Harriet Craig

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.

What a total hoot this movie is... Joan Crawford, in FULL authority (matched only by her even more imperious turn in the later "Queen Bee") runs her ideal house and the people in it as though she were a puppeteer and her husband and servants are nothing more than marionettes at her disposal. The fun begins right off the bat as the staff trudges up and down her magnificent staircase and flutter about tending to her every whim. None of this is good enough for her, though. She takes turns knocking the wind out of each of their sails for things like taking too long, using the wrong steps and allowing unwanted flowers to enter her home. Her attention to detail and monstrous obsession with order HAD to influence the makers of the character-assassinating, but uproariously funny "Mommie Dearest". Every move Crawford makes in this film is calculated and played for maximum impact. Her expressions are tight and telling. It's impossible to take one's eyes off her...especially with her array of stylishly scary outfits and severely unflattering hair. There's a perverse thrill in watching Crawford browbeat Grandma Walton (Corby)! Battered husband Corey (often cast as dull or menacing men) is a perfect counterpart here with a rare chance to show off some of his charm and appeal. Watson adds some sly wisdom to the proceedings as Corey's boss's wife and McKinney stands up to Joan very well as a long-term maid. At 94 minutes, the film is PERFECT entertainment when one is in the mood for some campy, classic fun.

"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.

Harriet Craig (1950)

*** (out of 4)

Forgotten Columbia film about a wife (Joan Crawford) who cares only about her possessions, her way of life and anything that involves her. Her blind husband (Wendell Corey) soon starts to realize that he's not married to the type of woman he thought he was. HARRIET CRAIG is a film that doesn't get talked about too often when it comes to Crawford but when you step back and look at the work she did starting with MILDRED PIERCE you can't help but call this another winner. As I go through these post-MGM Crawford films I must say that my respect for her continues to grow because she took on all sorts of roles and did a wonderful job at all of them. There's just something so evil and cold about her character here and it's something that perhaps lived inside of the actress. If MOMMIE DEAREST had been written like this film it would have been a masterpiece. If Faye Dunaway's performance was as great as what Crawford delivers here then I think she would have been willing to talk about it. I mention that film because the type of character that film portrays Crawford as is pretty much the type she's playing here. The coldness of this character is something that you'll certainly hate but the constantly lying and the way she puts herself before anything else just makes this one of the most memorable characters out there. What I loved about Crawford's performance is this bubbling evilness that you can feel with her character and you just get the feeling at any second she's willing to make something worse just to benefit herself. Corey also deserves a lot of credit as the husband as he makes for a very sympathetic character. The sequence when everything finally breaks and the two go at it is rather priceless in regards to the brilliance of the acting. The supporting cast includes good performances by Lucile Watson, K.T. Stevens, William Bishop, Ellen Corby and Viola Roache. HARRIET CRAIG is a film that's not often talked about, which is a real shame because Crawford's performance certainly deserves more attention.

I love this movie, and own a copy of it. It's what I would call a melodrama, but has great characters, good pacing and a tightly-written script. In addition, George Duning's music score is beautiful and haunting. Joan Crawford dominates the movie, and her performance is over the top at times, but I think the other actors hold their own very well -- Ms. Crawford does not overpower them. The other characters -- Wendell Corey as the naive and deluded husband, Lucile Watson as the boss's shrewd but likable wife, and Viola Roach (I think) as the Craigs' housekeeper are all well-fleshed-out characters, and the performances are excellent. I don't think there's an actor in the whole movie who isn't memorable.

The lengths to which Harriet goes to insure the perfection of her home are comical, at times. She scolds Mrs. Harold (sp?), the housekeeper, for not remembering to close the drapes after 11:00 every morning. When she and Clare, her cousin, are out of town visiting Harriet's mother, Harriet has Clare calling everybody under the sun in her neighborhood to find out why there's nobody home. Clare tells Harriet that when she got no answer at the Craig number, she even had the operator check the number to be sure the phone wasn't out of order! There are many memorable scenes in this film, but some that I thought were particularly good were the scenes where Harriet visits her mentally ill mother in a sanitarium. Harriet simply cannot penetrate the state of oblivion that her mother dwells in to block out the world, and she's at a loss to know what to do, or how to communicate with her mother. Ms. Crawford does a good job of conveying her sadness and frustration. It is a poignant scene, serving to humanize Harriet and point up the fact that she does have genuine feelings for someone. Afterward, she confides her worries to the doctor, played by Katherine Warren, and the conversation between the two women is very revealing. I also enjoyed the scene where she and Mrs. Harold lock horns about the running of the house – Mrs. Harold isn't intimidated by Harriet, and gives as good as she gets.

This is a great vehicle for Joan Crawford, Wendell Corey, and in fact, everybody in the movie. Give it a look!