Flamingo Road

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.

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.

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

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.

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.