Queen Bee
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Movie Reviews of Queen Bee
Movie Review: Another of the Top 10 Kweenie Klassix
Summary: 5 Stars
"Darling, parties are to women what battlefields are to men. But, then...you weren't in the war, were you? Something about drinking..." Joan, Joan, Joan - completely over-the-top in this movie, yet, completely *under*-the-table in her private life. This is her last gasp of her semi-respectable moviemaking period before she gave way to the scream-queen roles and went full-throttle into her alcoholism. "If this is what America wants, then, by God, I'll give it to them," she was quoted as saying at the time. I don't know if it's what *America* wanted to see, but it's certainly what *I* wanted to see - Joan in her best "mow-`em-all-down" mode, chewing up the scenery, and looking divine in clothes by Jean Louis (that's *Zsh-an Lu-wee*). They don't make actresses like this anymore - and they certainly don't make movie roles like this anymore. The inherent Joan-violence was more insidious, rather than graphic, as it later became in such charmers as *Berserk* and *Strait-Jacket*. Except at home of course, where Joan performed her Queen Bee routine nightly under the name of Mommie Dearest. Daughter Christina has said that this movie comes very close to home in Joan's portrayal. The story (this time) seems to revolve around Joan (naturally), as Eva Phillips, wife of "Beauty" Phillips (Sullivan), who is anything *but*. The arrival of a cousin to fill a rather nebulous "secretarial" position for Joan/Eva sets off an ugly chain of events. The secretary, Jennifer, who is "so quiet we ought to put a bell on you," becomes the recipient of one of Joan's famous slaps. A lot of "Beauty's" dysfunctional family and friends hang around a lot, including Carol, played by Betsy Palmer ("Carol, don't you look sweet, even in those tacky old riding clothes!"), who hangs around so long, she winds up hanging on the business end of a rope. Everyone drinks a lot and Joan keeps the whole show hopping with her machinations and new outfits for every other sentence. With a particular shot of Joan in an evening gown, standing on the staircase in her home as its calling card, this movie definitely bears several viewings to absorb the excess of high camp, but, like drug store perfume, once absorbed, you'll never quite rid of it. Favorite moment: Eva "clearing off" Carol's mantelpiece with a sweep of her riding crop.Movie Review: Wrong!
Summary: 5 Stars
There are two basic ways you can look at Joan Crawford's character, Eva, in Queen Bee. You could see the obvious - that she sleeps around on her husband and hurts the people around her. Or you could look deeper and see that Eva is trapped in a loveless marriage to an alcoholic! It comes as no surprise to me that she would want Judd.. The sympathy that Joan generates for her character - near the very end when she loves Avery again, after he begins to at last show affection towards her - was probably not written into the script at all. It certainly wasn't in the book by Edna Lee. Joan takes some of the implications of the story and molds sort of a tragic character...a woman who does wrong because (1) she is surrounded by people who don't care about her and (2) her husband doesn't love her. It's true that the character was designed to be a femme fatale, but I believe Joan didn't view this character as all black and she added a little bit of her artistry to the performance. As for the film, Queen Bee is a class A production. Certainly there are some contrived moments but the overall effect of the movie is very powerful. There is a surreal, larger-than-life quality to its excesses and could be in a genre all its own, thanks mostly to Joan's performance - which is one of her greatest and most memorable. It really proves why Joan is often remembered as the most glamorous star ever - and she had the guts, ambition, talent, and heart to back it all up. I agree with a reviewer who once wrote that Joan treated this film like one of her silents...her eyes convey more emotion than possibly any actress I've ever seen before. Just watch the mirror scene with the cold cream (a scene that has been copied many times but never equalled) or the scene where Joan tells Carol, "Any man's my man if I want it that way." The look in those sad, haunting Crawford eyes is priceless!
Movie Review: Like Wimps, I Tell You!
Summary: 5 Stars
Crawford's Columbia period resulted in some of her very best movies. In fact, the 50s as a whole were great for her, and I'd rather watch a 50's Joan movie than a 40s or 30's--for the most part. She seemed to be trying out many different things, showing different colors. All right, most of them pretty garish, but she wasn't afraid to think big. But in one respect the fifties let her down, and that is her men. OMG, they are pretty dire, by and large. Here and there you have someone unique, a Jack Palance, a Sterling Hayden, a Jeff Chandler--not that any of the three are particularly good actors, but they're masculine! But what's a girl to do when paired up with a dud like Wendell Corey or Michael Wilding or, as in QUEEN BEE, Barry Sullivan and John Ireland, none of whom could keep up with her a minute. (I can't make up my mind about Cliff Robertson, in AUTUMN LEAVES, a superb picture, but wouldn't it have been better with someone ballsier? Or should he have been weak and weird, like Cliff? Oh, the eternal questions when you're ranking the different Joan Crawford eras.
