Queen Bee
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Movie Reviews of Queen Bee
Movie Review: Oh, Joan....
Summary: 4 Stars
Joan Crawford was many things. Underrated actress, major star, shrewd businesswoman and questionable mother, and it's in this 1955 homage to all things overstated, that we see her play each of these parts in turn.As the arch-manipulator Eva Philips, Joan excels for a number of reasons: She's clearly the only capable actor in this otherwise awful movie (although John Ireland's performance is very good), and looks absolutely spellbinding in all of her glorious costumes (custom-made by designer Jean-Louis). In fact, if it wasn't for the indomitable Miss Crawford's formulaic scenery-chewing this film would probably never have been converted to VHS, much less DVD.
Anyway, trapped in a loveless marriage to a bitter alcoholic, Joan sets about destroying all happiness around her, craving power and attention as her only means of comfort. Her cousin Jennifer Stewart (played in the most woeful manner by the consummately irritating Lucy Marlow)comes to stay and all hell breaks loose as Joan tries her damndest to break up her sister-in-law's engagement to her ex-lover Judson Prentiss (Ireland).
Memorable scenes are when Joan learns of their engagement ('Isn't it REVOLTING??!!?'), Joan getting out of a dinner party engagement (nobody does phone like Joan!), and Joan viciously slapping her idiot cousin Jennifer (clearly a real slap, and clearly in response to Marlow's woeful 'acting').
This is not a film for film-lovers. It's strictly for lovers of camp, Joan Crawford and gorgeous divadom. For comedy value it can't be beat.
Movie Review: "She'll sting you one day"
Summary: 4 Stars
The South must hold the monopoly in bitter, fractured families. In QUEEN BEE, based on the novel by Edna Lee, every member of the Phillips family has their own axe to grind...and it all stems from matriarch Eva (played brilliantly by Joan Crawford). Eva manipulates everyone around her with precision skill. In a loveless marriage with alcoholic husband Avery (Barry Sullivan), Eva is also dallying with her cousin's fiancee (John Ireland). When Eva's distant relation Jennifer Stewart (Lucy Marlow) comes to live with the Phillips clan, Eva's "sweet sting" soon infects her as well. The machinations continue as Eva twists the lives of her family members until they all shatter.
Joan Crawford lets the venom flow with her masterly performance as Eva, the queen bee of the title. Dressed in some gorgeous Jean Louis gowns and filtered through soft lighting, "La Crawford" commands the screen in every possible way. Notice too, how her voice changes from soft and honeyed when Eva is trying to get what she wants, to gruff and unforgiving when her temper snaps. The brilliant supporting cast includes Betsy Palmer as ill-fated cousin Carol-Lee, and Fay Wray as the jilted Sue McKinnon. Contract player Lucy Marlow, in one of her first lead roles, provides the innocent core of the story, yet our eyes remain riveted to Crawford. She was the ultimate Queen Bee!
The DVD includes the trailer plus talent profiles and vintage advertising gallery. (Single-sided, single-layer disc).
Movie Review: Gothic Crawford
Summary: 4 Stars
This was one of Joan Crawford's last Glamour Queen movie roles, before she started doing horror films and TV, and this part itself is transitional, as she plays a legendary beauty, pathological in her manipulations of the people around her. Despite the huge 1950s eyebrows that could be seen on Joan, Audrey Hepburn, Kim Novak, and others during this period, and the weird heart shaped hairdo, Joan remains both a beauty and a really compelling and totally invested actress. This was after Joan did POSSESSED and proved she could both underplay and play full tilt. Here she plays a woman so deeply dishonest that she is unconvincing in every emotion - we don't even know if she believes any of this herself.
The real stand out performance of this film is Barry Sullivan as Joan's physically and emotionally scarred husband. He is completely believable in a roller coaster role. The prototype of the sexy damaged man.
The film itself is average, the script is soap opera predictable, and the biggest mystery (how he got scar) is never revealed, only hinted at. Despite Joan's title character and her entrance-making Jean Louis wardrobe, this really is an ensemble piece, and everyone does a good solid job in this Southern gothic potboiler. The "town and country" set of this film feels both ostentatiously grand and a little too cramped and small, and that is a good way of describing the whole thing.
Movie Review: Drama---- or documentary ?!?!?
Summary: 4 Stars
Oh, what fun this is... Aside from "Strait-jacket", which, in fact, made Joan Crawford seem more sympathetic as an axe-murder(!), this film, "Queen Bee" most portrays the movie legend as she apparently really was. Even daughter Christina said this was the one film of her mom's that she couldn't bring herself to watch again, because Mommie Dearest WASN'T ACTING... You can tell--- all the outrageous neuroses are in full-swing.
"Mildred Pierce" showed Joan in a light she'd like, but "Queen Bee" rings the most true...
Despite totally incompetent direction from Ranald MacDougall, it's still a good potboiler, with occasionally saucy lines to (and from) Crawford, like, "Whatever you are, Eva, it's on wheels!"
Unfortunately, the DVD is one of those false-widescreen prints they're doing now (Columbia seems most guilty) in which the top of the heads and feet are cut off to create a rectangular shape, losing part of the original visual composition. Plus, the VHS-tape was a richer transfer than the DVD, which is a bit washed-out in comparison.
Movie Review: Can you say over-the-top?
Summary: 4 Stars
Joan is at her delectable best, as she steamrolls her way over the supporting cast, totally stealing every scene with her over-the-top style.This is one dame who's not going to blend into the scenery. If you are a Crawford fan, and if your reading the reviews of this film, you must be, you simply must add this film to your collection. Joan plays Eva Phillips, a conniving southern socialite, with a taste for the finer things, only matched by her taste for other women's men. Eva's the queen bee, and there's no doubt that she's the one running the hive. Joan delivers some wonderful lines in the film, for instance, "Any man's my man if I want it that way". Joan looks wonderful slinking around in drop dead gowns designed by Jean Louis. Whether she's verbally abusing her alcoholic husband or driving the poor unfortunates who dare cross her to suicide, Joan can do no wrong. Of course in the end, Eva gets what she deserves.
Add this film to your Joan collection, it's really a keeper.