This Woman Is Dangerous

Joan Crawford's only reason for making "This Woman Is Dangerous," (a script that she thought was terrible) was that it would complete her contract to Warner Brothers Studios and she would then be free to go over to RKO and begin production on "Sudden Fear," (which would earn her an Academy Award nomination).

Strictly B stuff which Crawford considered her worst movie, conveniently forgetting the atrocious "Ice Follies of 1939". Her part is something she could play in her sleep, a tough dame who finds herself in a tight spot.

The thing is that even though Joan is elegantly gowned her surroundings are unquestionably cheap-jack something she sensed did not bode well for her future at Warners, she negotiated her exit and this was her last film for them. It's not just that the sets are low rent, the script is far below the high standard she was being offered just a year before.

That's not to say it's not entertaining in a sensationalistic way but certainly nowhere near her best films.

The woman in the title is not particularly dangerous, but she seems to be crashingly masochistic. Joan Crawford, at this point in her acting career, has been playing women with an elegant sense style who fall for the wrong men, and this time it's super-petulant David Brian, who has probably been pouting since his older sister snapped his slingshot. Early in the film, Our Joan discovers her sight is in jeopardy, and purely by accident begins to bond with her doctor, mild-mannered but sensitive Dennis Morgan, set free from Warner's musicals for a year or so; Brian soon discovers the clandestine romance, and is ready to kill someone! He loves to wave his gun around!

Although not as tightly written as this semi-noir melodrama could be, there are plenty of exciting set pieces that delight the eye and excite the intellect--all the stuff with the trailer pursued by the motorcycle copy is, while totally illogical, fascinating and beautifully filmed, and therein for me lies a major interest in this film--the superb, careful use of the camera with which Warner films could be so effective--brilliant set interiors lit perfectly, whether in the home of a sick child's poor parents, or in an operating room's audience gallery, providing a dazzling set piece finale where everybody get's involved and there's enough shattered glass to build an igloo! Cinematographer Ted McCord is the man behind the camera; he's already lensed Crawford in numerous other films, and is responsible for a rich heritage of classics from The Treasure of The Sierra Madre to The Sound of Music--a dedicated artists, McCord's work could make a meatball look like filet mignon.

A sincere dedication from dozens of Warner contract players contribute to a wide variety of locales--from hospital waiting rooms to trailer parks, prison laundry rooms to doctor's offices, and the film, I think, accurately reflects the ability of a major studio to churn out a decent film every few weeks worthy of watching. This Woman Is Dangerous is no Mildred Pierce or Humoresque, but Joan is still in top form, manages to command attention, and there are few that can suffer as bravely. Well...Kay Francis, maybe..but that's another story.....

Not one of director Feist's best, but still decent. He seems to be most comfortable in a tight 60 to 70 minute format, but this one is considerably longer and tends to drag. He's never entirely in control of the mostly maudlin storyline, and never really clinches the romance between Joan Crawford's gangster moll and Dennis Morgan's benevolent eye surgeon. The movie has a hamstrung feeling, as if Feist wasn't allowed to turn loose and be as reckless as he'd like. There are stretches where it's just too stiff and well behaved.

There are some things to like about it however. David Brian is another one of Feist's single-mindedly brutal thugs to rival Lawrence Tierney in the director's earlier "The Devil Thumbs A Ride" and Charles McGraw in "The Threat" for pure undiluted nastiness. His obsessive, murderous, almost infant-like attachment to Crawford is rather disturbing. Along with brother Philip Carey (a brooding, troubling presence throughout) the Jackson brothers certainly make for a memorable pair of crooks.

Also liked the moments just after Crawford undergoes the risky operation to save her eyesight. Feist creates a rather lush feeling of disorientation here and at one point Crawford, whose eyes have been bandaged for some time, makes a perceptive comment to the effect that drifting in the dark for so long has its advantages, that one feels completely cut off from reality and all its concerns.

There's a fresh, exciting scene involving a liquor bottle ill-advisedly thrown through a speeding camper's window and the highway patrol cop it almost strikes (Feist seems to like images of roads and highways just as much as David Lynch) and Brian's fanatic last stand, symbolically taking place in a hospital operating room where Morgan is presumably performing surgery on someone to help them ... see better.

If it's true that JOAN CRAWFORD called this one of her "worst" films, then she is just as bad as judging her own work as Bette Davis was. Bette thought so little of "It's Love I'm After" which everyone thinks is one of the best screwball comedies of the '30s, starring Bette, Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland.

If THIS WOMAN IS DANGEROUS sounds like a lurid melodrama, it is. But it's got a lot of good things going for it. First of all, the characters are an interesting bunch--including the two rough and tough Jackson brothers (DAVID BRIAN and PHILIP CAREY), DENNIS MORGAN sincere in one of his better dramatic roles as an eye specialist who treats Crawford and eventually falls in love with her, and a plot that keeps you wondering how the whole affair is going to turn out because Brian's character is such a hot-headed guy with a gun.

Also, it never becomes sappy in the romance department nor does it have the soap opera flavor of many a Joan Crawford film. Instead, it's got an almost film noir quality about the sharp B&W photography, a good score, and other technical qualities that raise it above the norm for what looks like a low-budget Warner film. But the plot has enough interesting moments to keep viewers watching until the final shootout in a hospital while a surgery is being performed.

David Brian seems to be relishing his tough guy role (which seldom varied during his stay at Warner Bros.), and Joan Crawford gets a chance to play out all her anxieties and frustrations with her customary skill. Her career at Warners was just about to come to an end because she was dissatisfied with the scripts she'd been given after making such a strong showing during her first few years with the studio.

A good, steamy melodrama that manages to overcome the improbable story line by being directed in brisk, no nonsense style by Felix Feist, who knew how to keep the pace tight as the story builds toward a climax.