Joan Crawford

  • The Women (1939)

    The Women (1939)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) It’s not clear to me when George Cukor got a reputation for being a “woman’s director”, but there’s got to be a link between that and The Women, a film renowned for having an all-female cast … down to the extras and gender of the animals shown on-screen. That’s not the only reason why it has endured, however: the script is a master class in delightful bitchiness between its major characters, all the way to a memorable catfight at the beginning of its third act. The acerbic script has several witty things to say about marriage from the point of view of an ensemble of women having similar but complementary problems with their husband and lovers. Set in the Manhattan upper-class, The Women is Hollywood glitz escapist wish fulfillment, but also a bit of a pure exploration of gender tension freed from the shackles of money. There is a distinctive “fashion show” sequence that was shot in colour, adding a dash of style to the movie. The cast is solid, with a number of the era’s most famous actresses taking part—and, of course, the antagonist is played by Joan Crawford. The beginning of the film can be a sink-or-swim experience, as the script moves fast and it can be difficult to distinguish between half a dozen very similar brunettes … but it gets much better as the subplots unfold, and as the solid dialogue keeps drawing us in. The Women may have a bland title, but it’s a hard film to forget.

  • Mildred Pierce (1945)

    Mildred Pierce (1945)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2018) As a family drama that drives steadily toward becoming a crime thriller, Mildred Pierce has something for everyone: family conflict, rags-to-riches development and a plunge into noir as a final act, bringing us back to the opening framing device. Joan Crawford holds the film together as the titular Mildred, a woman who gets over her first marriage by working hard and establishing a chain of restaurants, only to be held back by a spoiled daughter, a loafing second husband and a terrible family tragedy. That Mildred Pierce ends in murder is no spoiler (that’s how it begins), although the killer may surprise you. The black-and-white cinematography is top-notch, and Michael Curtiz’s direction impressively brings together the sunny domesticity of toxic family life with the harder shadows of criminal noir. The intersection between independent-woman drama and murder mystery is unusual, and makes Mildred Pierce stand out even when slotted in the noir tradition.

  • Grand Hotel (1932)

    Grand Hotel (1932)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2018)  The thirties were a decade when Hollywood perfected the grammar and sales pitch of cinema, with Grand Hotel earning a minor place in history for two innovations: on an artistic level, pioneering the use of a 360-degree lobby set that allowed the camera to be pointed in any direction, and commercially for bringing together as many movie stars as the (comparatively large) budget would allow. It netted Grand Hotel a Best Picture Oscar back in 1933, but today the result has visibly aged. While the script still holds some interest by bringing together a bunch of vignettes that sometimes interact, much of the film is shot as a theatre piece, the lobby sequences being an exception that highlight the more traditional nature of the rest of the film. As far as star power is concerned, modern viewers can still enjoy the presences of Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford as well as Lionel and John Barrymore—even as reminders of why they were or became superstars. While the Berlin setting of the film may strike some as odd considering Hollywood’s insularity and the whole World War II unpleasantness a few years later, it’s worth noting that at the time, Hollywood was filled with German expats, that Berlin was a world-class city and the best-selling source novel spoke for itself. Also: this was the depression, and a bit of gentle European exoticism couldn’t hurt the movie-watching masses. Grand Hotel will forever live on as a Best Picture winner, and as a representative of the Hollywood machine as it was revving up in the early thirties, it’s a master class in itself.

  • What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

    What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2018) I enjoy reading Wikipedia pages of films I’ve just seen, and from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? I learn about the delightful expression “psycho-biddy,” a forgotten subgenre of horror thrillers featuring older women spawned by the success of this film. I also learned about the ongoing feud between co-stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, which does add quite a dimension to the end result as two sisters come to possibly fatal conflict in a film presented as hard-edged thriller. Saddled with two useless prologues, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? really gets going fifteen minutes in, as the situation becomes clear: A disabled former actress, practically held hostage by her sister, a bitter and resentful former child star who escalates the horrible actions required to keep control over the situation. Joan Crawford has the likable role, but it’s Bette Davis who sticks in mind as the psychotic Baby Jane, layers of caked makeup not concealing a complete breakdown. The black-and-white cinematography is pretty good, although the ending is one or two whiskers away from satisfaction. The film feels a bit too long and scattered with half-hearted subplots, but it still has an impact—Fifty-five years later, aged actresses seldom get roles as interesting as those in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, and the plot is still nasty enough to resonate even today. 

  • Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

    Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2000) I can testify that Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid works pretty well as a comedy without catching any of its references to the noir genre it’s so obviously parodying. This fabulous cinematic experiment intercuts actual scenes from classic 1930-1950 films into its own B/W footage, and so includes Steve Martin and the gorgeous Rachel Ward interacting with the great Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Vincent Price, Cary Grant, Greta Garbo… and a few others. It presumably blows the mind of the fans of these type of films, but as a total neophyte to this period, I though the film was pretty darn successful without knowing the references. You’ve got to love the recurring tie gag.

    (On DVD, November 2021) How interesting it is to revisit Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid after watching a few hundred noir films – the basic comedy of the film is still the same, but now I can recognize the actors, and sometimes even the clips used by Carl Reiner and Steve Martin in putting together their homage. The distinction of the film is not only having Martin play a private investigator in 1940s Los Angeles, but especially having him interact (through clips from older movies) with Classic Hollywood actors. While the film features a heroic re-creation effort in set design, cinematography and costuming (sometimes from people who had worked on the original films, such as Edith Head!), the difference between the original and new footage is quite obvious on DVD: Since Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid was shot in 1980s widescreen and the original footage is in 4:3 “Academy ratio,” the older footage is zoomed into widescreen format and the grain difference is perceptible. Still, that doesn’t do much to lessen the fun of Martin arguing over the phone with Barbara Stanwyck, telling Humphrey Bogart what tie to wear, sharing a train cabin with Cary Grant or getting hit on by Joan Crawford. While the film’s first two acts can often feel disconnected as the protagonist goes investigating and lands in separate films, the last act is more cohesive given how it borrows much of the sequences from The Bribe. While the comedy has its ups and downs, it’s all good fun – and having the beautiful Rachel Ward as the original-footage femme fatale doesn’t hurt either. Martin sports dark hair and is a good sport about the silliness asked of him – Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid is clearly part of his early-1980s heyday as a film comedian, and still a funny film today… although it’s a different kind of funny for film noir fans.