User reviews

Flamingo Road is not the best Joan Crawford film ever done. But it surely is one of the most entertaining with a few unforgettable characters in the film. No wonder it got picked to be the basis for a night time soap opera in the Eighties.

Sydney Greenstreet is one of those larger than life characters in every sense of the word. His southern county sheriff dominates this film. I would have to say it is my third favorite Greenstreet role, next to The Maltese Falcon and The Hucksters. Joan Crawford good as she is loses all the joint scenes when she's on the screen with Greenstreet.

Joan's a carnival girl stranded in Greenstreet's town and picked up by Greenstreet's deputy Zachary Scott. Greenstreet has big political plans for Scott which include a proper marriage with some modern version of Melanie Hamilton. Virginia Huston's the girl he has in mind.

After Crawford doesn't take Greenstreet's advice and leave town, he has her framed on a prostitution rap. After doing a six month stretch Crawford is understandably wanting vengeance. She takes a job at a road house run by Gladys George where a lot of the state bigwigs meet and enjoy all forms of pleasurable relaxation.

The characters in Flamingo Road jump right out at you, they really were made for a night time soap opera. Of course Crawford is great as she and new husband and ally David Brian gives her a new found respectability. The best portrayal in the film besides Crawford and Greenstreet goes to Gladys George. She's a southern version of the Texas Guinan like character she played in The Roaring Twenties.

If you like soap opera and revenge this is the film for you.

Over the top melodrama that works, under the steady direction of Curtiz. Crawford is an ex-carnie, and Greenstreet is the corrupt sherrif of a small town she's chosen as her haven. He gets her boyfriend to desert her for a more respectable marriage so he can make him a senator, and after she marries a political player he's associated with, he makes life hard on both of them with a combination of blackmail muscle and frame-up push. Greenstreet is wonderfully grotesque, and all the other leads also hold up well. Nice photography in stark toned B & W.

In Boldon, the corrupt Sheriff Titus Semple (Sydney Greenstreet) rules the town and elects whoever he wants with the support of the powerful group led by the constructor Dan Reynolds (David Brian). Now he wants to elect his deputy Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott), who is the son of a former judge, to the Senate. When a carnival is forced to leave Boldon, the dancer Lane Bellamy (Joan Crawford) has no place to go and stays in a tent. Titus sends Fielding to the carnival and he helps Lane to find a job as waitress in a diner and a place to stay. They have a romantic relationship, but Titus sees Lane as a liability to the political career of his protégé. So he forces her boss to fire Lane; he does not let Lane get a job; and he frames Lane to send her to prison. When she is released, she finds a job working for Lute Mae Sanders (Gladys George) in her roadhouse. She meets Dan and soon they get married and move to the fancy Flamingo Road. But the ambitious Titus has different political plans from Dan and his group and wants to elect Fielding as Governor. Dan refuses the request and Titus uses blackmail to force Dan and his group to support Fielding. Dan does not accept and Titus decides to destroy Dan and Lane. Will he succeed?

"Flamingo Road" is a 1949 film that shows how politicians and corruption are a timeless combination. The story holds the attention but the conclusion is deceptive, with the situation being resolved too easily. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Caminho da Redenção" ("Path to Redemption")

Like a dry Martini with just a tad too much vermouth, garnished with an olive that hasn't been washed of its brine, this one can leave a nasty taste if you're looking for something that goes down smoothly. But if you're not too fastidious, this Crawford star vehicle is almost ridiculously entertaining. Joan might have been just a little long in the tooth to be playing a hoochy-coochy carnival girl in the film's opening sequence but it isn't long before she's on her way up, constantly being tripped on that inexorable climb by one of the slimiest villains that Sydney Greenstreet ever played. Warners trowels on the class "A" production values (except for some glaring back projections at a construction site) and Michael Curtiz's direction is, as usual, briskly efficient, getting the best from everyone in the cast, principal and supporting players alike, except perhaps for Greenstreet who really doesn't look well at all and seems to be struggling against imminent collapse in some scenes. (He made only one picture after this one and died from complications of diabetes about five years later.)

