Flamingo Road

"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.

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.

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")

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.

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.