KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

robert-temple-1 Well here goes Joan Crawford being passionate, and wearing high-heeled shoes as she walks along a California beach, with each step stabbing the sand with intensity, just to let us know how much her relationship with romantic hunk of the time, Jeff Chandler, really means to her. In the fifties, when the producers wanted melodrama, they really laid it on thick, and the audiences loved it, because they did not yet have television soaps to get stuck into. In this film, Joan Crawford is genuinely hard to get, but when she falls, she really falls. Jeff Chandler does a very good job of acting in this film where he plays a scheming toy boy who marries older women for their money, and has accomplices who facilitate and fund his predations. Usually, Chandler got less demanding roles in films, and had less chance to show acting skills other than being manly. Joan Crawford is truly in her element here and plays it for all it is worth, and more. Jan Sterling is very good playing a hard-bitten real estate agent who is more than she seems, and whose crush on Chandler has, like the storyline, gone way over the top. Everybody must have had a lot of fun making this kitsch picture. And Chandler seems to have survived repeatedly kissing Joan Crawford without having his tongue bitten off. I suppose her mind was really on her swishy skirts. Joseph Pevney directed, immediately after directing Jeff Chandler opposite Jane Russell in FOXFIRE, an interesting film which made a much bigger hit with the public in 1955 than this one did. Two years later, Pevney would direct perhaps his biggest hit of all, the now-forgotten but then dearly loved TAMMY AND THE BACHELOR (1957), starring Debbie Reynolds.

Stephen Finley I am of fan of cinema. I especially love old movies. Actress Joan Crawford had the foresight to keep reinventing herself and stayed on the screen for an amazing 50 years! To me she was the truest movie star in that sense, and a darn good actress in some films. She was magnificent in "Rain" and good in "Grand Hotel". Later on, she shone in some others like "The Women" and of course in "Mildred Pierce." (She was NOT among the Top 10 best actresses by any means, but I would put her in the Top 20.)HOWEVER "Female on the Beach" cannot be taken seriously from beginning to end, and it was not meant to be, just like any Douglas Sirk movie. The dialog is totally so unrealistic and hilarious, perhaps unintentionally so. All the acting is overwrought, and the plot is so unbelievable. Add a dash of Natalie Schaefer with a little dog in her purse and later with a monosyllabic body-builder Ed Fury on her arm at the end of the film. Who could ask for more?! "Female on the Beach" is actually my favorite film of all time. So how do I vote for such delightful grade "A" trash? By giving it a "10", of course!

MartinHafer By the early to mid-1950s, Joan Crawford should have considered stopping playing the same roles she might have gotten away with earlier in her career. In other words, she was simply too old to be believable as the sexy leading lady she was portrayed as in several of these films. This soap opera-style movie was a prime example of this, as she was paired with a much younger-looking Jeff Chandler,...and when she appeared in gorgeous gowns and bathing suits, it just seemed very forced and unbelievable. She was 51 and Chandler was in his late 30s. This role should have been played by a woman at least 10 years younger. But, apart from that, the movie is a pretty pedestrian effort--nothing particularly outstanding one way or the other. Passable at best.

tamstrat I have to say, Joan Crawford is THE queen of camp without a doubt. This trashy little gem showcases Joan at her campy best in this her midlife career.She plays Lynne Markham, a rich widow who moves to the beach house she has never seen that was owned by her late husband. She moves into a mess, the previous tenant, a lonely rich woman who couldn't handle her booze or the sleazy beach bum, Drummond played by iron jawed, steel haired Jeff Chandler, died under mysterious circumstances. Did she commit suicide or did she have a little help? Joan emotes shamelessly in this tawdry soap. She swoons, flares her nostrils, almost passes out as Drummond savagely paws her, this borders on rape and Joan's character absolutely LOVES IT!!!! She spits out such classic lines as "You're about as friendly as a suction pump" with a completely straight face. What a hoot!!!! The storyline is a camp classic, the rich, lonely widows who succumb to the wiles of Drummond and the con artist neighbors, played by Natalie Schaefer and Cecil Kellaway and the beautiful Realtor played by Jan Sterling all mix together for a movie to die for. It is a must see for all Crawford fans. At this stage of her career she had become a phenomenon, a steel rose, the makeup and hair becoming more surreal and harsh the older she got, amazing, transfixing. You have to see it to believe it.