Max Steiner contributes his usual melodically overwrought score (with heavy reliance on the popular song, "If I Could Be One Hour With You [Tonight]"), lushly orchestrated by Murray Cutter, under the musical direction of that Warners stalwart, Ray Heindorf. It's almost too distracting but the frequently crackling dialogue keeps the audience's attention focused on the pulpy proceedings. Ted McCord's black-and-white cinematography is an outstanding example of why not every picture should be in color and I suspect that it was Travilla who was given the task of gowning Crawford once she'd finally crossed over to the right side of the tracks. (Sheila O'Brien, also credited, probably ran up those nifty waitress uniforms and the prison garb Crawford gets to wear not once, but twice!)

They really, REALLY don't make 'em like this anymore, and thank goodness Turner Classic Movies, for instance, trundles a tasty morsel like this out of their archives every once in a while for us to savor once again.

Trying to pass off Joan Crawford, then heading toward her mid-'40s, as a plausible nautch-dancer in the side-show of an itinerant carnival proves a misstep from which Michael Curtiz' Flamingo Road barely recovers. But, once the layers of accrued campiness that cling to it are peeled back (and once Crawford discards her Salome-like veils), the movie, far-fetched as it is, generates some interest.

Owing to unpaid bills or some such, the traveling show, in which Crawford was a steamy if not entirely fresh attraction, blows town. Sheriff's deputy Zachary Scott, sent across the tracks to make sure the whole unsavory business has packed up, finds only Crawford, listening to her radio in a mildewed tent. Sparks are struck; he invites her back to town for the blue-plate special in the local beanery and finagles a job for her there as a waitress.

His superior, corrupt sheriff Sydney Greenstreet, sniffs out the burgeoning romance and vows to quash it; he has plans to run Scott for the senate of their anonymous Gulf state (its capital is Olympic City and its capitol a lovingly detailed piece of scenery painting), prerequisite to which is a proper marriage to a bona-fide local girl. Scott glumly acquiesces to the plan, drowning his doubts in drink ("I crawled into a bottle and can't get out"), while Greenstreet frames Crawford on a morals charge and runs her out of town.

New to the mix is David Brian, boss of the state political machine, whose eye is caught by Crawford (now back in town working in the obligatory "roadhouse" operated by Gladys George). He has a whopper of a hangover ("A party's like insurance – the older you are, the more it costs," he says), which Crawford assuages with an eye-opening whiskey sour followed by a home-cooked breakfast. Never underestimate the power of a well-scrambled egg. Next thing, they're married and living in a mansion on high-toned Flamingo Road (complete with a housemaid with the voice and the brain of a parakeet, as in the earlier Curtiz/Crawford Mildred Pierce, except that this time she's not Butterfly McQueen and is, amazingly for the era, white). But Greenstreet starts pulling even filthier strings than Brian – for once, a passably good egg – can countenance. Whereupon, after a drastic development involving the besotted Scott, Crawford slips a handgun into her clutch-bag and pays Greenstreet an amicable visit....

With at least two sensational movies behind him (Casablanca and Mildred Pierce), and one ahead of him (The Unsuspected), Curtiz can be forgiven for Flamingo Road. He brings it some verve, but its identity as yet another of Crawford's rags-to-riches vehicles gets the better of him. While his star supplies some startlingly naturalistic acting (and while the uncharacteristically clean-shaven Scott and the characteristically portly Greenstreet are dependably professional), Flamingo Road has fallen, rather unarguably, into the disreputable if transfixing gulch called camp. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Flamingo Road is directed by Michael Curtiz and adapted to screenplay by Robert Wilder from his own play of the same name (with Sally Wilder). It stars Joan Crawford, Sydney Greenstreet, Zachary Scott, David Bryan and Gladys George. Music is by Max Steiner and cinematography by Ted D. McCord.

When circumstance sees Lane Bellamy (Crawford) stuck in Bolden City, she quickly finds herself embroiled in a love affair and involved in a war with political tyrant Sheriff Titus Semple (Greenstreet).

