The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
by Charles Walters, Clarence Brown, David Miller, Frank Borzage, Friz Freleng
List Price:
Our Price: $37.99
You Save: $11.99 (24%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $35.85 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD releases
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD Cover Information
Actor: Clark Gable, Gene Raymond, Joan Crawford, Mel Blanc, Michael WildingDirector: Charles Walters, Clarence Brown, David Miller, Frank Borzage, Friz Freleng
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Box set, DVD-Video, NTSC, Restored, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 495 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-12
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
Movie Review: Surprise!
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this set because it was the only way to get the DVD STRANGE CARGO which was directed by Frank Borzage (7th HEAVEN, STREET ANGEL, etc.). I took a look at SADIE McKEE because it was directed by Clarence Brown and was pleasantly surprised. It's a fascinating little melodrama that never goes over the top. It's alway fun to discover unknown titles that turn out to very entertaining.
More The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song) reviews:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Summary of The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
TORCH SONG (1953): Musical comedy legend Jenny Stewart, who has been hardened by the worst life has to offer, finds romance when blinded war- veteran Tye Graham becomes her new piano accompanist. STRANGE CARGO (1940): When eight prisoners escape from a New Guinea penal colony, they are picked up by another escapee named Verne and his girl friend Julie. Among the fugitives is Cambreau, a soft-spoken, messianic character who has a profound effect on his comrades. SADIE MCKEE (1934): As working girl Sadie McKee, Joan Crawford wears a maid's uniform. And as any Crawford fan knows, she'll shortly swap her white apron for black sable - even (or especially) if it means heartbreak along the way. In this rags-to-riches tale, Sadie wins the affections of the singer (Gene Raymond) she loves, the tycoon (Edward Arnold) she marries and the lawyer (Franchot Tone) she grew up with. That's a lot of on-screen romantic fire, not all of it may be due to acting ability alone: The year after Sadie McKee was filmed, Crawford became Mrs. Franchot Tone. FLAMINGO ROAD (1949): Life in a small Southern town heats up when a sexy, savvy dancer is stranded there by a traveling carnival. She wins the hearts of two men and gets a taste of local politics when she butts heads with a corrupt sheriff. Apparently Crawford only accepted the role after Jack Warner ordered rewrites and spruced up the production. A WOMAN'S FACE (1941): Anna Holm is scheming con woman and blackmailer, a bitter woman shut off from society because of a disfiguring scar. The opportunity to undergo an operation to remove her scars presents her with a choice: open herself up to a whole new life or return to her old ways and the only life she's ever known.Those looking for heavy doses of melodrama, good old-fashioned storytelling, and--of course--more Joan, look no further. The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 offers up a fine assortment of some of Crawford's popular second-tier titles that helped secure this unstoppable actress' well-deserved seat in the court of Hollywood royalty. Spanning from 1934 to 1954, the five films take viewers on a journey over peaks and valleys of Miss Crawford's tumultuous but often spectacular career and permits a glimpse into the star's adeptness to the changing times of movie making. The first film, 1934's Sadie McKee, captures a radiant Crawford, still riding high as the queen of MGM, playing the eponymous poor cook's daughter who struggles to keep her principles intact through her rocky romances and unexpected rise to riches. Nobody plays an unlikely do-gooder like Crawford, and this splendidly entertaining film is one of her finest. 1940's Strange Cargo features Crawford as a dive-bar singer and frequent co-star Clark Gable as a gritty prison escapee joining forces to flee a remote island. A religious parable, jungle adventure, and prison escape movie in one, Strange Cargo maintains suspense and action surprisingly well. A Woman Face (1941) is beautifully directed by one of cinema's best, George Cukor, who provides Crawford with one of her most accomplished dramatic roles: Anna Holm, a woman whose face is horribly disfigured as a child. Anna's physical appearance drastically alters her destiny, and becoming full of spite and bitterness, she turns to a life of crime. When the opportunity to correct her scars presents itself, the story takes a sharp turn into suspense-thriller and courtroom drama territory, eventually making its way to a totally improbable and predictable but equally exciting finale. Flamingo Road (1949), which went on to become a nighttime television soap opera in the '80s, sees Crawford as Lane, a hardened carnival dancer who finds herself stranded in a small town facing crooked men and parochial hypocrisy. Lane's a tough cookie and unsurprisingly manages to cross the bridge from rags to riches while triumphing over her foes in a delicious reversal of fortune. The story may be hackneyed, but Crawford's histrionics provide a juicy good time. This was her first foray into playing roles that are clearly too young for her, yet her portrayal is so earnest one simply doesn't dare question the rather enormous leap in realism. Like pieced-together leftovers from much finer musicals, 1953's Torch Song is the weakest movie of the bunch but still worth a gander. Here, Crawford plays an embittered and aging musical stage star whose unlikely romance with a blind pianist might turn around her lifetime of heartache. The film probably isn't one of her career highlights but offers up some surprisingly poignant, all-too-real moments.
Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 comes with an abundance of extras including several interesting featurettes covering her career at Warner Brothers and her work with Clark Gable as well as several entertaining old-fashioned cartoons. There's also some amusing Torch Song outtakes of Crawford aspiring to sing. (Once you've heard them you may understand why her voice was dubbed.) Many of Crawford's characters have been described as being only slight manipulations of the real Joan; a tough woman looking for a little respect and trying to make it in a man's world. This collection should help vindicate her efforts. -- Matt Wold
Animation DVD Video
DVD Video
- Action & Adventure
- African American Cinema
- Animation
- Anime & Manga
- Art House & International
- Classics
- Comedy
- Cult Movies
- Documentary
- Drama
- Educational
- Fitness & Yoga
- Gay & Lesbian
- Horror
- Kids & Family
- Military & War
- Music Video & Concerts
- Musicals & Performing Arts
- Mystery & Suspense
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Special Interests
- Sports
- Television
- Westerns
Movies most talked about in Box Set Bonanza!
The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 1 (Now, Voyager / Dark Victory / The Letter / Mr. Skeffington / The Star)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-04-01; DVD
Best price: $34.21
Price in other shops:
The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 2Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-04-01; DVD
Best price: $34.95
Price in other shops:
The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3 (The Old Maid / All This, And Heaven Too / The Great Lie / In This Our Life / Watch on the Rhine / Deception)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-04-01; DVD
Best price: $31.99
Price in other shops:
The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-02-12; DVD
Best price: $34.49
Price in other shops:
The Joan Crawford Collection (Humoresque / Possessed (1947) / The Damned Don't Cry / The Women / Mildred Pierce)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2005-06-14; DVD
Best price: $28.99
Price in other shops:
The Bela Lugosi Collection (Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Black Cat / The Raven / The Invisible Ray / Black Friday)Universal; Release date: 2005-09-06; DVD
Best price: $13.09
Price in other shops:
Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 1 (The Public Enemy / White Heat / Angels with Dirty Faces / Little Caesar / The Petrified Forest / The Roaring Twenties)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-03-25; DVD
Best price: $43.21
Price in other shops:
Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 2 (Bullets or Ballots / City for Conquest / Each Dawn I Die / G Men / San Quentin / A Slight Case of Murder)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-03-25; DVD
Best price: $26.82
Price in other shops:
Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 3 (Smart Money / Picture Snatcher / The Mayor of Hell / Lady Killer / Black Legion / Brother Orchid)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-03-25; DVD
Best price: $39.00
Price in other shops:
Warner Gangsters Collection, Vol. 4 (The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse / Invisible Stripes / Kid Galahad / Larceny, Inc. / The Little Giant / Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-10-21; DVD
Best price: $42.01
Price in other shops:
Similar DVD Movies
Barbara Stanwyck - The Signature Collection (Annie Oakley / East Side, West Side / My Reputation / Executive Suite / Jeopardy / To Please a Lady)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-10-30; DVD
Best price: $28.99
Price in other shops:
Midnight (Universal Cinema Classics)Universal; Release date: 2008-04-22; DVD
Best price: $6.46
Price in other shops:
Bette Davis Centenary Celebration Collection (All About Eve / Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte / The Virgin Queen / Phone Call from a Stranger / The Nanny)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-04-08; DVD
Best price: $16.44
Price in other shops:
Dangerous Crossing (Fox Film Noir)TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT; Release date: 2008-03-11; DVD
Best price: $7.99
Price in other shops:
Black Widow (Fox Film Noir)BLACK WIDOW; Release date: 2008-03-11; DVD
Best price: $4.64
Price in other shops:
Portrait In Black / Madame X (Double Feature)Universal; Release date: 2008-02-05; DVD
Best price: $7.38
Price in other shops:
The Joan Crawford Collection (Humoresque / Possessed (1947) / The Damned Don't Cry / The Women / Mildred Pierce)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2005-06-14; DVD
Best price: $28.99
Price in other shops:
TCM Archives - Forbidden Hollywood Collection, Vol. 2 (The Divorcee / A Free Soul / Night Nurse / Three on a Match / Female)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-03-04; DVD
Best price: $36.74
Price in other shops:
The Bette Davis Collection, Vol. 3 (The Old Maid / All This, And Heaven Too / The Great Lie / In This Our Life / Watch on the Rhine / Deception)Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-04-01; DVD
Best price: $31.99
Price in other shops:
Daisy Kenyon (Fox Film Noir)Daisy; Release date: 2008-03-11; DVD
Best price: $4.64
Price in other shops: