... the shock being a blackface number in the 1950's, but I'll get back to that later. This was made after Joan was released from Warner Brothers and was her first film back at MGM after Louis Mayer fired her, and so many other of the first generation MGM actresses, in 1943.
Oh, Joan, Joan - Did you not have somebody - a close friend or long time associate - who looked at the script and looked at the studio MGM, which at this point was going down like the Titanic with a song in its heart, and could tell you this entire thing is poorly conceived? I guess not. But at least she did have good roles after this. This film could have sunk a lesser actress.
The film is about a show built around actress Jenny Stewart (Joan Crawford) who is an absolute nightmare. She is sometimes late to rehearsal with no apology, she drives an unseen pianist to drink and out of the show, she browbeats her dance partner, she is generally just rude and witchy with a capital B to everyone, and yet none of this is ever explained. She loves the fans and the theater yet inexplicably dislikes dogs. The dogs return the sentiment. And THIS is our protagonist?
So normally, this is where, in a good film, I notice the little errors such as the words "POSITIVELY NO SMOKING" written on the back wall of the rehearsal stage. And then less than five minutes later everybody lights up. But I have bigger fish to fry here.
So the jist of this film is about the slightly effete, blind British pianist played by Michael Wilding who replaces the one she drove out of the show and how he loves her - because he can remember what she looked like before he was blind???? In spite of the fact that she walks all over him ? And nothing in witnessing her up close and personal changes that for him? This is it. That is pretty much all the film is about. It is punctuated by Joan's badly dubbed musical numbers including the best song in the film "Two Faced Woman" in blackface?? In fact the entire cast is in blackface for this number. Now it is more Carmen Jones than Mandingo. And there are points for the diamonds on the eyebrows. And the song itself has no racial undertones, but still. At this point in time? Yikes! What makes it doubly mystifying is that Joan's character has an African American secretary whom she treats well - one of the few people that she does treat well - and this relationship is introduced early in the film. So it's progressive and yet regressive at the same time.
What is good about it? Well I'd give it a 4/10 if it were not for the production values - they are weird yet wonderful. Plus, you've got some great character bits from Marjorie Rambeau as Joan's whiskey drinking mom, Gig Young as a lounge lizard/ pretty boy, and Harry Morgan as a sardonic stage director. And at age 49 Joan still has a wonderful figure. Interesting point about Rambeau - she was going to play opposite Joan in "This Modern Age"(1931) but got replaced by Pauline Frederick.
If you do decide to watch this, you will not be bored.
