Aaah, Joan Crawford (above)! I don't think she ever took a bad picture. Or maybe she did and had the bad ones burned.
John K used this photo in a blog post, and I nearly fell on the floor laughing. Even when she's getting molested by her dog (above), Crawford came off looking good.
She did great angry poses (above).
She was also good at pouty scheming (above).
She had great poise. Gee, I miss that. The last time I saw that in a film was when Michele Yeow (spelled right?) came off that way in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."
Like Garbo and Dietrich she was good at looking bored (above) by the men who were always trying to paw her.
When she liked a guy, though, she throw herself into the experience, laughing at all his jokes, and hanging on his arm. A man in this position had to take a bath in kerosene to get her off. Of course the inevitable day came when she realized she'd fallen out of love and had to murder him.
I hope you're enlarging some of these pictures.
I hope you're enlarging some of these pictures.
She cultivated a neurotic, confident look.
How many women could confidently wear a bosom of flowers (above)?
Crawford looked good in still photography and she had the wisdom to transfer that look to cinema. Maybe she got the idea from silent films, which seemed a little artificial and "stagey" because they took so many of their visual cues from still photography, but which had a powerful graphic impact.
Joan wasn't happy unless she was scheming.
Fortunately in real life she had the relaxation derived from sucking her children's blood....just kidding.
Sometimes her creepy pictures got a bit too creepy. The one above is genuinely scary.
As I said before, Crawford had terrific poise (above). Poise is about more than standing up straight. It has to do with style and character projection.
Even her conversational poses were stylized.
The famous legs (above). Men in the Crawford films always had to compliment them. Was that in her contract?
Crawford may be my favorite actress. You can laugh at her, but she was a great stylist.
25 comments:
Tina! Get me the axe!
You should move to NYC, Uncle Eddie. There are plenty of transvestites here who share your love of Joan Crawford!
Always been a Joan fan. Thanks for the pictures Eddie
I love these pictures! That picture of Christina sucking on Joan's face looks like a metaphor for Joan's later years.
Check this site out, Eddie. It's an archive of Joan's personal correspondence over the years! My favourite letters are the one Joan sent to my favourite actress. I bet you can guess who!
beautiful woman-but i believe she lacked confidence in herself-she had to be the star-very image conscious-if she couldnt be the star then she was nothing, it was all she had and gave it everything. kinda sad actually.
Where to start with this? Oh, never mind.
Seriously though-have you seen the terrific clip from "Torch Song" that's on YT? The one with Joan's original vocal cut in? THAT is priceless, and shows the Crawford that I think was mighty close to the real deal. Tough tough tough!
As for her image-she changed it wholesale many times as most actresses did from the 20s through the 50s, over & over again.
I'd also credit the portrait photographers--Bull, Hurrell, etc and the studio master cinematographers for how she looked posed. They were lighting her, and I believe she learned from THEM, not the other way around.
That said she was doubtless "the genius of herself" to paraphrase someone somewhere.
Oh.and your estimation of the 3 way clinch shot as "bored"? No way. It's obviously "wistful", "reflective", "longing" or a combo.
Thems some impressive photos there.
When you wrote " a neurotic, confident look" I thought of Sean Young for some reason, although I have seen the unconfidant Sean Young in films as well.
But you know which of these pictures 'scare' me? The one you use when you mention her legs. They look too small for her body in that shot. I think it is merely the costume that is unflattering, she looks better in the long skirts in the other shots (And it isn't just her seemingly enlarged head and late period Joan hairdo.
Jorge: Thanks a million! I used your link and read some of the letters. She comes off as literate and polite. My favorite was one addressed to her decoratore where Crawford listed all the things she was expected to do every day.
Talking: But most people who accomplish things are obesessed with their self-image. They have to be.
Jenny: "Torch Song" on YouTube? I'll look it up. I've often wondered how much Hurrell contributed to shaping the personna of his subjects. Did he accentuate what was already there, or did he create new personalities from whole cloth?
Also, I haven't seen the film where I labled Crawford as bored, so if I made a mistake then thanks for correcting it.
Hans: Sean Young? I'll look at some reference.
Hans: I'd forgotten who Sean Young was and had to look her up. She looked great in Blade Runner. Wikipedia says she had a checkered career.
Jenny: I watched The Torch Song video and was surprised to see that it included extra audio of the real Joan yelling in frustration between takes. Very interesting!
