Mikel3
I just watched this on TCM free on-demand recently. It was a good film based on an intriguing story of a woman wronged who gets her revenge. The actors were in fine form for the most part. Sidney Greenstreet was the standout performance at his slimiest best. I was very impressed by him. Joan Crawford is always good yet I've seen her better than she was in this film. She seemed a bit too laid back for the type of revenge driven character she was supposed to be in this story. David Brian was impressive as the political boss that Joan falls in love with, he expressed a winning combination of strength and gentleness. Zachary Scott was also good as Joan's weakling lover that serves as the catalyst for her revenge. My only complaint is the ending was too neatly tied up and abrupt considering all the slow buildup that came before. I give this film a 6 out of 10 stars. With a better more believable ending I would have given it 8 stars.
secondtake
Flamingo Road (1949)A true Warner Bros ensemble effort with some familiar names from the time, including the star, Joan Crawford and the director, Michael Curtiz. There are even familiar sets (in style) and moments (including the splayed dead body of one actor who appeared splayed and dead in "Mildred Pierce," starring Crawford and directed by Curtiz, just a few years before.And all of this is good. Whatever the movie lacks in originality it makes up for in style and drama. It's high drama for sure, ranging from a traveling circus to a corrupt sheriff, including murder and gambling and cross loves, and sweeping through lots of great night and interior photography. It's a noir, more or less (the alienated lead character is a woman in this case, and not a soldier adjusting to civilian life), and it redeems sufficiently by the end. Look for lots of great bit actors and wonderful photography throughout.So why isn't this a great classic? Partly it's the story, which turns to well-used devices and characters all along. Partly it's actually the use of Sydney Greenstreet as the heavy—he's quirky and wonderful but not quite convincing as a terrible power- playing thug. Crawford is really at her usual best here (some scenes she really emotes, which isn't always her preference), and she holds up some scenes that are otherwise more routine. Curtiz, to be sure, is brilliant at creating rich scenes with a lot going on (picture the interior shots in "Casablanca" for example). He does that again here, and you can just watch this movie for its feeling. It isn't as dark or brooding a film noir as the best of them, and the villains here don't exude evil or dread the way the genre needs. But there is a steady tension and curiosity as events turn and turn.In the end, this is a "Mildred Pierce" wannabe, and it seems the studio and the director both knew that. So the story line lacks some clear momentum and the characters in general lack basic development. Watch for some pure Warner Bros pleasure—there is a lot here to just sit back and enjoy.
dougdoepke
Delicious Hollywood hokum. The plot reads like one of those tawdry 25-cent paperbacks those of us of a certain age used to find in the back of a drugstore. Poor but plucky working girl Crawford climbs (sleeps) her way to the top of back-room politics, despite the odds. Never mind that dear Joan is at least ten years too old for the part, or that David Bryan's crooked boss reforms unbelievably because of Joan's true love. After all, this is the dream factory and here it's hitting on all 8 cylinders. Instead, concentrate on the superb cast that includes those two born schemers, Sydney Greenstreet and Zachary Scott. The grotesque close-ups of the rotund Greenstreet must have jarred a lot of people in its day, as he blackmails his way to the top of the corruption dog-pile. At the same time, he also gets to punch and kick the hapless Scott, whose sole claim to respectability is a socialite wife and a big hat. You just know that heart-of-gold Joan and the conniving over-weight bully will sooner or later come to blows.There's one brief scene in the movie really worth savoring. Sheriff Greenstreet plops onto a porch chair at Lute May's roadhouse (think bordello) for his regular afternoon nap. Fluttering around him is an intimidated Negro attendant. Everything seems normal. But suddenly the pampered Greenstreet can't find the usual chair on which to set his sheriff's hat. So the hapless attendant gets thirty seconds of condescending lecture on the overriding dignity attached to the sheriff's hat having a place to sit. Humiliated, the Negro fetches one. Now a scene like this could easily have ended up on the proverbial cutting-room floor. It adds nothing to the plot, (except to character and race relations). The fact that it remains on screen, however, is testimonial to Hollywood's occasional brilliance in the unlikeliest places. Anyway, the movie may not rise to Oscar level, but it does deserve some kind of award as one of Hollywood's timelessly tacky classics.
jjnxn-1
Lurid, over the top melodrama with Crawford giving a tough, spirited performance against wonderful opponent Sydney Greenstreet, theirs is a terrificly malevolent chemistry. They pretty much wipe everybody else off the screen except for Gladys George in a sharp cameo. Joan is right on the cusp here between true A pictures, which this is, and a series of films that would be Joan Crawford Vehicles with little room for anything or anybody else. From this point on there would be few forays outside a clearly defined formula, but one that worked for her for many years. So enjoy her as a tough carny girl before she calcified into the grand lady.
AD