I liked QUEEN BEE a lot, but never has Crawford been surrounded by so many inept supporting actors. Everyone loves Betsy Palmet, me too, but she was not the right actress to play the sister-in-law part. Fay Wray is great, but Ranald McDougall's screenplay trapdoors her right out of the film after the first ten minutes, and in her play we get the eternally deadfaced Lucy Marlow, with her tiny eyes the size of baby caviare eggs. To her credit, Lucy Marlow pioneered a screen presence for the presentday star Renee Zellweger. They must have thought audiences wanted baby voiced, tiny eyed chipmunk faced stars and to our shame, we sat there and took it like wimps.
Movie Review: Joan Crawford at her conniving, devious best . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
Joan rules the roost and this movie as Eva Phillips, whose sharp tongue tears her family apart one by one. She's married to Avery (Barry Sullivan)--or Beauty as they call him (despite the ugly scar on his face)--he's turned to drink because of his bitch of a wife. Avery's sister Carol Lee (played by a perky blonde Betsy Palmer, preparing herself for her later stardom as Jason's mother in 1980's "Friday the 13th"--"Queen Bee" is a horror flick of a different kind)--anyway, Carol Lee is in love with Jud (John Ireland), who used to be involved with--yup, you guessed it--Eva! But poor Carol Ann doesn't know this secret. And when she and Jud announce their engagement, Hurricane Eva doesn't take the news very well. You'll have to watch the film to find out what happens next to this dysfunctional clan--but four stars of my review belong soley to Joan (the remaining one is for the wonderful black and white cinematography), who is the reason to watch this melodrama. Her outfits are divine, her face is always lit perfectly in her every scene and her smooth delivery of outrageous lines that slap her "loved ones" across the face (and she even delivers an actual slap to one unfortunate soul) is a delight to watch. If you love Ms. Crawford, then you gotta see "Queen Bee"--it's one of my favorites of her flicks. And the DVD also includes the campy theatrical trailer, which is a hoot. You can't take "Queen Bee" too seriously or you'll be horrified by Joan's horrible behavior. Instead, you just need to sit back and enjoy a delicious dark comedy--that's the way I view this over-the-top classic--and laugh and hiss at Joan's evil ways. You'll have a great time!Movie Review: Godzilla in a Jean Louis Gown
Summary: 5 Stars
Joan Crawford appears to have a field day in this silly, but extraordinarily engrossing, overheated family melodrama. Ranald MacDougall's script is like Tennessee Williams without the poetry or the subtext. And it's like Douglas Sirk without the sumptuous color or the inner turmoil those autumnal hues disguise. Eva Philips is possessive, controlling, and self-absorbed, and Crawford plays her to the hilt. What more could any fan ask?
A monument of selfishness, Eva fascinates like a cobra about to strike. In one memorable scene, her cousin asks what the doctor said (about Eva's troubled child). "Such extravagant things!" responds Eva. She continues: "Did you see how the doctor trembled as he spoke to me? You'd think he'd never seen a beautiful woman before!"
Moments like these are pure gold (or should it be 'honey'?) in this wondrous opera-without-singing.
The rest of the cast consists of some more than adequate talent: Barry Sullivan (Eva's booze-soaked, trampled husband), John Ireland (a former lover, still caught by her stinger. He gets one of the best lines: "Whatever you are Eva, you're on wheels!"), Betsy Palmer (the deer in Eva's lethal headlights). Lucy Marlow (another deer, that starlet from the opening sequence of A STAR IS BORN, 1954) is passable. (In a TCM documentary, it is revealed that Crawford really slapped the younger actress with all her might.). Fay Wray makes a brief, but noteworthy appearance early on, a past casualty of Eva's rampaging ego.
The DVD is pretty bare-bones. But the transfer is luminous.
If you enjoy watching a 5' Godzilla in a Jean Louis gown, don't miss QUEEN BEE.