The Moody kind always cause trouble.

Southern Gothic - cum - politico melodrama with noirish tints, Flamingo Road gets above average due to high tech credits and a superbly nasty turn from Greenstreet. Essentially the pic is about a girl from the other side of the tracks making her way up the social ladder, but she has to lock horns with a nasty piece of work and battle with affairs of the heart.

Flamingo - Affluent - Road!

It's strong on narrative terms, the screenplay neatly blending the greed of political posers with almost perverse social wiles. Curtiz (Mildred Pierce/The Unsuspected) and McCord (Johnny Belinda/The Breaking Point) keep it brisk and atmospherically moody, while the impressive Greenstreet - all sweaty, ambiguous and devilish, is surrounded by a more than competent cast of supporting players.

What of Crawford? Wisely "requesting" that Curtiz be given the director's job, she's compelling and classically committed to the role. It's true to say she is too old for the character, something which her fans are known to hate reading, while both the actors playing her love interests are almost 10 years her junior - which is a bit of a reality stretch for the era. However, such is her acting ability, she gets you on side quickly, with the makers shooting her in soft focus and the writer giving her good work to use off of the page.

A strange movie in some ways, but intriguing and sharp and it's never dull. While the quality on show from both sides of the camera is most pleasing. 7/10

Despite the noted critic Pauline Kael's unreasonably negative review of this film, it's a lot of fun and a good vehicle for Joan Crawford's talents. Kael described it as overwrought, but in truth it's good old-fashioned melodramatic story-telling with a smart, literate script, and refreshingly quick pacing. The only flaw that bothered me was a musical score that is, at times, laughably incongruous. (The music swells bewilderingly and ominously when Crawford benignly offers Reynolds' Political Boss something for his hangover.)

Sure, you can quarrel with the casting of Shakespearean-voiced Sydney Greenstreet playing a Southern Sheriff, but he's so unrepentently vile and villainous that he's convincing in every role he plays. It is a joy to watch two such formidable actors as Crawford and Greenstreet squaring off in big confrontations.

It's not surprising that, some 30 years later, this became the premise for a night-time soap opera starring, I believe, Morgan Fairchild. It has so many jealousies, manipulations, secret ambitions, double-crosses, plots for revenge - it's just great fun if one doesn't take it too seriously. And clearly, Crawford, Greenstreet, and the director, Michael Curtiz, didn't. They recognized the material for what it was - pulpy entertainment served up with wit and style.

This film is a joy to watch, even if defies logic. The narrative is convoluted, to put it mildly. Joan Crawford as a carnival girl? That's a stretch of the imagination. From the very beginning, watching Ms Crawford and the two other dancing women, the viewer realizes that he has to be kind to this film. Her take on Lane Bellamy is vintage Crawford!

This must have been a vehicle for the star right after her star turn in Mildred Pierce. It has some of the same people behind it, like director Michael Curtiz and Zachary Scott. The dialogue is something to be treasured. They don't make films like this anymore. Just imagine what panache Ms Crawford brought to anything she appeared in.

The cast that was assembled for this film is probably impossible to match. The great Sydney Greenstreet is so good as the evil sheriff Titus Semple, that we stay riveted looking at his every move. David Brian as the man who loves Lane and rescues her from poverty is also an asset. The minor players, Gladys George, Fred Clark and Virginia Huston, among others fit right into the story.

But this is a Joan Crawford's film. She dominates every scene in which she appears. What power she conveys with only an economy of gestures. No one working in films these days can come near to this actress, who left her own imprint in the canon of American cinema, not to be equaled by anyone any time soon.

FLAMINGO ROAD begins with a carnival being run out of town. Tired of life on the road, Joan Crawford stays behind and tries to settle down in this town with the help of the town's deputy sheriff. However, the political boss (Sidney Greenstreet) can't stand Crawford since she's "from the other side of the tracks" and he has plans for the deputy to enter politics. Instead of just telling Crawford and trying to gain her friendship or understanding, he sets her up and sends her to a short stint in the work farm. When she gets out, Crawford is determined not to run but pay Greenstreet back sooner or later. However, Greenstreet is a very wicked and calculating man and spends much of the movie biding his time until the end of the film--where there is a dynamite confrontation between them.

