Rivalry & Racism Fuel ‘In This Our Life’ 1942

Bette Davis & Olivia de Havilland cast, in order, as a sexy sister & her dull sibling. OK!

Often dismissed as an over-baked Bette Davis melodrama, In this Our Life was actually based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Ellen Glasgow.

In This Our Life is a southern dysfunction drama, with a strong racism subplot—a point of pride for Virginia writer Glasgow. In The Little Foxes genre, the family drama depicts the aggressive characters dominating the weak. The subplot shows the same entitled folks imposing their will over powerless blacks.

Sibling rivalry takes on a new dimension WB's 'In This Our Life.'

Bette Davis is Stanley Timberlake, a frantic flirt, who steals the husband of her sister Roy (Olivia De Havilland)—yes, they have male names. Stanley dumps her own fiancé, Craig, and runs off with Peter. Roy consents to a divorce, and then Stanley marries the aspiring doctor. She drives Peter to drink, and he kills himself, in record time. The family takes Stanley back, especially at the prodding of her lecherous uncle, William Fitzroy, who has incestuous designs on Stanley.

Dennis Morgan's doc is about to leave his 'plain,' sensible wife (De Havilland) for her sister!

Bette Davis is the sexy sister who brings out the beast in men!

This soap froths to a head when Stanley wants her old boyfriend back, who is now with Roy. Maybe WB should have called this movie All in the Family. Stanley’s chaos climaxes when she gets stood up by Craig at a bar, and then tipsily roars off in her car. She runs down a mother and her little girl, the latter of whom dies. Stanley tries to blame a young black man, Parry, the son of their family maid. Everyone believes Stanley, despite her erratic driving history. Yet, the proof is too hard to hide, especially when Stanley is her own worst enemy. The former boyfriend confronts her, which sends Stanley on one last joyride. Let’s just say that Bette shouldn’t overact and drive!

Bette Davis as Stanley Timberlake, trying her darn best to look super feminine!

Here's Bette in the next scene, driving the menfolk wild!

What overrides In This Our Life is Bette Davis—but not in a good way. Davis is 33 and plays a sociopathic but sexy belle. Even at the time, Bette admitted she was too old for the part. Plus, Bette was not beguilingly beautiful, as when Vivien Leigh or Elizabeth Taylor played southern belles. Davis credited her WB team—Orry-Kelly’s frilly dresses, Perc Westmore’s mask-like kewpie doll makeup, and Maggie Donovan for her girly hairdo. They would perform the same camouflage two years later with Davis on Mr. Skeffington. Bette freely admitted she was not a great beauty, but could give the illusion thereof, with their cosmetic and her acting skills. Bette might have gotten by in this ruse if Olivia De Havilland hadn’t been cast as her sister—the plain sister, to boot! As any classic movie watcher knows, Livvy was lovely; at 25, De Havilland was also eight years younger than Bette. Olivia’s subdued ‘do and duds made her looks as understated as her acting—which made Davis look even more cartoonish and over the top.

Bette's above barroom scene plays like a preview of this!

At times, Bette’s deranged doll looks like a dress rehearsal for Young Baby Jane. There’s even a drunken car accident that gets covered up! Olivia is warm, bright, gentle, human, and subtle; Bette shouts half her lines, pops her eyes like an angry owl, and uses her favorite acting trick, a higher pitched speaking voice to sound more youthful. Plus, she’s the only one who affects a southern accent in the film. So, Bette’s character is a standout… seemingly from another movie! Despite Davis’ overdone dramatics, Bette gets big credit for playing a racist character, without any qualifying sop to make Stanley more “sympathetic.”

John Huston caught in the middle between Olivia De Havilland, who he was smitten with,
and competitive Bette Davis, who he was probably afraid of!

Why on earth did WB assign alpha male directors John Huston and then Raoul Walsh to this women-dominated drama? Huston later wrote that he allowed Bette to “let the demon out”—big mistake! Walsh took over toward the end of shooting, so Huston could report for duty to the government’s war department. No-nonsense Walsh instantly clashed with diva Davis.

Charles Coburn as creepy Uncle William & Bette as niece Stanley. Davis pops her eyes more than Audrey Totter in Robert Montgomery's 'Lady in the Lake!'

