La reine du hold-up

This was Joan Crawford's final film under her Warner Brothers contract. She hated the film, but accepted it anyway to complete her agreement with the studio. It is not as bad as everyone thinks it is, but it is odd to see Joan as a lady gangster, going blind, and finding true love with the surgeon (Dennis Morgan) who restores her sight.

I recorded this 1952 Joan Crawford movie because 1) I like Joan Crawford's Warner Brothers era and 2) I liked the title. After seeing this film, I think that they overstated how dangerous Crawford's character was. She is not dangerous at all. It's as if "Mildred Pierce" decided to join a crime syndicate to help recoup lost profits after the failure of her restaurant chain. Crawford plays the same type of strong woman facing hard times that she often plays.

In this film, Crawford plays Beth Austin, the head of the gang of criminals who pull off heists in high class locales. Crawford's character was specifically recruited for her class as she could get the gang into nicer locations and provide a believable front. The gang pulls off a casino heist by impersonating police officers and make off with $90,000. Crawford is also dating one of the gangsters, a man named Matt who will kill without giving it a second thought. The conflict in this film is that Crawford is losing her eyesight and must undergo surgery to try and reverse her declining eyesight before she is blind entirely. Her doctor refers her to Dr. Ben Halleck, portrayed by Dennis Morgan. Morgan is reluctant to perform the surgery, as it is experimental, but Crawford pressures him to do so, figuring that she doesn't have much to lose.

At this point in the film, the movie kind of switches gears from a noir to more of a melodrama. As Crawford works to recover from the operation, she and Morgan begin to fall in love. Crawford accompanies Morgan on a few "house calls" where she sees the empathy and kindness that he displays toward his patients and their families. She also has dinner at Morgan's home one night where she meets his adorable daughter and seems to instantly bond with her.

The tension throughout this segment of the film is whether or not Morgan will find out about Crawford's past. The FBI is on her trail as is the private detective that her boyfriend hires to keep tabs on Crawford to see if there is more going on between her and Morgan, aside from her convalescence.

This film was okay, Crawford was fine in her part and Morgan turned in the same type of dependable performance that he usually does. However, this film couldn't decide whether or not it wanted to be a noir or a melodrama, and it wasn't captivating enough to be a melodramatic noir like Mildred Pierce. While I didn't hate it, I don't think I'll need to watch this film over and over. Crawford called this her worst film. I think she has worse films out there, Ice Follies of 1939 comes to mind, but this definitely isn't among her best.

This Woman Is Dangerous marks Warner Brothers termination of the contracts of Joan Crawford and Dennis Morgan. It's a potboiler of a story at best made a lot better by the A list cast.

Joan's a woman of some class who's hooked up with gangster brothers David Brian and Philip Carey and Carey's wife Mari Aldon. After successfully pulling off a heist at a gambling casino, Joan consults a doctor about some vision problems she's having and discovers she's going blind. A really delicate operation is needed and Dr. Dennis Morgan is the guy to do it. So Joan drops out of the gang to go east to Indiana and the hospital Morgan is affiliated with.

While she's repairing her vision, Brian does something really stupid and makes the gang red hot. He kills a state trooper and then in a move I cannot understand ditches the trailer camper they were traveling in with the trooper's body. Might as well have signed a confession.

But Crawford's prints are also in the trailer though the FBI knows she was in the hospital when the murder occurred. She looks like a good bet to lead the FBI to Brian and the rest reasons FBI agent Richard Webb who was also playing Captain Midnight on TV at the same time and in the same manner. So Crawford is staked out like a bird dog.

This Woman Is Dangerous would never get a notice and would be several rankings lower if it weren't for Joan Crawford and the rest of the cast.

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.....

Like others on this board, I'm surprised that Joan Crawford would call "This Woman is Dangerous" her worst film. This from the woman who made Straitjacket, Berserk, and Trog?

"This Woman is Dangerous" was Crawford's last film at Warners, and perhaps she felt like she was headed downhill at Warners the way she had headed downhill at MGM. By then she was used to seeing the signs.

But for the viewer, on the surface, at least, the movie is serviceable. Crawford stars as Beth Austin, a gangsteress with vision problems and a jealous boyfriend, Matt Jackson (David Brian).

She goes to Indiana to have a special operation by a known surgeon, Dr. Halleck (Dennis Morgan), and the two develop feelings for one another. Knowing the good doctor's fate at the hands of her beau if she gives in, Beth resists his advances.

The film is a strange mix of romance and film noir, but the tension is always there. Phil Carey plays Brian's brother, and the two have a volatile relationship; Matt is always sure Beth has run off with another guy; the police are looking for Beth.

Pretty good, though it drags a bit.