This film is a bit of an odd style, as in many ways it's like a trashy Soap Opera combined with Film Noir. The dialog is among the best I have heard and is very Noir-like--so many snappy comebacks and the dialog just crackles. And, fortunately, all the Soap elements are far less predictable than you'd think---as again and again, the characters did NOT do what you'd expect.

The bottom line is that this is a quality production with exceptional acting, script and mood throughout. Provided you like older films, it's hard to imagine a person not liking this movie.

"Flamingo Road" is one of those Joan from the other side of the tracks ending up living large film, and it's great. After how many years of doing these roles, at 45, Crawford still pulled them off with aplomb. She's wonderful to watch in this.

I remember seeing this at a revival cinema, on a big screen, and it was the first time I realized how petite a woman she was - but she always seemed so tall!

In this film, Crawford plays a ex-carny girl who takes up with Zachary Scott. Scott is the protégé of a ruthless political boss, played by Sydney Greenstreet. He turns out to be too weak-willed to do anything but stay under Greenstreet's thumb. He marries someone more proper while Greenstreet does everything he can to drive Crawford out of town.

When Crawford winds up married to an even more powerful man than Greenstreet, he seeks to destroy both her and her husband.

David Brian is excellent as Crawford's husband, as is Gladys George as a roadhouse owner for whom Crawford works briefly. Scott does register as a wimp, stripped of his romantic underpinnings in "Mildred Pierce."

And then we come to Sydney Greenstreet. You're telling me he lived five years after this film? I would have easier believed he dropped dead immediately afterward.

He looks pasty and horrendous as he downs pitchers of milk, slurs his dialogue, and laughs in a very unworldly way - kind of a hah-hah, a sharp intake of breath, and then a higher pitched laugh that sounds like a hiccup. Always a sinister presence on the screen, Greenstreet comes off as evil, all right, but also ill in this production.

"Flamingo Road" became a television series in the '80s. I'll take the original.

Saw 'Flamingo Road' for two main reasons. One was for Michael Curtiz, an immense talent who directed many good to brilliant films ('Casablanca' being his crowning achievement). The other main reason was the cast. Have for a while admired Joan Crawford, who gave it everything in every film regardless of the material (though am not a great fan of her twilight years work). Was interested in seeing Zachary Scott in a non-villain role and also seeing Sydney Greenstreet as a pure evil character.

While 'Flamingo Road' is not a great film and has its flaws, there are many things that it does very well and it is very entertaining. The story execution is uneven and Max Steiner did work that was a lot better than what he gave here, but the direction and the general quality of the production values and acting more than makes up for those things. Fans of Curtiz, Crawford and Greenstreet shouldn't miss it, even it is for curio and completest sake.

'Flamingo Road' looks pretty immaculate, the photography and lighting having a lot of atmosphere that is almost noir-ish. Curtiz shows a complete command and ease of the material, and directs tightly and assuredly. The script always intrigues and is often sharp and even witty. The story is not perfect but it more often than not entertains and has some nice suspense and intrigue, the chemistry between Crawford and Greenstreet blisters. Particularly in a major confrontation.

Crawford gives a fully committed performance that grips one from the get go and never stops doing so. David Brian is very good and brings dimension to a role that sounds thankless on paper, while Greenstreet is one sinister antagonist.

Did find Scott a bit bland though and his character somewhat colourless, maybe it is just me being more used to him in villainous and mysterious roles. Steiner is not at his best either, his score is far too melodramatic for the material, even for a story that can get over the top, and it just felt intrusive.

Although the story engrosses and intrigues, it can get very far-fetched and over-stuffed. Some of the final act felt rushed.

Summing up, enjoyable film but not a great one. 7/10

"Flaming Road" is the posh street of the town ,the place where everyone who has made it wants to dwell.

