Le Scandale Costello

Joan Crawford looked back on The Story of Esther Costello as her last "really top" movie and remarked that if she had earned her Oscar for Mildred Pierce, she should have gotten "two" for Esther Costello. Perhaps one each for the dramatic arches of her eyebrows, which by this stage of her career were pencilled in with such savage abandon that they could have spanned the wide Missouri.

The grim determination she brought to every role at this late stage in her career remains tauter than ever. As a wealthy American visiting her birthplace in Ireland, she is nudged by the local Padre to look in on poor Esther (Heather Sears), a girl rendered blind and deaf by the explosion of a grenade left over from the "troubles." and living in squalid poverty. Of course Crawford takes Esther back to America, where she finds her the best schools for those similarly afflicted. Soon, the heart-wrenching tale reaches the press, at the same time luring Crawford's long-lost husband (Rossano Brazzi) out of the hole he's been hiding in.

Implausibly, Crawford falls for him all over again, and succumbs to his grandiose schemes for national and European fund-raising rallies for the "Esther Costello Fund," a racket for his self-aggrandizement. He also drinks a lot and starts stealing peeks at the blind Esther slipping in and out of her clothes. (She's busting out of the schoolgirlish frocks and ribbons she's given to dress in.)

Along happens a young reporter who's also smitten with Esther but who starts suspecting that the racket is not on the up and up. From then on it's a race to see whether Brazzi's financial chicanery or his unhealthy interest catches up with him. Crawford does, however, and ends the melodrama a la Thelma Jordon.

The distinctive and responsive score is by Georges Auric, and Jack Clayton gets an odd credit that suggests he had more to do with the movie than its nominal director. The story is certain offbeat and interesting enough, but its social comment invariably defers to the lures of heavy melodrama. The film reaches a crescendo when Brazzi learns that Esther has been left alone; he slithers to her bedside while thunder crashes and the French doors blow open to let a torrent of rain into the room...You get the picture. It's the kind of touch that's effective to watch but which undermines any claim to a serious exploration of the unusual subject matter. It's that kind of literal heavy-handedness that led Lenny Bruce to devise an irreverent (and very funny) routine on this movie's story line.

The first part is the most interesting : it may reminds you of Montgomery Clift , as a private taking in a young child and teaching him English to communicate with him at the end of WW2 ("the search");most likely Anne Bancroft (Annie Sullivan) and her pupil Patty Duke (Helen Keller )in Arthur Penn's masterpiece "the miracle worker"(which had not been yet made) .

They hint at Helen Keller and this fictitious story may have been partly inspired by her real story ;Helen Keller spent her whole life helping her fellow men,collecting funds to create schools ,a true heroine of the last century.

But ,as soon as Mrs Landi's '(Crawford) husband (Rossano Brazzi ) appears , it's downhill all the way ;acting becomes pure camp and the story is guaranteed to net nothing but horse laughs .Only Heather Sears ,the ugly duckling turned into a swan , preserves her dignity ;an extra star fo her.

This not always believable story is really riveting after a slow start, and a cheesy development but the second part is really worth...Some elements in this plot could remind MIRACKE WORKER, which has a total different plot. I did not remember of this feature directed by David Miller, and I don't think it is that widely known either; such a shame. I also thought it was inspired by true events, and not a novel. But who cares? Because I loved MIRACLE WORKER - again - I am glad to have discovered this film for the second time; how could I forget it? Joan Crawford has here a role that suits her so much.

Certainly this is one of Joan Crawford's best movies. She beautiful in the dated "Grand Hotel." She really acts in "The Women." She's fine in the high melodrama of "Possessed." She's very good in "Mildred Pierce." And "Sudden Fear" is a fine noir.

Apart from Ms. Crawford, for the moment, we have the plot: A child in Ireland is in a terrible accident, in which her mother dies. She becomes blind and deaf and loses the ability to speak as a result of the trauma. This, by the way, is the title character, not Ms. Crawford. That was also rare in her career and maybe a first here.

As someone very knowledgeable about the blind, I give this a very high rating. This is only a personal feeling but I prefer it to the famous "Miracle Worker," which to me is overwrought and, though based on a true life, not very accurate.

"The Story of Esther Costello" is accurate. The scenes at the school on Long Island to which Crawford takes Esther, well played by Heather Sears, are believable. The Braille is well researched, as are other aspects of her learning.

As Esther grows up, she becomes a very pretty young m=woman. Without giving away the plot, she is abused and raped. This is sadly still true of the lives of blind woman and women with other disabilities. They are taken advantage of by parents and other relatives, by schoolmates, and very often by spouses. The same is true, to a lesser degree, of disabled men.

Make no mistake: This is no arid treatise. It has its campy moments, as well as its legitimately exciting ones. Among the former are Crawford's swank no matter where she is and the irony of her becoming a sort of foster mother here in light of later revelations by her own daughter.

This is a painful movie but a very fine one.

Very strange and violent tale of a lonely wife (Joan Crawford) who travels the world seeking some meaning because her estranged husband (Rossano Brazzi) has abandoned her. In the Irish village of her birth, a local priest steers her toward a girl who was traumatized in an explosion. The girl is blind and deaf and lives like an animal with a local hag. Crawford decides to try to help the girl but becomes attached and takes her to America.

Part "Miracle Worker" and part "Elmer Gantry" (this film predates both), "The Story of Esther Costello" wavers between instructional (how to teach the blind- deaf) and exploitive (how to bilk the public). An odd film for 1957 and Crawford's last starring film of the 50s. She wouldn't return to the screen until "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Well 53-year-old Crawford looks great and turns in a solid performance. Brazzi plays the snaky husband who turns out to be much more rotten than you'd guess. Heather Sears plays Esther as though she is a disciple of Jennifer Jones as Bernadette. Ron Randell is good as the crabby press agent; Lee Patterson is good as the boy friend; Bessie Love (one of Crawford's silent-film pals from 1920s MGM) is funny as a gallery patron; Fay Compton plays the head nun; Dennis O'Dea is the priest; Estelle Brody plays Tammy; John Loder is a friend. Good cast in a solid but too-long film.

The violent ending is quite jarring and unexpected.