Harriet Craig

"Harriet Craig" started out as a stage success – obviously, it struck familiar chords – and saw at least one previous film version (Craig's Wife, starring Rosalind Russell). Remade in 1950 with Joan Crawford commandeering the part of the domestic despot, the movie takes on a dimension that helped define camp. It also offers an unadulterated middle-period glimpse of the controlling monsters she had begun (Mildred Pierce, Humoresque) and continued (Torch Song, Johnny Guitar, Queen Bee) to play on film. (And, if there is a sliver of verity in her adopted daughter Cristina's report from the front lines, such roles paralleled her off-screen personality).

It's a parable about the dangers of social ascendancy, an illustration of Thorstein Veblen's view of the affluent wife as agent of conspicuous consumption. Joan Crawford's Harriet Craig has it all: a husband in a grey flannel suit on his way up the corporate ladder (Wendell Corey), and so can buy her what she most desires: property and position. She's obsessed with who does and does not fit in with what she refers to as `our set' as she strikes poses in her perfect (and perfectly dull) upper-middle-class abode.

That her only interest in her husband is as a meal ticket is revealed by her avoiding her wifely obligations under the pretext that bearing children would be dangerous. But she's not content to leave him be, maybe to enjoy a little action on the side; what might the other members of their `set' think? She craves total control. When he's about to go out of town on a business trip, thus slithering out at least temporarily from under her oppressive thumb, she intervenes, lying to his boss that he's a compulsive gambler. Finally, of course, the worm turns.... But, in the closing shot, when Crawford regally ascends her curved staircase alone among the splendor of her possessions, you wonder who's really won after all.

This soapish melodrama remains surprisingly riveting. Perhaps it's the extra touch of authenticity Crawford brings to her portrayal (Mary Tyler Moore played a later version of this upscale shrew in Ordinary People; then of course there's always Martha Stewart). The movie preserves an uncanny sense of upward mobility in America, circa midcentury, a lugubrious self-importance that has not, alas, vanished from the land.

"Queen Bee" had a better title, but if you want to see Joan Crawford at her hissable best, this is the one you want! Playing Mrs. Craig, Joan is more Joan than ever. She runs her home with an invisible whip, snaking around her relatives with the sneaky, sinister airs of a cobra. And when that final dramatic sequence comes, you will be beaten and bowed but will applaud a relievedly fine comeuppance. Based on George Kelly's play "Craig's Wife", the film has a stagy look and direction, but you can't beat the title character for a worthy villainess. Harriet is a suburban monster, a notch or two above Mary Tyler Moore's character in "Ordinary People", and Crawford gives one of her best performances in the juicy part. **1/2 from ****

What a movie, starring Joan Crawford at her most imperious. She demands everything in her house, including her servants, her relatives, and her good-natured husband, Wendell Corey, who barely escapes becoming Richard Cory, be exactly the way she wants it. Crawford is She Who Must Be Obeyed. She's devious. She lies to everyone shamelessly, blasphemously. She browbeats subordinates. She's as convincing as a psychopath. I would have laughed all the way through but my mirth was subdued by the activation of latent memories of my own marriage.

Crawford is perfect in the part. She was at an age at which she was given dark eyebrows the width of a highway dividing line and a severe hair do that brought out the chrome steel of her unforgiving features. It's her best performance, although not in the way she or director Vincent Sherman intended.

I wonder if it would ever have been made if "Leave Her To Heaven", a much more subtle film, hadn't been such a success. And I think Crawford's performance here may have been the dam that begat "Mommie Dearest." In these kinds of movies, Crawford was always either the victim of spite and contempt, as in "Mildred Pierce", or the purveyor of it. She purveys it magnificently.

Joan Crawford shines as George Kelly's Craig's Wife, which had been made as a film some years earlier with Rosalind Russell, hence the title change. Joan is far better suited to the role, and closer to the right age. As a controlling, materialistic, unfeeling housewife, she is perfect, and is better than I've ever seen her. Crawford clearly understands this woman and doesn't play for sympathy. Yet we can sense her identification with the character, which is complete. SHE has sympathy for the monstrous Harriet, and we can feel it. There is a touch of Pirandello-ish identification here, and it comes through loud and clear; and yet for all this, Miss Crawford is never hammy. She is a thorough pro, and gives us a Craig's Wife that Harriet Craig would herself heartily approve of.

From what we all know of Crawford's life story, HARRIET CRAIG seems to be a character who has a lot in common with JOAN CRAWFORD, so it's no surprise when Crawford plays her in a manner that should certainly please her fanbase, if not film critics. And this remake of "Craig's Wife" gives her plenty of meaty material to work with while she steps over everyone else in the cast in her best domineering mode.

She rules over her household with meticulous attention to detail, no matter how much she makes everyone else tremble under her withering gaze and her harsh rebukes, even alienating the loyal house servants and a young female cousin (K.T. STEVENS) whose romance she breaks up by telling lies.

Hubby WENDELL COREY remains completely unaware of her machinations until two-thirds of the story when he starts to realize that Harriet has not been telling him the truth. Her biggest mistake is giving his employer the false notion that he's careless with money and heavy responsibilities. Corey gets wind of her little talk and then bit by bit he begins to strip away all the deceit and deception she's been practicing on him and his friends.

It's a well crafted study of a woman driven to possess someone but unable to trust any man because of her discovery (as a child) that her father was a two-timer cheating at the office with another woman. The character is very much like the one that Ben Ames Williams created in "Leave Her to Heaven"--Ellen--consumed by the need to possess someone and willing to lie at all costs to keep him at her side.

Crawford is effective in the role, only occasionally rising to moments of theatrical hysteria--cold-faced with eyes glaring in dramatic close-ups--but director Vincent Sherman keeps the performance well controlled throughout most of the film.

WENDELL COREY is excellent as the bamboozled husband, effectively underplaying in his usual style, but with such a direct gaze that his sincerity counteracts Crawford's well played deceptions. Their final confrontation, after a series of lies have been uncovered, gives the film a strong ending. LUCILE WATSON is effective as the sophisticated, aristocratic wife of his employer.

Summing up: Better than average Crawford vehicle with a well-written script.