Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Helllins It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

jacobs-greenwood This is an unusual romance drama with musical numbers that features Joan Crawford (in Technicolor!) in a role that couldn't have been too hard for her to play – a difficult to work with, abrasive, headstrong star that alienates everyone around her on a personal and professional level … at least until she meets someone who reads her all too well and won't put up with her antics.The 'twist' in this one is that the man who 'sees' her for what she is – a frightened stage musical starlet who lashes out at others because of her loneliness – is a blind man who was formerly an art critic played by Michael Wilding.Directed by Charles Walters, who received his only recognition from the Academy (a Best Director nomination) that same year for Lili (1953), it's a story that was written by I.A.R. Wylie and adapted by John Michael Hayes and Jan Lustig. Marjorie Rambeau (Primrose Path (1940)), who plays Crawford's devoted yet financially dependent mother received her second Best Supporting Actress nomination.Gig Young plays Jenny Stewart's (Crawford) attractive boy toy; he drinks to salve his situation. Harry Morgan plays her long suffering stage director, and Paul Guilfoyle is Jenny's frequently abused agent.Crawford's singing voice was dubbed by India Adams and the most memorable musical numbers include a dance sequence "Two-Faced Woman" (with all the performers in blackface) that was originally intended for Cyd Charisse in The Band Wagon (1953) and a rendition of "Tenderly". Maidie Norman plays Jenny's assistant, the only one who seems to have a tolerable relationship with Jenny until pianist Tye Graham (Wilding) cracks her tough exterior.

adamshl This may not be the greatest romantic drama with music ever made, but it does have its assets. The main one is that this is almost a one-woman show starring Joan Crawford.The Technicolor is gorgeous, the music tuneful, choreography pleasant and as for the costumes--all that can be said is "wow!" Helen Rose outdid herself in designing Crawford's wardrobe--some two dozen costume changes that are simply stunning. Likewise, the cinematography and set decoration are lush and richly presented.As for the script, it's all Crawford's. Never has she been as irritable, insulting, moody and yet strangely vulnerable. She lip syncs to some pleasant numbers, and does a dance with the director of this movie, Charles Walters. (When did a star ever do a number with her director?) Joan looks very attractive throughout, obviously delighted to be back at MGM after a ten-year hiatus.It's a very campy treat for Crawford fans, to see Joan strut her stuff. Michael Wilding plays his part gracefully and Gig Young is among those on the sidelines. Generally a forgotten film, it's worth a look on a rainy afternoon.

Fred_Rap Seminal Joan Crawford campfest. Returning to her home studio after a ten-year exile at Warners, she celebrates her triumph with all the pomp and circumstance of a battle-hardened legion entering Rome after a decade in the field. Single-handedly, she turns this moth-eaten meller into an audacious display of venom-spewing bitchery and vainglorious posturing.In a story tailor-made for the occasion, La Crawford plays a hard-as-nails Broadway diva with a ruthless tongue and a flaming orange helmet of hair. We are asked to believe that beating beneath her tyrannical front is the love-starved heart of a lonely woman. And we are supposed to root for her to tumble for the blind and gentle pianist (Michael Wilding) who won't take her guff. This is impossible, of course, since we are too busy either laughing derisively or gawking in slack-jawed disbelief at Crawford's gargantuan ego run amok.The opening scene, in which Torch Song director Charles Walters performs a cameo as Crawford's cowering dance partner, seems to reflect the truth behind the making of the movie. We get the creepy feeling that Walters, fearful of Joan's wrath, just stepped back and let his aging star run this sideshow. How else to explain the unchecked excess of Crawford's costumes (especially her garish yellow nightgown-cum-muumuu), her eye-popping penthouse digs (where the bedroom windows come with three, count 'em, three sets of drapes), or the song and dance numbers in which she flaunts her legs like a ten-dollar hooker and even lip-syncs a tune in blackface? It's a treasure trove of Crawfordisms for drag queens and freak show enthusiasts alike: See Joan clean lint from the floor, dismiss gigolos with the wave of a cigarette, nitpick over line readings with her devoted secretary, offer apologies to her victims that seem crueler than her insults. Scarier than "Strait-Jacket" and twice as much ghoulish fun.With Marjorie Rambeau, hilariously salty as Joan's crude stage mother, and Gig Young as her affable paid lover.

mukava991 What makes this tepidly received 1953 romantic melodrama with music watchable in the 21st century is primarily Joan Crawford who, by this time, was at the zenith of her screen acting powers. In the 1950s she played a succession of formidable middle-aged dames who had maintained their good looks despite years of character-building hard knocks. But at the core of all of these creatures was a tender and easily broken heart and the plots of most of Joan's 1950s films explore the way this tender heart is exposed through love.Second in appeal is the color scheme. It was not unusual for 1950s Hollywood commercial fare to feature brilliant, even garish, colors in order to entice viewers away from the little boxes of black-and-white in their living rooms. Seen through the lens of more than half a century, these schemes look bizarre, even ridiculous, but create their own fascination. This is one of those super-saturated works that can hold the attention just to see which crazy color combination will appear in the next scene.