Female on the Beach

Glossy trash has wealthy, beach front-living Joan Crawford wooed by shady gigolo Jeff Chandler. Low-brow fun, an adaptation of Robert Hill's play "The Besieged Heart", with steamy clinches and page after page of florid dialogue. Director Joseph Pevney seems to be a perfect match for Crawford: he's obviously tough on the unyielding actress and doesn't let her get away with many "Mildred Pierce"-isms. Crawford also seems to have been personally swayed by hunky Chandler, who doesn't let her hog the spotlight. However, neither star is guided with a trace of self-effacing humor, which turns the proceedings into straight-faced camp. Some of the lines are howlers. **1/2 from ****

This is a case where an aging Joan Crawford was just about done with good leading parts and the studios were only offering her "B" level scripts like this. Films were beginning to change and Crawford was not to far off from the last phase in her career. This story begins with an older drunken woman named Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn) chasing after her boytoy Drummond Hall (Jeff Chandler) but when she goes onto the balcony she falls over and dies. Was she pushed? Lynn Markham (Crawford) moves into the house and soon meets her neighbors like Drummond and the older couple that he lives with (Natalie Schafer and Cecil Kellaway). Their is also a nosy detective hanging around named Lieutenant Galley (Charles Drake) who thinks that Eloise may have been married. Drummond tries very hard to get Lynn to like him but she's very cold natured. One night she's lonely and horny and makes up with Drummond and they become close. Lynn finds the diary of Eloise and finds out that the neighbors are card sharks and that she was set up for her money. Also, the real estate agent Amy Rawlinson (Jan Sterling) is secretly in love with Drummond and Lieutenant Galley makes very obvious advances on Lynn! Lots of melodrama in this story and it runs like a soap opera. Chandlers character is such a pushy bum! Two seconds after meeting Crawford he is in her house making breakfast and putting his hands on her. He paws her like a Tijuana whore on a Friday night! And I thought it was funny that six foot four Chandler would come onto a woman that stands five foot in heels. Crawford is a tough woman in this film and really cracks Chandler a couple of hard ones. The dialogue is over written like when he asks her how she likes her coffee and she retorts with "Alone". Not a bad little subplot involving Sterling either. She's pretty hot looking and you have to wonder why Chandler was never attracted to her. The one scene that stands out for me is when Chandler is on Crawford like a grizzly bear and she cracks him and he responds by tearing her dress off! Rape, anyone? But of course this just turns her on. Overly melodramatic and it does have its share of laughs but at the same time you can't stop watching it. You can credit Crawfords screen appeal for that. Silly film is worth a peek at Crawford entering a part in her career that was winding down from serious roles.

Recently widowed Lynn Markham (Joan Crawford) returns to her late husband's beach house to take up residence until a buyer can be found. She returns to a house in which police are looking at something on the on the beach beneath her house, there's a broken railing on her balcony, and random items of mens clothing can be found strewn throughout the place. What's going on here? Lynn soon finds out that her last tenant, Eloise Crandall, fell off of her balcony to her death and the police are still trying to decide if it is an accident or homicide.

A beach bum (Jeff Chandler as Drummy) has moored his boat to her pier, and apparently thinks he can pick up with Lynn where he left off with Eloise and doesn't seem to have the phrase "personal space" in his vocabulary. Lynn is not just another bored lonely near middle age socialite. She's an ex-specialty dancer from Vegas and she can see right through Drummy. However, time and the solitude she says she's always wanted begin to have a negative effect on her x-ray vision. Nobody dresses to the nines every night just to pace the floor of their dark empty beach house.

Drummy's story - he's hired beefcake by a couple of refined card sharks, Osbert and Queenie Sorensen, who need a steady flow of cash through loans and ill-gotten gambling debts to keep them in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed. The source of that cash had been Eloise, but now the Sorensens are eying bigger fish - next door neighbor Lynn Markham.

Throughout the film a cop investigating Eloise's death will pop up out of nowhere (Charles Drake as Lieutenant Galley) spouting come-ons mixed with veiled warnings while flashing bedroom eyes. Does he suspect murder or is he just trying to squash the competition by casting Drummy as a murder suspect?

So who if anyone did kill Eloise Crandall? Drummy to get rid of her? The card sharks to make sure she didn't go to the police about the ruse? Someone else I'm not telling you about just to keep it interesting? Watch and find out. Watch and find out if Lynn thinks she's getting so close to the truth that she thinks she is in danger too.

This is A1 late-career Joan Crawford material all the way.- great fashions, good speeches, Joan tough yet vulnerable, and angry confrontations mixed with pure lust. Plus great beefcake shots of Jeff Chandler and the fact that no female seems immune to this beach bum's charms even though he's not exactly your prototype ideal man of the 50's ... or maybe that's exactly WHY they pant after him! After all, Ward Cleaver clones might be dependable, but variety is the spice of life. I highly recommend it if you can find a copy.

Freudian references aside,this well-mounted melodrama about a rich widow mixed up with a shady beach bum is definitely Crawford at her best. No simpering weak-kneed sister,this film noir-type story is a direct slap in the face to the Hollywood in the 50's who insisted on casting aging leading men with absurdly young leading ladies.The notion that older women need love and affection was considered almost absurd. Tennessee Williams territory!This film brought it smack dab in the face.Natalie Schaefer and Cecil Kellaway are fun as card sharks after Crawford's money.Jeff chandler is stolid as the beach bum.Judith Evelyn is touching as Eloise Crandall in the flashbacks. Jan Sterling is good as somewhat snaky realtor.Charles Drake is good as beach cop,t

I have to say, Joan Crawford is THE queen of camp without a doubt. This trashy little gem showcases Joan at her campy best in this her midlife career.

She plays Lynne Markham, a rich widow who moves to the beach house she has never seen that was owned by her late husband. She moves into a mess, the previous tenant, a lonely rich woman who couldn't handle her booze or the sleazy beach bum, Drummond played by iron jawed, steel haired Jeff Chandler, died under mysterious circumstances. Did she commit suicide or did she have a little help?

Joan emotes shamelessly in this tawdry soap. She swoons, flares her nostrils, almost passes out as Drummond savagely paws her, this borders on rape and Joan's character absolutely LOVES IT!!!! She spits out such classic lines as "You're about as friendly as a suction pump" with a completely straight face. What a hoot!!!! The storyline is a camp classic, the rich, lonely widows who succumb to the wiles of Drummond and the con artist neighbors, played by Natalie Schaefer and Cecil Kellaway and the beautiful Realtor played by Jan Sterling all mix together for a movie to die for. It is a must see for all Crawford fans. At this stage of her career she had become a phenomenon, a steel rose, the makeup and hair becoming more surreal and harsh the older she got, amazing, transfixing. You have to see it to believe it.