There is some fine character support by Frank Craven and Billie Burke as the ineffectual Timberlake parents, and Burke’s overwrought character at least indicates who Davis’ Stanley takes after! There’s an especially wicked performance by Charles Coburn as the scheming, greedy, and pervy Uncle Fitzroy.  Only de Havilland comes off well, of the four younger leads. Peter and Craig are played by mild-mannered actors Dennis Morgan and George Brent, which means that bad Bette knocks them over like bowling pins. Bette is so bananas as Stanley, that Olivia is the only one who comes off like a recognizable human being.

This line from Hattie indicates that Olivia takes after the plain side of the family!

Sadly, the racial subplot rings true, but stays in the background. Though toned down from the book, WB gets credit for accurately portraying the racial injustice toward the young man. This film was made in the rah-rah war years, when it would have been easy to just dump the racial storyline. Hattie McDaniel is Minerva, the boy’s mother and the Timberlake’s maid, who appears at the beginning and end of the In This Our Life. McDaniel is believable and natural always, and gets to perform without the “Mammy” persona.

Olivia's Roy encourages Ernest Anderson's Parry to better himself.

Here’s an exchange between Roy and Parry, who tries to help better himself. Mind you, this movie was made nearly 80 years ago:

Roy: What made you decide to become a lawyer?

Parry: Well, you see, it's like this, Miss Roy. A white boy, he can take most any kind of job and improve himself. Well, like in this store! Maybe he can get to be a clerk or a manager. But a colored boy, he can't do that. He can keep a job or he can lose a job. But he can't get any higher up. So he's got to figure out something he can do that no one can take away. And that's why I want to be a lawyer.

Roy: Why, Perry, that's wonderful. I had no idea. Minerva never told me.

Parry: Ma's afraid for a colored boy to have too much ambition.

Davis' Stanley uses wiles & white privilege to get Parry (Ernest Anderson) to take the rap.
George Brent ain't buyin' Bette's bull.

Bette Davis & Ernest Anderson reunited on 'Baby Jane,' where Davis once again is on lam in a flashy car!

Another Bette Davis plus is that she’s the one who got newcomer Ernest Anderson the role in Life, and insisted he be allowed to play Parry without stereotype. After this film, Anderson served in WWII. Unfortunately, when Ernest resumed his acting career after the war, he could only play bit parts. One bright note: Anderson appeared again with Davis, as Ernie, the ice cream guy, who sells her ice cream at the beach, in the finale of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Ernest Anderson could only get bit parts after his stint in WWII. Here he is in 'Baby Jane.'

In retrospect, In this Our Life is an uneven film, where the subplot is more skillfully realized than the main story. Also, unlike other melodramas where Bette plays a baddie, this movie is too serious to be enjoyed as campy fun. If you do watch, enjoy the upsides of Life, which is sensitive work by Olivia De Havilland and Ernest Anderson.

Heaven help the misters, who gets between these sisters!

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Christmas in Connecticut 1945

The softer side of Barbara Stanwyck is on full display as a lifestyle writer whose faux
 perfect life inspires a soldier in 1945's feel-good "Christmas in Connecticut."

You know why I think movie fans have a soft spot for the 1945 romantic comedy Christmas in Connecticut? Because we all want to live in that lovely country home! So what if it’s only a set? As 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon likes to say: “I want to go to there!”

Christmas in Connecticut is no It’s a Wonderful Life, but I still enjoy watching this war time Warner Brothers’ comedy every holiday season—it’s fast-paced fun, and filled with a great cast of stars and character actors.

If all the world's a sound stage, I'd like it to look like the set of 'Christmas in Connecticut!'

A rescued navy hero, Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan) wishes to have Christmas with all the trimmings at home. Not just any home, but the country Connecticut cottage of Martha Stewart-esque writer Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) and her family. This also inspires Lane’s boss, Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet), that he invites himself along, too. One problem…okay, several: Lane lives in a NYC apartment, is single, has no children, and can’t cook!

Dennis Morgan as the navy hero with food and romance on his mind.

