TORCH SONG (1953)

Coming off a late mid-career high in SUDDEN FEAR/’52, Joan Crawford turned from woman-in-jeopardy thriller to bitch-diva backstager in this miscalculated return to M-G-M after a decade away.  Working in TechniColor at 48, Joan looks different in every scene, but never right*; bulldozing her way past human & production obstacles as star of a singing/dancing B’way extravaganza.  It’s all star prerogative & my-way-or-the-highway on personal & professional matters, causing her to lose her long-time truth-telling accompanist then struggling with his independent-minded replacement in blind Michael Wilding.  Unused to feedback, she'd rather stick to her lonely life than try a suggested ritardando.  Can these two figure out their inevitable mutual attraction?  Originally developed for Lana Turner (though it might have been just the thing for Judy Garland if she hadn’t departed M-G-M), Crawford’s not the only one pressing too hard under Charles Walters’ bemused direction.  (He gives everyone enough rope to hang themselves.)  There's also an odd subplot involving Crawford's distinctly lower-middle-class mom (Oscar nom’d Marjorie Rambeau).  But let’s face it, the elephant in the room is Joan’s bizarre finale, a verison of Dietz & Schwartz’s ‘Two-Faced Woman’ (the track a leftover from THE BAND WAGON/’53) done in modified BlackFace.   Yikes!  (The makeup darker at big dramatic points.)  As if Crawford’s stage presence weren’t enough on its own.

WATCH THIS, NOT THAT/LINK:  Skip Crawford in TechniColor for Crawford in TruColor the following year in JOHNNY GUITAR.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2014/02/johnny-guiter-1954.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  Wilding shows his true feelings playing a faux-Lisztian arrangement of Crawford’s signature tune, ‘Tenderly,’ unaware she’s in the room.  His NYC bachelor’s apartment almost as lux and antiseptic as her never-left-the-sketch-board penthouse. 

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY:  *Only once, lip-synching on stage to India Adams singing ‘You Won’t Forget Me’ does Crawford finally get a decent look (dress, makeup, hair).  And what a difference!; suddenly, she looks downright sane.