Torch Song

Ok, I'm only kidding but it has to be, at least, one of the funniest! Joan stars as Jennie Stewart and out of control ego maniacal Broadway star attempting a comeback (hmmm, life imitating art much?) Actually, it is too easy to dismiss this as Crawford playing herself here...I choose to believe that she is not and is playing a very specific Broadway type actress (think Helen Lawson from Valley of the Dolls). Anyway, this movie is chock full of garish colors (raven haired Joan, with blood red lips and a canary colored full length dressing gown that matches her curtains is a stupendous sight), wicked, campy dialogue and the infamous blackface "musical" number, "Two Faced Woman" add up to an hilarious and entertaining movie watching experience.

Sadly out of print, this camp classic is a textbook example of the very worst of 1950's cinema. There's the incredibly saturated Technicolor; the absurd art direction (Joan's oh-so-modern, electronic bedroom, for instance); the sublimely exaggerated wardrobe; and, above all, late-mid-period Joan Crawford, acting, acting, ACTING. By this time, Crawford was already a Hollywood legend; she'd made her debut in 1924, was a top box office draw throughout the 1930's, was considered a has been by the 1940's, and then made a phoenix-like comeback with her Oscar-winning turn in "Mildred Pierce." Since then, her screen persona had hardened into that of the glamorous, ballsy dame--increasingly mannish and emasculating. Where the young Crawford had once been romanced by the likes of Clark Gable, Robert Taylor and Spencer Tracy, this atomic-era Crawford chewed up and spat out her increasingly colorless male foils. In "Torch Song," her unfortunate co-star is the veddy British Michael Wilding (then Mr. Elizabeth Taylor), who plays a blind pianist. (No, really.) Crawford is Jenny Stewart, a huge musical comedy star, who "has the mouth of angel, but the words that come out are pure tramp!" Needless to say, Ms. Stewart makes Helen Lawson look like Mother Teresa. Flashing her huge eyes, shoving cigarettes between her blood-red lips, sashaying about in various glamorous creations, Crawford is the undisputed star of the show. Wilding doesn't stand a chance (poor Gig Young fares even worse--his dissipated, parasitic character is written out halfway through). Crawford and Wilding "meet nasty"--that is to say, she berates him with such gems as "Why don't you get yourself a seeing eye girl!" I won't ruin the ending for you, but suffice to say, it's pure Hollywood soap. Joan even has a poor-folks, plain-speakin' Ma, played by Marjorie Rambeau! Along the way, Joan does several song-and-dance routines designed to show that the 45-year-old star still had a formidable figure. The two most famous are, of course, the notorious "Two Faced Woman," performed, inexplicably, outrageously, appallingly, hysterically, in blackface; and the rehearsal hall scene where Jenny Stewart practically castrates a chorus boy who trips over her leg. "He's paid a very handsome salary to dance AROUND that leg!" she growls. "Torch Song" really exists as an offering on the shrine of Joan Crawford--a big, fat, juicy Technicolor love letter to her glamour and legend. As such, it doesn't get much better than this.

It's hard to believe that, except for a couple of very brief sequences in earlier films, audiences had to wait until 1953 to see Miss Crawford in Technicolor. She gave them enough here to last a lifetime! With inferno red hair, scarlet lips and an assortment of garish costume pieces, she served up a retina-scorching musical that is as fascinating as it is preposterous. Crawford plays the most hard-nosed, ball-busting theatre diva imaginable. (Things veer into science-fiction rather early when it's shown that Crawford has a loyal following of devoted TEEN fans.) During rehearsals for her latest revue, she berates everyone in sight as she strives to have everything her way. She trips her dance partner with her ever-extended right leg, rewrites the dialogue, redesigns the costumes (hilariously swooping the design board in the air to see how the swatch of chiffon will behave once it's attached to her!) and just generally steamrolls over everyone. She meets her match, however, when meek pianist Wilding shows up and softly, but firmly challenges her taste when it comes to her interpretations of the show's songs. To top it off, he's blind, though this detail only slightly curbs Miss Crawford's vicious tongue. Eventually, the two begin to work together, tenuously, but Wilding's effect on her starts to become a romantic one. Despite her slight softening, he remains strangely reticent. Crawford, used to getting what she wants, strives to make him her own. In the midst of all this romantic tension are several musical numbers (with a throaty India Adams providing the highly melodramatic vocals) which range from pitiful to screamingly ridiculous. One has Crawford emerging hilariously from behind a wall and rolling in circles across the stage where she finally disappears behind another wall. In the most famous scene, she descends a cheap-looking staircase dressed in a scary turquoise chiffon and beaded gown with a slit up to her loin while wearing black-face!!! Exceedingly uncoordinated female dancers stiffly turn about as Crawford wanders through the male chorus (with all of them in black-face as well!) Afterwards, in a fit of fury, she rips off her black wig and the viewer is faced with her chocolate skin, crimson lips, ice blue eyes and a tangled mess of tangerine orange hair sprouting heavenward! The film is bent on displaying the most putrescent colors imaginable. Her bedroom walls are a nauseating sea foam green and she wears a hysterical electric lemon yellow robe that is about 10 sizes too big. (In a symbolic touch, she shuts out the world from her bedroom with THREE layers of draperies at the window.) Oddly, though Joan isn't the blind one, her home is virtually devoid of any pictures or artwork. Only one small painting can be seen in the place. The film is chock full of deliciously rotten dialogue and snippy comments and is a must see for any fan of the star. It's also brimming over with unintentional humor as Joan overdoes every line, look and gesture. Clocking in with some intentional humor is the splendorous Rambeau as Crawford's money-grubbing mother. Her reaction (both verbal and non-verbal) to Crawford's announcement that she's fallen for a blind man is one of the all-time uproarious bits of acting and dialogue. For her trouble, she was granted an Oscar nomination, which couldn't have thrilled Crawford, who was busily gnawing on all of the scenery in an attempt to gain another one herself! As for Wilding, he plays blindness as if the loss of one's sight equals the complete and utter loss of one's facial expression. Still, it's nice to see his underacting hold up against Crawford's fire-breathing. Norman appears as Crawford's trusted assistant and indentured servant. She would turn up years later as Crawford's maid in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" receiving even worse treatment from Bette Davis. Check out Joan's cocktail party at which no other female is present! The one lady that rivals her for Wilding's affections is dealt with out of frame, but one can imagine the showdown that was had. The persona Joan presented here (and in "Queen Bee") would come back to haunt her. It was apparently what the producers of "Mommie Dearest" used as a launching pad when concocting that film and it was the subject of one of Carol Burnett's most cutting parodies during her long-running variety series. Crawford, who adored Burnett, was usually open to a joke on herself, but in this instance was quite hurt. Crawford followed this gem with the even more lurid, garish and bizarre "Johnny Guitar". Incidentally, the music used in Joan's first dance rehearsal number is "Minstrel Man" (!), which ties in bizarrely with the fact that she's later seen in blackface (or as Debbie Reynolds put it in "That's Entertainment III", "tropical makeup"!)