Lane’s sort-of boyfriend, John Sloan, is an architect and offers his awesome abode to carry out the charade of Lane as queen of country living. Sloan also uses this opportunity to propose marriage. They bring Lane’s Uncle Felix, who has been feeding her all the recipes for her column, to do the actual cooking.

Well, when soldier Jones meets lifestyle queen Lane, sparks fly and they fall immediately in love. The rest of Christmas in Connecticut is a comedy of errors with Lane and her team trying to pull off the “perfect family” Christmas, with Jones and Yardley wanting to see Lane pull out all “the hostess with the mostess” moves. What ensues is farfetched, frothy fun.

Barbara Stanwyck as the city girl who writes about country living and cooking.

What I really love about Christmas in Connecticut is watching Barbara Stanwyck as no-nonsense but high-spirited Elizabeth Lane. Stanwyck later became renowned for all the tough cookies she played in film noirs and westerns, especially later on The Big Valley. However, in the ‘30s and ‘40s, Stanwyck played well in every genre. I watched Barbara and Henry Fonda in the classic The Lady Eve for the first time recently—and it confirmed what I already knew from Connecticut—that Stanwyck was skilled at comedy.

Writer Lane finds herself falling in love with hero Jones, in 'Christmas.'

Barbara rarely looked better than in Christmas in Connecticut. Unlike some movie divas, Stanwyck, while golden era glamorous, looked like a real person: simple make up, hair that actually moved, and clothes by Edith Head that looked like they didn’t belong to a drag queen.

I never thought much about Dennis Morgan until I saw him in1943’s The Hard Way this year on TCM. Morgan put a bit of an edge to his usual charm and it played well. In Connecticut, as the navy hero on the mend, Morgan is a charmer, all twinkling eyes and dimpled grin. Not hard to see why he was a wartime favorite!

To see Sydney Greenstreet, one of WB’s great movie villains, in a comedy, always throws me off. I always expect to see Stanwyck go into tough grrrl mode and butt heads with ominous Greenstreet. Here, Greenstreet’s got game as the increasingly confused magazine mogul Yardley.

S.Z. Sakall shows Barbara how to do the "flippety-flop" to show off her skills!

A special shout-out to S.Z. “Cuddles” Sakall as Uncle Felix. Sakall was one of Warners’ great character actors and he really steals the show here. Sakall is such fun as the Hungarian chef who can barely keep up with the pretense taking place. What I find touching about watching Sakall is that he’s so endearingly funny, yet in real life, he was a European refugee from Hitler’s regime. Sakall lost three sisters, his niece, and his wife’s brother and sister to the concentration camps. Talk about a trouper.

Dennis Morgan at the height of his boyish appeal as hero Jefferson Jones

The rest of the cast is stellar: Reginald Gardiner as dull boyfriend Sloane, Una O’Conner as the touchy housekeeper, Joyce Compton as southern comforting nurse Mary Lee, and funny characters right down to the bit parts. Watch Christmas in Connecticut, nostalgic, yet poking knowing fun at the attempts to create a “perfect” Christmas.

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If all the world's a stage, why can't I get better lighting, like these two great stars? See top of this shot!

'The Hard Way': Marvelous WB Melodrama 1943

Ida Lupino & Joan Leslie: "Lord help the sister that comes between me and my man!"

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I watched The Hard Way, a 1943 Warner Bros. showbiz saga, for the first time recently.  Starring Ida Lupino, the Vincent Sherman-directed drama is a surprisingly tough film for Hollywood’s golden era. Perhaps that hardness is why it's not as well remembered as Mildred Pierce or other “women's pictures.”

De-glamourized WB dolls Lupino and Leslie plotting their way out of poverty.

The opening flashback scenes are gritty and authentic. “Greenhill” is a stand-in for every USA Midwestern industrial town. No MGM version of poor folk at working class WB in The Hard Way. As sisters Helen and Katie, Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie are make-up free and dressed-down dowdy in the film’s early scenes. Helen’s harried husband Jack is a decent man, burnt out as a miner, with no patience for their dreams of better things. Guess how long he’s in the picture?