Michelle Y-E-O-H. I think that's how it's spelled. Her former ballet training really shows through all the martial arts histrionics.
Sean Young was the epitome of the vulnerable fatally flawed beauty hiding within a steel exterior in Bladerunner. She comes across as simply frazzled and neurotic in most of her roles.
I remember reading that Joan Crawford paid someone to be on the set to give her compliments on her performance.
Me, I'm a Bette Davis fan.
She's so compelling to watch.
But I don't think I'd want to live with her!
That still from 'The Bride Wore Red' is amazing (the ol' knife-and-fork-stare) where did you get it, and do they have it in really-big-poster size?
Robward: I got most of them from a site called "The Films of Joan Crawford."
http://www.filmsofcrawford.com/index.html
Joan Crawford was very self conscious, to say the least.
I wonder if other Hollywood Golden Age stars' publicity shots had them staring straight out at you?
Psychologically, its like her persona is engaged in some sort of Chinese finger trap with the male gaze.
Eddie, do you know of Parker Tyler, the fim critic?
There's a book by him called Hollywood Hallucination.
Sean Young may have most famously have been known for going on a talk show in a CatWoman costume to try to 'audition' for the role (that went to Michelle Pfeiffer) in on of the BatMan films.
Seems many were unsure whether Sean Young was genuinely batshit crazy, or if that was part of a public persona she was putting forth to try to get more comedy roles.
I've seen enough of Joan Crawford's earlier work to see another side, but not enough to determine exactly -_when_ that particular manic edge became
an indivisible part of her screen personality. As I said before, I was shocked to find her a starlet in her early career, being raised on the Trog/Baby Jane era Crawford.
Thomas: Hollywood Hallucination? Thanks, I'll look it up! BTW, did you once recommend the film critic Manny Farber? I just spent a couple of hours spot reading in a book of his reviews.
Hans: Interesting!
I know who Manny Farber was, but have never read him.
He was a painter too.
farberpaintings
Fantastic. Warner Archives has issued quite a few early Crawford films that clearly demonstrate, if not a masterful actor, a star who worked hard to choose roles appropriate for her persona. Most are good or really good movies, and more than a few are great. She probably wasn't the greatest mother, but the mommie dearest book is riddled with lies, factual errors, and innuendo. It's been thoroughly debunked, but like Fatty Arbuckle, her reputation has yet to be fully recovered.
Manny Farber was great. I believe he was the first film critic to really make a point of praising the Warner Bros cartoons(and when they were being made, not years later either)...anyway he gave animation it's due which was extremely maverick of him.
Mike, help me out here-you'd know.
Jenny: The Farber reviews I read weren't that insightful, but he comes off as a likable and literate guy. He completely goofed the review of Detective Story (Douglas version) and didn't have much good to say about Juliet of the Spirits. He probably has an area where he shines, but I don't see him as a generally reliable guide.
Thomas: Holy Cow! Farber was a painter! Who would've thunk?
Thank you for the post, Uncle Eddie. Joan Crawford is a great actress, and she was a beautiful woman AND a trendsetter in her day.
I agree with talkingtj - she had to fight for her position, which I think affected her self-esteem. Most of her contemporaries were either from privileged backgrounds or were steady girlfriends/wives/mistresses of very powerful and influential people.
I agree with Anonymous about how she is underappreciated because of what Mommie Dearest did to her reputation. No one has denied that Joan Crawford was a very strict parent, but a lot of things that were written in Mommie Dearest have been debunked. However, I'm noticing that her reputation is starting to recover.
Whatever he thought of other films--whether I love them personally or not--Manny Farber was an intelligent man and a lively film critic.
I'll always revere him for one essay in particular, quoted in his obit in the Chicago Sun-Times:
In his 1943 essay entitled "Short and Happy," Farber dared to challenge the prevailing critical orthodoxy by suggesting that the cartoons coming out of Warner Bros. now-fabled animation studio were not only vastly superior to the work of the Disney Studios but were some of the best popular film art in existence. Farber wrote that Warner Bros. cartoon directors such as Tex Avery and Chuck Jones used "the whole sphere of man's emotion and behavior simply as a butt for humor, no matter what it leads to."
Farber wrote a passionate essay on the greatness of Warner Bros cartoons, Clampett and Jones et al--in 1943!
I mean, come on!
A Manny Farber Post maybe?
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