Queen Bee *** (1955, Joan Crawford, Barry Sullivan, Betsy Palmer, John Ireland) – Classic Movie Review 3,381

The 1955 romantic melodrama film Queen Bee stars Joan Crawford as Southern socialite Eva Phillips, the matriarch determined to rule her household with a rod of steel. Crawford obviously relishes her wildly over-the-top bad gal role.

Screen-writer/director Ranald MacDougall’s 1955 romantic melodrama Queen Bee stars Joan Crawford as Southern socialite Eva Phillips, the matriarch determined to rule her household with a rod of steel. In the process she tears her Southern family to shreds and ruins the lives of all around her through her manipulations and ruthlessness.

Crawford obviously relishes her wildly over-the-top bad gal role, which gives her no trouble at all. But her co-stars fare less well with the melodramatic screenplay, based on Edna L Lee’s novel. Barry Sullivan plays her alcoholic husband Avery, Betsy Palmer is her suicidal sister-in-law Carol Lee, and John Ireland is a former lover, Judson Prentiss.

With its melodramatic script, it has proved one of the least favourite of Crawford’s movies. Still, whatever its shortcomings as a movie, there is always enormous pleasure in watching Crawford live up to the film’s title with punch and style. It is great, campy fun as Eva Phillips lashes out at family members, slaps a young lady hard across the face, takes her riding crop to smash everything on the mantle in the bedroom, and speaks the immortal line ‘Aren’t I wicked?’.

Also in the cast are Lucy Marlow, William Leslie, Fay Wray, Tim Hovey, Katherine Anderson, Linda Bennett, Bill Walker, Bob McCord, Loan Soule and Juanita Moore (Maid).

Crawford really was the Queen Bee! She bought the film rights to Lee’s novel for $15,000 and sold the property to Columbia studios provided that she was the star, Jerry Wald would produce, Ranald MacDougall would write and direct, and Charles Lang would be cinematographer, plus she had approval on her costumes, make-up and hair designers.

Movie Queens – Joan Crawford by Graeme Jukes.

Crawford’s adopted daughter Christina says in her autobiography Mommie Dearest that she had to leave the cinema in the middle of watching Queen Bee because she felt her mother’s portrayal of the main character was too true to life.

Crawford first appears in a white mink coat with a dark brown fox collar, the same kind that Faye Dunaway wears in Mommie Dearest (1981) when Christina visits Crawford in her being constructed apartment.

The oil portrait above the fireplace was created for Holiday (1938) with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn.

Juanita Moore died on January 1 2014, aged 99. In 1959 she scored an Oscar nomination for her performance in Imitation of Life.

Friday the 13th star Betsy Palmer died at the age of 88 on May 29 2015. She played the killer camp cook Mrs Voorhees in the 1980 horror film and its 1981 sequel. She later described the script of the first one as a ‘piece of junk’.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,381

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/