Jack Carson and Dennis Morgan, teamed for the first time here, are travelling entertainers Albert Runkel and Paul Collins. Carson’s Albert comes off nearly as green as starry-eyed Katie, while Morgan’s Paul is the slick-talking player. Albert is taken both by Katie both professionally and personally; Collins does not want any souvenirs from their tour stops. This time, however, the easy-going Runkel prevails. Katie, with older sis Helen as manager, joins their act. And that’s when The Hard Way truly earns its title.

The film’s framing of the successful but suicidal woman's tale, told in flashback, was later lifted by Mildred Pierce. The older woman, who projects her ambitions onto the younger woman, is also echoed in Pierce. The Hard Way, based on a short story by Irwin Shaw, came out the same year as the James M. Cain novel, Mildred Pierce.

Ida Lupino is fierce as Helen, a working class woman who claws her way up.

WB queen bee Bette Davis turned down the role of Helen, which she later regretted. As Lupino was a decade younger than Davis, this was better casting, since Bette was 17 years older than Joan Leslie. If the roles were mother-daughter, Davis or especially, Joan Crawford, would have been great as the grasping Helen. Storywise, it might have made sense if they had, since it was rumored that the characters were based on Ginger Rogers and her legendarily scary stage mother, Lela. Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie were well-suited for the roles. Both came from theatrical families, so they were familiar with stage life. Lupino’s family had roots in theatre that dated back centuries. Leslie, starting as a child, was part of a vaudeville sister act. Joan sang, danced, did impersonations, and even played the accordion.

As the ruthless stage sister, Ida Lupino is just as no-holds-barred as Bette Davis at her best. But during the war years, the Academy Awards seemed to prefer uplift. Much was made of the fact that Lupino got a New York Film Critics Circle award but no Oscar nomination. Considering that perennial WB nominee Davis didn’t make the cut that year for her hits, Old Acquaintance or Watch on the Rhine, Lupino should have been a shoo-in. However, that year's Oscars lauded Jennifer Jones, Greer Garson, and Ingrid Bergman, all starring in glossy uplift: The Song of Bernadette, Madame Curie, and For Whom the Bells Toll. Joan Fontaine and Jennifer Jones, both in their mid-20s, played dreamy-eyed 14-year-olds in Bernadette and The Constant Nymph. (Jean Arthur’s comedic The More the Merrier was the fifth nominee). No room for Ida's gritty, unsentimental performance in this group!

Joan Leslie was only 17 when she played Katie, from schoolgirl to great star.

Usually ingénues who played sweet in Hollywood’s golden age were gooey. Joan Leslie is warm and sympathetic, a dramatic contrast to Ida’ Lupino’s lone wolf sister. Noteworthy too, in these showbiz sagas, a starlet is usually played by a well-established star. I recently commented on this, in the various A Star is Born remakes, where the rising stars Gaynor, Garland, Streisand, and Lady Gaga are already in their early 30s. Watching teenager Joan Leslie blossom into a star is striking, especially as Leslie starts going all Lindsay Lohan, rebelling against Lupino’s controlling character.

The Hard Way also features one of Jack Carson's great dramatic performances. In his serious roles, Carson had a laughing on the outside, crying on the inside quality. In The Hard Way, Mildred Pierce, 1954’s A Star is Born, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and The Tarnished Angels, Carson is both funny and sad. Carson’s suicide scene, after his character is given the brush-off by his now-bride Leslie, is both genuinely shocking and moving.

The climb to the top leaves a few casualties along the way. Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, & Lupino.
.

As the ladies man turned one-woman man, this is one of Dennis Morgan's better acting efforts. Harboring a secret crush on Katie, Paul gradually becomes more vocal in his feelings toward her, and in his disdain for hell-on-wheels Helen. One of The Hard Way’s most striking scenes is when Lupino’s Helen lets down her guard and admits her own attraction to Morgan’s Paul. He sarcastically flings his standard pick-up line at her, causing hard-bitten Helen to revert to her stone-cold self.

Gladys George is great as a boozy star egged on by Lupino.

Gladys George has a great cameo as washed up stage star Lily Emery. George has only a few scenes, but she runs the gamut as the drunken diva mowed over by Helen, who offers up starlet sister Katie in her place.