... the shock being a blackface number in the 1950's, but I'll get back to that later. This was made after Joan was released from Warner Brothers and was her first film back at MGM after Louis Mayer fired her, and so many other of the first generation MGM actresses, in 1943.

Oh, Joan, Joan - Did you not have somebody - a close friend or long time associate - who looked at the script and looked at the studio MGM, which at this point was going down like the Titanic with a song in its heart, and could tell you this entire thing is poorly conceived? I guess not. But at least she did have good roles after this. This film could have sunk a lesser actress.

The film is about a show built around actress Jenny Stewart (Joan Crawford) who is an absolute nightmare. She is sometimes late to rehearsal with no apology, she drives an unseen pianist to drink and out of the show, she browbeats her dance partner, she is generally just rude and witchy with a capital B to everyone, and yet none of this is ever explained. She loves the fans and the theater yet inexplicably dislikes dogs. The dogs return the sentiment. And THIS is our protagonist?

So normally, this is where, in a good film, I notice the little errors such as the words "POSITIVELY NO SMOKING" written on the back wall of the rehearsal stage. And then less than five minutes later everybody lights up. But I have bigger fish to fry here.

So the jist of this film is about the slightly effete, blind British pianist played by Michael Wilding who replaces the one she drove out of the show and how he loves her - because he can remember what she looked like before he was blind???? In spite of the fact that she walks all over him ? And nothing in witnessing her up close and personal changes that for him? This is it. That is pretty much all the film is about. It is punctuated by Joan's badly dubbed musical numbers including the best song in the film "Two Faced Woman" in blackface?? In fact the entire cast is in blackface for this number. Now it is more Carmen Jones than Mandingo. And there are points for the diamonds on the eyebrows. And the song itself has no racial undertones, but still. At this point in time? Yikes! What makes it doubly mystifying is that Joan's character has an African American secretary whom she treats well - one of the few people that she does treat well - and this relationship is introduced early in the film. So it's progressive and yet regressive at the same time.

What is good about it? Well I'd give it a 4/10 if it were not for the production values - they are weird yet wonderful. Plus, you've got some great character bits from Marjorie Rambeau as Joan's whiskey drinking mom, Gig Young as a lounge lizard/ pretty boy, and Harry Morgan as a sardonic stage director. And at age 49 Joan still has a wonderful figure. Interesting point about Rambeau - she was going to play opposite Joan in "This Modern Age"(1931) but got replaced by Pauline Frederick.

If you do decide to watch this, you will not be bored.

Fruity semi-musical in Technicolor starring Joan Crawford--returning to her old stomping grounds, MGM. Crawford didn't make many pictures in color, and she looks great in this, particularly in dark make-up for the Cotton Club-styled number "Two-Faced Woman" (for the capper, Crawford rips off her black wig, her flaming red hair wild underneath). The plot, taken from I.A.R. Wylie's short story "Why Should I Cry?", is pure hokum: tough-as-nails Broadway star drives everyone to the breaking point, but she meets her match in the new rehearsal pianist, a blind war veteran who has harbored a crush on the performer for many years. The scenes of Crawford's tyrannical Jenny Stewart bossing everyone around are a hoot (it resembles a song-and-dance variation on "Harriet Craig"!). Charles Walters ably directed (and also plays a dancer who, perhaps ironically, is brow-beaten by Joan), although he gets serious acting out of Crawford only once, in the film's final scene. She looks every inch the star, smoking furiously and showing lots o' leg, but her dancing barely passes muster and her vocals were dubbed. Still, not bad, with the compensation being some unintentional comedy (noticing the clock in her bedroom is an hour slow, Crawford angrily corrects the time, and then, as if ready to chew the timepiece out, she gives the clock a smirking once-over). Michael Wilding holds his own as the new man in her life, Gig Young has an obtuse role as Crawford's party pal, and Marjorie Rambeau plays Joan's mother of humble means (and received an Oscar nomination!). Some well-handled scenes, and one has to give points to the star for her courage: what other screen icon (besides Bette Davis, of course) would be so brave as to intentionally come across so steely cold? **1/2 from ****