teensy little pinprick of despair that used to be her heart won't let her have any feelings, Jenny tries her hand at reverse psychology, and does her level best to make Tye think that she, in fact, HATES him. Trotting out every single cliche from insulting his education to inferring bestiality (with his seeing-eye dog, a BULLDOG, yet! Metaphorical, perhaps?), Tye Graham, that brave little soldier, remains undeterred, and dauntlessly marches on, secure in the knowlege that one day the shrieking, glowering, generally hateful Ms. Stewart will belong to him. Brave man...

Okay, so firstly, there's nothing to write home about as regards the performances of the supporting cast, screenplay or direction. Bog-standard post-Busby-Berkley fare, and quite disjointed in places. This, lest ye be mistook, was ONLY ever going to be Joan's show, and, rather than simply chew the scenery, La Crawford merely parts her VERY BRIGHT RED LIPS and points to her mouth, and the scenery jumps down her throat all of its own accord. It's THRILLED to be along for the ride!

As should we all be.

Secondly, I can't really put into words how very wrong the use of colour is in this picture. The whole production seems to be deliberately designed in shades of off-grey and drab sludge, with the express purpose of throwing Joan Crawford's hair, makeup and de rigeur preposterous wardrobe into even higher relief. The !!!YELLOW!!! nightie is but one offender: other Gowns Of Note (And Mistake) include the Two-Faced Woman blue spangled extraveganza, and the tie-on flouncy skirt (with bejewelled waist-spikes, attached). Joan's hair colour deserves a special mention here, too: whatever Sidney Guilaroff mixed to create that flaming crown of doom, he obviously had to wear protective lens. It's not just orange, it's !!!HUGE BIG ORANGE!!! and by God, Joan's got the moxy to wear it, see?!?

However, nowhere in this all-singing, all-dancing, all-laughing catastrophe is the use of colour more pronounced (and inappropriate!!) than in the 'Two-Faced Woman' musical number. Joan does it, and she does it in blackface. When she tears off her black pageboy wig at the number's end, the shocking contrast between her chocolate-brown face paint, !!!HUGE BIG ORANGE!!! hair, bleeding red lips and (and this is my favourite part) blue forhead-sequins (no, I am not making this up!) is not just shocking: it IS how it feels when doves cry.

And finally, just to add to the despair/comedy value of the picture, India Adams' voice (Joan was dubbed: watch that clip of her "singing" a song called 'Got a feelin' for you' in the documentary on the flipside of the 'Mildred Pierce' DVD and you'll understand why this was necessary) is a hoot. Literally. Actually, not so much a Hoot as a Primal Bellow. Watch Joan !!!EMOTE!!! during the plainly dubbed rehearsal scenes and I promise you, even the Almighty Faye Dunaway screeching about wire and hatchets and box-office poison in 'Mommie Dearest' will lose some of its sparkle.

Joan Crawford is my favourite actress of all time. In 'Humoresque', 'Rain', 'Mildred Pierce', 'Possessed 1947', 'The Women', 'Grand Hotel', 'Baby Jane' and so, so many others, she's a luminous, magnetic, enthralling powerhouse of talent, and a genuine delight to watch.

In 'Torch Song', she's better than she's ever been before, but sadly, for all the wrong reasons.

And if nothing else, you HAVE to give the woman credit for beating seven shades of merry hell out of this dreadful, dreadful film.

Watch it, and laugh every ounce of water out of your body. But for heaven's sake, do it with protective goggles on.

One of the funniest pictures ever made
This is a hoot- as her comeback to MGM, where she toiled since before sound was introduced, and right after winning an Oscar for "Mildred Pierce", Joan Crawford decided this was going to be her vehicle. All singing! All dancing! All swill! Never mind the conceit that the panist doesn't notice what a harridan Joan has become because he's blind (I mean really, he'd have to be in a coma, and even then..). Never mind Joan's terpsichorial attemps look sort of like she's imitating a Rockette in a body cast. Never mind the fact that she is dubbed by someone who sounds suspiciously like RuPaul. Just sit back and enjoy. Wait for the scene from her Broadway Triumph! After masterfully lip-synching to "Two-faced Woman" (Cut from an earlier MGM musical) in BLACKFACE yet, she makes the patented Joan "I just downed a quart of lemon juice" face and whips off her chocolate colored wig to reveal- An electric orange one! Not until the rocker contaning old Mrs. Bates in "Psycho" turned aroung has an unmasking been scarier!

A MUST FOR DVD......
This is not the great movie it was intended to be but Crawford (as in Joan) camps it up in questionable taste and the viewer is not disappointed. As usual, she plays a tough dame (not her fault) who's misunderstood (not her fault) who learns the hard way (her fault) the true meaning of love. Whew! And do we roll with the punches! Her costumes are DELUXE 50's to-die-for and her makeup so thick you'd have to crack it with an icepick. Allegedly, she had a face and breast lift before starting this picture and maybe that's why she looks so tight. But her hair color is what's really odd---ORANGE! As stage star Jenny, she cuts everyone down to chopped meat but stays loyal to her fans because they truly "love" her unconditionally. But a blind pianist ( a cowed Michael Wilding) crosses her orbit and -BOOM!- she enters a state of confusion over "is it love?" and it takes her alcoholic money-grubbing mother ( a splendid Marjorie Rambeau) to wake her up. Whew! Are we there yet? Almost. The musical numbers are WAY out there---esp. the "Two-Faced Woman" number ----in brownface!...(she was supposed to be mulatto) but dear God, what was she or anyone else THINKING? This movie is a must see and/or have for Crawford buffs. A major camp masterpiece in color and Crawford-vision. PUT THIS ON DVD NOW!...