Though The Hard Way has a following for Lupino’s performance, I've noticed certain critics and film fans still knock this movie. Specifically, the criticism is directed at the hardness of Lupino’s character/performance and Joan Leslie's perceived lack of talent.

I think Lupino is fantastic in The Hard Way, but this criticism may tie in with my question: Why didn’t Ida Lupino become a bigger star? She seemed lovely, charismatic, talented, intense, and more. But was Lupino a little too real, rather than larger than life, like Crawford and Davis? Was Lupino to Davis akin to Robert Mitchum when compared to Bogart? Excellent, yet earthbound, rather than mythic? Lupino had Davis’ intensity, but perhaps needed a few hits playing sympathetic roles, like Bette’s Now Voyager and The Great Lie. And Ida’s hard-boiled persona didn’t get the redeeming soft side that Crawford’s hard-edged characters usually did. The Hard Way is like Mildred Pierce, but without the mother love gloss.

Lupino as Helen, now a successful starmaker.

I think Ida’s second best status to Bette couldn’t have helped matters. The big problem perhaps was that Jack Warner seldom did well by his actors. Bette became the studio’s top female star—and film fans know what a battle Davis pitched to get good roles. Also, top star Barbara Stanwyck had a part-time contract with Warner Bros. Then, along came Joan Crawford, making a comeback from MGM. So, popular leading ladies Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, Jane Wyman, and Ann Sheridan were first up for the leftovers. And WB mostly wasted the next tier of younger actresses like Eleanor Parker, Alexis Smith, Lauren Bacall, Patricia Neal, Janis Paige, Dorothy Malone, etc.

So, here’s my shout-out for Joan Leslie, an actress I only knew by name until recently. Detractors of The Hard Way have labeled Leslie as a no-talent. Well, she ain't Judy Garland, but she's a decent musical performer and her acting is just fine. What armchair internet critics don’t realize is that one, Leslie was only 17 here, and second, Joan actually was a popular vaudeville performer. What seems corny today was entertaining back in the day. Think of the more typical musical stars of the time—Ginger Rogers, Eleanor Powell, Ruby Keeler, etc. Or even great Broadway legends like Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, or Carol Channing. They were hugely popular, but not versatile talents. (Yes, I know I’m opening a can of worms here!) What I found most striking about Leslie’s Katie was her vulnerable, appealing performance, with hints of steeliness as she soars to stardom.

Joan Leslie, as Katie, now a star.

Off-screen, Joan Leslie showed some steel, too. Leslie was the third actress to sue Jack Warner in a contract dispute. Bette Davis famously sued Warner Bros. in 1936 to get out of her contract—over bad roles. Davis lost the battle, but won the war, finally getting great parts. Olivia de Havilland sued Warner Bros. in 1944, for having suspensions from turning down roles added on to her contract. Olivia won, and though she didn’t work for two years, soon won two Oscars as an independent actress. Joan Leslie also won her suit with Warner, citing that she was a minor when she signed her contract. However, despite her popularity, her status as a starlet instantly ended. Like Olivia, Leslie claimed Warner blackballed her with other studios. Not unlikely, since Jack Warner was notoriously petty. Yet another popular starlet, Teresa Wright, more trained and versatile, and seven years older, found her expiration date as ingénue was also1946. Wright’s star swiftly diminished after The Best Years of Our Lives.

Looking back at Leslie’s film credits, it’s easy to see why Joan was getting fed up with WB. Joan Leslie started off with such films as High Sierra with Bogart, Sergeant York with Gary Cooper, Yankee Doodle Dandy with Cagney, followed by The Sky’s The Limit with Fred Astaire, The Hard Way with Ida Lupino, and The Male Animal with Olivia de Havilland and Henry Fonda. But by 1946, she was stuck playing characters in frothy comedies with names like Judy Jones and Sally Sawyer. Still in ‘46’s Two Guys from Milwaukee, teamed with Hard Way co-stars Morgan and Carson, Leslie’s appeal was still intact.

