Flamingo Road ***** (1949, Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, David Brian, Gladys George) – Classic Movie Review 2011

Director Michael Curtiz’s steamy and over-heated but memorable 1949 romantic noir melodrama finds the ideal star in the one and only Joan Crawford in her follow-up to the acclaimed Mildred Pierce, where she won the Best Actress Oscar. This time she plays Lane Bellamy, a carnival dancer who finds herself stranded in a US Southern small town where she soon becomes romantically involved with the weakling town deputy sheriff, Fielding Carlisle (Zachary Scott).

But, try magnificently as only Crawford can on the acting and emoting fronts, and she’s in her element and very capable, it’s the effortless scene-grabber Sydney Greenstreet who entirely steals the movie in a typically extravagant performance as the sheriff Titus Semple, the sweaty and corrupt political boss of the town Lane is stranded in.

Carlisle is controlled by Titus, who views Lane as a liability and campaigns to get her driven out of town. Finding herself unemployable, she gets arrested railroaded into prison on a trumped-up morals charge. But then she finds work as a hostess at Lute Mae Sanders (Gladys George)’s road house, where she meets and later marries local businessman Dan Reynolds (David Brian). They start a home on swanky Flamingo Road but she vows to seek revenge on the corrupt political boss and scandal follows.

Curtiz’s melodrama may be soapy, unreal and completely unbelievable, but that doesn’t stop it being thoroughly enjoyable, great campy fun throughout. It’s always entertaining and of course it’s fascinating to watch true, old-style professionals of the first rank working overtime and in overdrive when you can tell that at heart they know the chips are down. The best of it is that Crawford and Greenstreet have some excellent scenes to share together.

Virginia Huston, Fred Clark, Gertrude Michael, Alice White, Sam McDaniel, Tito Vuolo, Dick Ryan, Pat Gleason, Tristram Coffin, Dale Robertson, Iris Adrian, Carol Brewster, Sunny Knight and Lester Kimmel are also in the cast.

The screenplay by Robert Wilder (with additional dialogue by Edmund H. North) is based on a 1946 play written by Wilder and his wife Sally which in turn was based on his 1942 novel. It was  turned into a prime-time soap for TV in 1980-82 with John Beck, Woody Brown and Howard Duff. Ted McCord’s noir cinematography and Max Steiner’s lush score are inevitably valuable assets.

This is the penultimate movie for the great Greenstreet, whose last was Malaya (also 1949). His film career lasted a mere eight years. Of the only 24 movies he appeared in, nine were with Peter Lorre. Greenstreet had a great theatrical career before making his film debut when he was 62 years old and weighing nearly 300 pounds, as Kasper Gutman in the classic The Maltese Falcon (1941). He acted in every major Shakespearean play and committed 12,000 lines of Shakespearean verse to memory.

Hollywood character actress Gladys George is probably best known for her role as Miles Archer’s wife Iva in The Maltese Falcon.

Released on DVD in 2008 as part of The Joan Crawford Collection: Volume 2.

Joan Crawford Movie Queens Tattoo from a 2015 original by Graeme Jukes, tattooed on the arm of Rick Endris of Minneapolis by Kyle Malone (of Leviticus Tattoo Minneapolis).

http://derekwinnert.com/the-maltese-falcon-classic-film-review-722/

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 2011

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/