Female on the Beach *** (1955, Joan Crawford, Jeff Chandler, Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway, Natalie Schafer, Charles Drake) – Classic Movie Review 7734

‘Never has a woman loved so deeply or so dangerously!’ Director Joseph Pevney’s 1955 film noir crime thriller Female on the Beach provides an archetypal role for Joan Crawford – as Lynn Markham, the rich widow who moves into her late husband’s beach house and falls for someone who may be trying to kill her. The someone in this case is tanned beach toy boy Drummond Hall, played by an ideally cast Jeff Chandler.

The stock-plot tale, based on the play The Besieged Heart by Robert Hill, is entertaining if over-familiar, but there are loads of style and conviction from Crawford, a swirling Gothic melodrama atmosphere, plenty of mystery, danger and romance, and a lot of amusingly over-the-top dialogue.

Crawford’s magnetically effective turn starts at the top and works upwards, and, to complement and contract with this, there are three very good, naturalistic performances from Cecil Kellaway (as Osbert Sorenson), Natalie Schafer (as Queenie Sorenson) and Charles Drake (as Galley, the police lieutenant on the case), anchoring the heightened, theatrical proceedings in some ghostly semblance of reality.

Also in the cast are Jan Sterling, Judith Evelyn, Stuart Randall, Marjorie Bennett, Romo Vincent and Nan Boardman.

Female on the Beach is directed by Joseph Pevney, runs 96 minutes, is made by Universal International Pictures, is released by Universal, is written by Robert Hill and Richard Alan Simmons, based on the play The Besieged Heart by Robert Hill, is shot in black and white by Charles Lang, is produced by Albert Zugsmith and is scored by Joseph Gershenson.

It was shot at Universal Studios, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California (for the beach house interior), and Balboa Beach, California.

Hell hath no fury! Schafer recalled having to refuse a dinner party invitation at Crawford’s house as she had plans that night during the shoot. Next day she found her trailer had been removed to near the Universal parking lot.

At the time Crawford was dating the Universal Pictures president, who offered her the role of Lynn Markham and gave her the choice of leading man, so she picked Chandler.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7734

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