"Flamingo road" belongs to a rare genre :the political melodrama ;but politics are very vague and consist of scheming ,bribes and men of straw.The young male actors are rather bland and it's Sidney Greenstreet' s sheriff Titus who walks away with the honors.He really matches Crawford every step of the way.He did exactly what the producers wanted to:making himself hated by the audience .He is fat,fleshy.Crawford almost becomes a female Jean Valjean ,harassed by an American Javert.

"Flamingo Road" released in 1949 in the waning days of Joan Crawford's days at Warner Brothers, where she had a great second career after 18 years at MGM. Crawford plays a carnival girl, who decides to stay in the town after her fellow performers leave. She meets Zachary Scott, whom Crawford worked with in "Mildred Pierce." Scott played the playboy in that film, here is a weak-willed deputy sheriff who falls for Crawford - but he is controlled by the big bully sheriff (a stand out performance by Syndey Greenstreet). Crawford is a nuisance to the sheriff and a threat to the political plans he has for Zachary Scott. After he fails to run her out of town and gets her fired from her job, she stays anyway and meets - and marries - handsome David Brian, playing a hotshot businessman. It all gets quite complicated, with politics, corruption and sleaze thrown in for the storyline. Crawford is a delight here, playing her usual rags to riches kind of gal - but who did it better than she? Sure, she was in her 40's here, but she looked fantastic and played well off actor David Brian especially. Syndey Greenstreet has the performance of his career here, as the evil and corrupt sheriff who seems to have too much power to be quite believable. The film is a bit too long, and the end seems forced and tacked on, when Crawford and Greenstreet finally have it out. But - a must see for Crawford fans!

Joan Crawford really should have played more femmes fatale. In her post-"Mildred Pierce" days, she was so often asked to be a victim, and to wait around on a man to save her. That doesn't suit Crawford. Her screen presence is far too dominant to ever make us believe that she'd be waiting around for anyone.

I spent most of the running time of "Flamingo Road" just begging Crawford to cut loose and be the ball breaker that she so clearly was, but the movie never lets her. She does get some moments where her character asserts herself, and even gets to shoot someone, but always in a dithery, swooning kind of way, as if she finds some gumption against all of her natural instincts. That ain't the Joan Crawford I came for.

Sydney Greenstreet gives a sweaty, odious performance as this film's bad guy, and man is he bad. Zachary Scott plays a cad, and Gladys George is a welcome presence but has far too little screen time as owner of a saloon. Now if George and Crawford ever teamed up and decided to take what they wanted, watch out. It would be like Thelma and Louise decades before "Thelma and Louise."

Grade: B.

I find it amusing to see Joan at her age playing a carny cooch dancer. Notice that she is dressed in black when you first see her, so your eyes immediately travels to her swinging & swaying. (do you serve fries with that shake?) This is not the first time she has progressed from waitress wedgies to alligator pumps in a movie. She falls for a local "Johnny law," only to incur the wrath of the town's mayor, played by Sydney Greenstreet, who resemble a scrotum with legs. His laugh is something you'd hear on an obscene phone call. He doesn't like poor Joan & gives her a hard time at every turn. I like Gladys George as Lute Mae. the owner of a local road house (read as "brothel in disguise), who doesn't take guff from anyone. It's fun to watch, predictable, but fun.

Carnival girl Joan Crawford (looking pretty damn good for 45) settles in a small town. She falls in love with deputy sheriff Zachary Scott--but corrupt head sheriff Sydney Greenstreet wants her gone. He frames Crawford on prostitution and she's sent to jail. She gets out and is determined to get her revenge on Greenstreet...

The plot is kind of silly (and VERY rushed at the end) but I liked this movie. It's well-directed by Michael Curtiz and looks just beautiful--very elaborate. Warner Bros. obviously spent a lot of money on this one. When you get right down to it it's basically a soap opera--but a fun one!

