christopher-underwood Why was I drawn to this? I guess I felt like seeing something slightly out of my usual sphere and was intrigued at the coupling of Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler. As it turns out this is a pretty decent little melodrama with more edge than I would have expected. The play for the rich widow is fairly predictable and the ending unfortunate but in the middle somewhere there is a startling scene that seems to turn things all around. Looking good all the time this movie also has some cracking dialogue with the two leads on great form. Crawford makes a few odd gestures with her attire a couple of times that seem designed to show her legs more effectively and if this never really catches fire it gets fairly damn close. I gather that the film attracts a certain audience because of it's perceived 'camp' aspect and for being ' so bad its good' but I can ignore such clichés and see them as simply the way part of the fan base for such a film as this see things. Doesn't mean I have to. This is no classic but nor is a piece of trivial nonsense.

bkoganbing In Female On The Beach widow Joan Crawford inherits a nice Pacific Coast beach house from her late husband. Recently Judith Evelyn was renting the place and she also got dead by falling off her terrace. Detective Charles Drake isn't sure it was an accident and his prime suspect is Jeff Chandler.I noted that Female On The Beach was based on a play that according to the Internet Broadway Database did not make it on Broadway. So author Robert Hill got it sold to Universal and he helped adapt it for the screen. For some of the themes this play was exploring Tennessee Williams would have been ideal.Chandler is a guy without visible means of support. Courtesy of the late tenant Judith Evelyn he ties his boat on her dock. Whatever he's got every female in heat wants, Crawford, Evelyn, real estate broker Jan Sterling even Natalie Schaefer who is married to neighbor Cecil Kellaway. The two are a pair con artists, but you can Schaefer checking Chandler out.Chandler is part of a come on to get lonely women to gamble their life savings with Kellaway and Schaefer which is what he did with Evelyn. But he's starting to get pangs of conscience with Joan.Female On The Beach is the kind of film that is perfect for Joan Crawford. But it needed two things, Tennessee Williams to write it and it also is flawed in its ending. It has the same problem as the Alfred Hitchcock classic Suspicion and the ending that Hitchcock was forced to make there.

moonspinner55 Glossy trash has wealthy, beach front-living Joan Crawford wooed by shady gigolo Jeff Chandler. Low-brow fun, an adaptation of Robert Hill's play "The Besieged Heart", with steamy clinches and page after page of florid dialogue. Director Joseph Pevney seems to be a perfect match for Crawford: he's obviously tough on the unyielding actress and doesn't let her get away with many "Mildred Pierce"-isms. Crawford also seems to have been personally swayed by hunky Chandler, who doesn't let her hog the spotlight. However, neither star is guided with a trace of self-effacing humor, which turns the proceedings into straight-faced camp. Some of the lines are howlers. **1/2 from ****

rosscinema This is a case where an aging Joan Crawford was just about done with good leading parts and the studios were only offering her "B" level scripts like this. Films were beginning to change and Crawford was not to far off from the last phase in her career. This story begins with an older drunken woman named Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn) chasing after her boytoy Drummond Hall (Jeff Chandler) but when she goes onto the balcony she falls over and dies. Was she pushed? Lynn Markham (Crawford) moves into the house and soon meets her neighbors like Drummond and the older couple that he lives with (Natalie Schafer and Cecil Kellaway). Their is also a nosy detective hanging around named Lieutenant Galley (Charles Drake) who thinks that Eloise may have been married. Drummond tries very hard to get Lynn to like him but she's very cold natured. One night she's lonely and horny and makes up with Drummond and they become close. Lynn finds the diary of Eloise and finds out that the neighbors are card sharks and that she was set up for her money. Also, the real estate agent Amy Rawlinson (Jan Sterling) is secretly in love with Drummond and Lieutenant Galley makes very obvious advances on Lynn! Lots of melodrama in this story and it runs like a soap opera. Chandlers character is such a pushy bum! Two seconds after meeting Crawford he is in her house making breakfast and putting his hands on her. He paws her like a Tijuana whore on a Friday night! And I thought it was funny that six foot four Chandler would come onto a woman that stands five foot in heels. Crawford is a tough woman in this film and really cracks Chandler a couple of hard ones. The dialogue is over written like when he asks her how she likes her coffee and she retorts with "Alone". Not a bad little subplot involving Sterling either. She's pretty hot looking and you have to wonder why Chandler was never attracted to her. The one scene that stands out for me is when Chandler is on Crawford like a grizzly bear and she cracks him and he responds by tearing her dress off! Rape, anyone? But of course this just turns her on. Overly melodramatic and it does have its share of laughs but at the same time you can't stop watching it. You can credit Crawfords screen appeal for that. Silly film is worth a peek at Crawford entering a part in her career that was winding down from serious roles.