Michael_Elliott The Damned Don't Cry (1950)** 1/2 (out of 4) After the death of her child, the always poor Ethel Whitehead (Joan Crawford) moves to NYC to try and make something of herself. She eventually hooks up with gangster George Castleman (David Brian) who sends her out West to spy on another gangster (Steve Cochran) who she falls in love with. THE DAMNED DON'T CRY isn't perfect but for fans of Crawford it's certainly good enough to make it worth watching. I think those unfamiliar with Crawford will probably enjoy the film even more because her fans are going to find the set-up something rather familiar as the actress quite often played poor women who would work themselves up through the ranks. Of course, the one difference here is that she gets involved with two gangsters and this leads to a rather predictable ending that really doesn't work. With that said, there are enough good moments to make this worth sitting through. I actually thought the best part of the film was early on when the woman first went to New York and we see how determined she is to make money and how she soon realizes that she's not going to get it in a legit way. The screenplay has a flaw of going so quickly from the "poor" to the "gangster moll" but this doesn't hurt the film too much. As you'd expect, Crawford is very good here but then again she could have played a role like this in her sleep. She manages to be very believable early on and I especially liked the way she played the mother in the early moments. Both Brian and Cochran are extremely believable in the roles of the gangsters as both come across very threatening. Kent Smith is also good in his supporting role of a bookmaker. THE DAMNED DON'T CRY was directed by Vincent Sherman who does a nice job at keeping everything moving at a good pace. The film certainly has its flaws but it's an enjoyable effort.

Jay Raskin This is a nice gangster-film noir film with high quality writing, directing, cinematography, music and editing. It is a wonderful vehicle for Joan. Yet the film is miscast. The miscasting is Joan herself. Joan would have been perfect for this film 15 years before, but at 45, Joan was simply no longer a raving beauty that men would die and kill for. One really has a hard time believing that a woman in her mid-40's can just wake up one morning and turn on the charm and rise like a fire cracker in the world of ruthless gangsters.The lead character was supposed to be 16-18 years old originally. The script was changed to accommodate Crawford's age, but it still doesn't feel right. Joan's naivete and ambition doesn't really match her age. The script should have been turned over to Lana or Rita or Dorothy or Betty, all of whom were under 30 and would have been perfect with it.Apparently there was a film script written for Joan called "Portrait in Black". Ten years later, Lana Turner had a big hit with it. That was the movie that Joan should have done instead of this one.

maryszd Joan Crawford plays Edith Whitehead, the worn-down wife of an oil worker who walks out on him after the accidental death of their only child. As another reviewer here has noted, this film is an interesting hybrid--both a woman's film and a film noir. It's a woman's film in the way she goes from rags to riches and changes her identity to that of Ethel Forbes, a wealthy socialite. It's noir in the sense that she accomplishes this by becoming a tough-talking gangster's moll. But she's not as smart as she thinks she is and in the end, gets taken down and ends up back with her parents in the same dreary house she started out in. In the vocabulary of women's films, she has to punished for daring to abandon her husband. But female viewers got to vicariously see her wear a lot of terrific clothes and get treated (at least temporarily) like a queen. Crawford acts well in this film, with a great supporting cast. A well-crafted film and unjustly neglected film.

T Y Trodden upon frump & housewife Crawford takes an opportune moment to abandon her husband and smalltown life for bigger things, Joan quickly slips to the lowest ranks of city life. Learning how to flirt, she becomes a floor-walker/whore at a fashion house, and she toughens up ("Aw shaddup!"). After committing a laundry list of crimes from quasi-hooking, to playing successive boyfriends as suckers, to gangster molling, rise she does.As in the noir 'Clash by Night' (Barbara Stanwyck) a desperate, over-reaching woman who's escaped to the big city, has her butt handed to her. 'Clash by Night' focuses on the period after returning to the small town. The focus here is mostly on the events of the city.As you'd expect from noir; nice photography, day for night, memorable lines... but I fell asleep twice trying to get through it. All the best scenes are in the first 45 minutes. It's supposedly based on a Bugsy Siegal relationship, but that anecdote is probably more compelling than the movie itself. There's better, more evenly paced noirs to watch and you could even see Crawford having more fun in Sudden Fear, which is lower quality but it's more enjoyable.