Crawford gives one of her best performances. In reality she's too old for the role but she doesn't look it! You can't take your eyes off her when she's on screen. Scott is stuck with a colorless role. Also David Brian shows up as a politician and he's very good. And Gladys George shines as an owner of a "roadhouse". The big disappointment here is Greenstreet--he's just terrible! He's stone-faced throughout (he can't even register surprise in one crucial scene), looks very ill (but he was 70, overweight and diabetic) and slurs most of his dialogue which makes him appear drunk. He's very evil but his empty performance weighs the film down.

Still, worth seeing for Crawford alone. Easily one of her best.

Harem dancer with a traveling carnival stays behind in a lumber town after the caravans are forced to pack up and run; she's got three dollars in her purse and isn't about to run from anybody! Luckily a pliable, well-meaning deputy takes an interest in the girl and gets her a job waiting tables, but their romance is spoiled by his superior, a crooked, back-stabbing sheriff with political ties. Robert and Sally Wilder's play becomes florid, engrossing vehicle for Joan Crawford, providing the tough, mercurial star with another of her great, gritty roles from this sumptuous era. Crawford may be a little mature for a cheesecake dancer, but she acquits herself well with this overheated, overwrought scenario. Sydney Greenstreet sweats and grunts imposingly enough as Sheriff Titus (who calls all his cohorts "Bub"), while Zachary Scott and David Brian are the well-cast men in Crawford's love life. Brian, in particular, matches up extremely well with the ballsy broad from across the tracks; he doesn't go in for a lot of nonsense--and she doesn't give him any. The editing in the opening is sloppy (showing us a clip of a scene that takes place later) and Max Steiner's melodramatic score is too emphatic with the shuddery notes (when Brian takes a sip from a whiskey sour, the strings rise and fall as if this were an Agatha Christie mystery). The picture certainly isn't art, though it's quite enjoyable on a camp level and Crawford is always worth a look. **1/2 from ****

Lurid, over the top melodrama with Crawford giving a tough, spirited performance against wonderful opponent Sydney Greenstreet, theirs is a terrificly malevolent chemistry. They pretty much wipe everybody else off the screen except for Gladys George in a sharp cameo. Joan is right on the cusp here between true A pictures, which this is, and a series of films that would be Joan Crawford Vehicles with little room for anything or anybody else. From this point on there would be few forays outside a clearly defined formula, but one that worked for her for many years. So enjoy her as a tough carny girl before she calcified into the grand lady.

Here is Joan Crawford, Sydney Greenstreet, Director Michael Curtiz, and Composer Max Steiner in a Watchable Mishmash of Politics and Sociology Combined with Soap Opera and Intrigue.

There is some Snappy Dialog and the Film Looks Stunning in the Director's Usual Visual Style. Crawford, still Hanging On to a Mid-Twenties Role, Effortlessly Throws Barbs while Mesmerizing any Men Within Range (call it suspension of disbelief).

With Greenstreet at His Slimy Best as the most Corrupt of Sheriffs there is a lot of Backstabbing and Blackmail. But by the End the Political Positioning gets so Convoluted it Hardly Matters and the Movie Collapses Under the Weight of all that Stuff that was Thrown Up there On the Screen.

But Overall, there is Enough Entertainment Value to Keep Things Interesting and it is Worth a Watch for Joan Crawford Fans as this was a Transition Period where She Soon would Give In and Play Roles at Least Closed to Her Own Age and Accept that She was not Ageless and it Took More than Sheer Will to make it Work.

After several good and very good movies at Warner, Joan Crawford starred in this worn out JC's formula picture. The story of Lane Bellamy, a former carnival dancer who marries a wealthy man and is persecuted by a bully politician, is nothing but a dreadful imitation of the old carachters she' s been playing at MGM. Someone can call it camp, but it's just pure trash. It's a picture ahead of its time, meaning that you can only see such rubbish in the worst Brazilian "telenovelas" nowadays. Not to mention the fact that being in her early forties by that time, she was supposed to play a twenty something young woman. Poor Joan, if she only had waited one year or two, she could have learned from William Holden that " there is nothing tragic about being fifty, unless you want to be twenty five"