When writing movie reviews, I am often reminded of how often film stars, particularly from the golden era, seldom got happy endings off-screen. Well, Joan Leslie did. In 1950, Leslie married a doctor, and had twin daughters. She became a full-time wife and mother, and a part-time actress. Joan enjoyed a 50 year marriage and was proud of her daughters, who became college instructors. Joan Leslie lived to be 90, passing away in 2015.

Jack Carson only has eyes for Leslie. Lupino keeps an eye on Carson!

Vincent Sherman, whose tour of duty as a Warner Bros. director included wrangling Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, considered The Hard Way his most personal work. Sherman felt the story, on the toll that climbing the ladder of fame takes, was a cautionary tale. Viewers of The Hard Way find it either strong stuff or a bitter pill—I think it’s a great example of studio era filmmaking, with both style and substance.

Ida Lupino and Joan Leslie give their personal best in 'The Hard Way.'

Gangsta Gal Joan Crawford is 'Damned' and 'Dangerous'

Warner Bros. workin' that Crawford formula: The age-old question for movie fans of the '40s and '50s!

Joan Crawford shot to stardom as the symbol of flaming youth in 1928’s Our Dancing Daughters. MGM set the standard for many Crawford movies by mixing her own hard luck story into the scripts: the working girl of humble origins that pulls herself up by the bootstraps, overcoming social and sexual bias, to get everything she wants.

When Joan re-booted her career at Warner Brothers, her first starring flick, Mildred Pierce, re-set the boilerplate: Crawford was now the mature working woman from humble origins, ultimately successful, but sidetracked by weak or double-crossing men.

Shady lady Crawford, a crook with a heart!

Near the end of her WB run, Crawford played the shady lady version of the working woman, still pulling herself up by the ankle strap shoes—but by any means necessary.

This brings us to The Damned Don’t Cry! and This Woman is Dangerous, released in 1950 and ’52, respectively. Compared to 1945’s Mildred Pierce, the Crawford formula demonstrated the Hollywood law of diminishing returns. Mildred was Joan’s mid-career triumph, her Oscar winner and biggest money-maker. Five years later, Damned grossed a third of Mildred’s box-office. Just two years later, This Woman is Dangerous made half of what The Damned Don’t Cry! did.

Damned and Dangerous offers about the same quotient of entertainment value compared to Mildred. Are they great films? No. Are they great fun? Yes and no. The Damned Don’t Cry! is a stylish though ridiculous noir. This Woman is Dangerous is strictly for Crawford fans.

A surprisingly de-glammed Joan, a working-class mom in 'The Damned Don't Cry!'

In both melodramas, Joan plays a gangsta gal. In The Damned Don’t Cry!, 40-something Joan is Ethel Whitehead, a housewife of an oil rig worker and mother of a small boy. Already dissatisfied with her lot in life—that name alone!—Ethel makes a quick exit after the boy is run over by a truck. Only in old movies does the star go from housewife to “model” to gangster girlfriend in ten minutes. And what would a latter day Joan Crawford vehicle be without men fussing and fighting over her? After leaving suspiciously younger oil rigger Richard Egan, Ethel enters into a convenient romance with wimpy accountant, WB dull boy Kent Smith. But just one round with a tough gangster, played as usual by David Brian, and Ethel is crazy about the kingpin. Joan is transformed from blah Ethel Whitehead to la-de-da Lorna Hansen Forbes. Brian then gets the bright idea to have Joan’s irresistible “lady” to romance a fellow gangster, WB stud Steven Cochran, to get the goods on him. Guess what? They hit it off! Pretty soon, Brian wants them both bumped off.

Joan & her less than stellar leading men. I chose this photo, because it's a rare shot
of onscreen sourpuss David Brian  (far right) smiling!

The downside for a dynamic movie diva like Joan Crawford is that you often must carry the movie yourself. At MGM, Joan starred opposite all of Metro’s leading men. But once Crawford hit middle age, her leading men were a mixed bag. At WB, Joan started off with John Garfield, Henry Fonda, and Dana Andrews. Then it was down the Hollywood food chain for co-starring actors. Were her pairings with thuggish Richard Egan, Steven Cochran, Jack Palance, and Jeff Chandler intended to soften her? And what about sourpusses like Van Heflin, Wendell Corey, John Ireland, and especially, David Brian? Brian starred in 1949’s Beyond the Forest, as Bette Davis’ allegedly he-man boyfriend. He took up film acting at Joan’s suggestion—I assume she vouched for Brian to Jack Warner. Brian starred opposite Joan three times: Flamingo Road, The Damned Don’t Cry!, and This Woman is Dangerous. With his beady eyes, weak chin, and mouth in a permanent sneer, David Brian was one of the least appealing men to ever grace the silver screen. Perhaps he had hidden talents, as my Dad used to say!

WB stud Steven Cochran, who performed better off-screen!

In Damned, Brian gets replaced in Joan’s affections by greasy Steven Cochran, who looks like a cross between truck driver-era Elvis and a young Jay Leno. Joan’s mid-life leading men were certainly a far cry from Gable, Cooper, and Robert Taylor.

In This Woman is Dangerous, Joan is Elizabeth Austin, a “society woman.” To her fellow gangsters, she’s just plain Beth! Once again, David Brian plays her hot-headed gangsta guy and Joan, his moll. Beth is loyal to the big lug because he was there for her when she got outta the pen. This time around, Joan is going blind and needs an operation. The doctor, played by crooner-turned-comatose Dennis Morgan, is so skilled that he not only restores her vision, but also Joan’s faith in love. The rest of the film is Joan romancing on the down low, while crazy criminal Brian is on the lam. The film’s climax is a shoot out in the hospital’s surgery room—I’m not kidding.

'Damned' Joan as a clothing sellers' 'model' who's a hit with the buyers!

Of the two melodramas, The Damned Don’t Cry! gives Joan a greater character arc. As the poor wife, Joan is even more deglamorized than the opening scenes of Mildred Pierce. Aside from the magnificent sight of seeing the mature Joan Crawford’s great face without all the war paint, her Ethel is genuinely played. As the tough cookie on the way up, Joan’s snappy patter is entertaining and believable. I always thought Joan was more fun on-screen when she played working class women. Once she is “groomed” to be a “lady,” Lorna Hanson Forbes feels like Joan Crawford, the leading lady. Still, it’s fun watching Joan swan around Palm Springs, fending off men and fighting back tears.

Joan with Kent Smith, about to have a showdown with tough guy David Brian.

The Damned Don’t Cry! feels like a mash-up of every WB Joan Crawford movie, whereas This Woman is Dangerous just feels like a mish-mash. Damned has more verve, zingier dialogue, and snappier locations. In Dangerous, many scenes take place in a hospital, hotel room, mobile home, or the doctor’s dull home. Crawford is surprisingly subdued as ‘Beth,’ whether recovering from surgery or trying to talk down her crazy boyfriend. There’s definitely a “B” movie feel to This Woman is Dangerous. Two decades later, Crawford called this the worst film she ever appeared in. I’ve got just one word in response: Trog!  I’ll amend Crawford’s quote: this is the worst movie Joan appeared in under her Warner Brothers contract.

Rumor has it Jack Warner offered 'This Woman is Dangerous'
to veterans Crawford & Dennis Morgan, hoping they'd turn it down.

By the time Jack Warner offered Joan Crawford This Woman is Dangerous, he probably hoped she’d turn it down and go off salary, and Joan realized it was time to roll the career dice again. Crawford’s comeback as an independent wasn’t as memorable as Mildred, but 1953’s Sudden Fear was a modest commercial success from which Joan benefited greatly—and got a third Oscar nomination to boot. From here, Joan played the hot mama romancing surly looking, younger leading men. Crawford then morphed into the tough, middle-aged career woman.

After that, Joan Crawford made one last comeback, when she was the catalyst for 1962’s Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? The surprise suspense hit and follow-up roles, along with performing publicity duties for Pepsi Cola, kept Joan in the public eye for another decade. By the mid-70s, Crawford withdrew from public view, after 50 years of stardom.

'Dangerous' Joan recovers from eye surgery & reading the script!

The Damned Don’t Cry! and This Woman is Dangerous are perfect examples of movie vehicles driven by great stars. And Joan Crawford always drove hers like a champ.

Joan on the set of 'This Woman is Dangerous':
"How do I get outta this picture!"