March 23 . . .
Ever since the day she was born (on this date in 1904), Lucille LeSueur was determined to succeed – and in a big way. She was not considered beautiful, but she was a tigress in more ways than one, clawing her way to the top. Beginning as a waitress and shop girl, she won a Charleston contest in the 20s and began a dancing career. She changed her name to Billie Cassin, after her stepfather. At around this time, she also appeared in a few porn loops, which she tried later to suppress. She was dancing in a Broadway chorus line when she caught the eye of an executive from MGM who saw potential.
She was awarded a contract with MGM, but her name still didn’t click. In a brilliantly tawdry display of marketing savvy, the studio launched a national publicity contest to find her a name. The winning entry: Joan Crawford. The public had created and named its monster.
The struggling would-be actress managed to get herself bit parts in legitimate theater and films. And she got better. She delivered a light and lively turn in Harry Langdon’s comedy classic, ‘Tramp, Tramp, Tramp’ (1925), and became a national sensation (and scandal) as the freewheeling flapper in ‘Our Dancing Daughters’ (1928).
With the advent of talkies, the upwardly mobile actress gave a vulnerable performance in MGM’s epic ‘Grand Hotel’ (1932) as Wallace Berry’s put-upon secretary. As the years went by, she began to morph into a celluloid icon. Like a canny alien, she kept morphing and evolving into a new image, a next phase, a different skin – and she thrived for nearly half a century. She was underrated as an actress; witness her compelling turns in ‘Rain’ (1932), ‘The Women’ (1939), ‘Mildred Pierce’ (for which she won an Oscar) and the outré classic, ‘Johnny Guitar’ (1954), which was pretty much her last good performance in a good picture.
They’re all good performances – but save them for another day. Instead, bask in one of the most putrid hits ever, 1981’s ‘Mommie Dearest’, featuring a downright horrific Faye Dunaway as Crawford, under tons of severe makeup that bring out the Charles Pierce in her. Based on the published memoir of Crawford’s adopted daughter, Christina, ‘Mommie Dearest’ is a high camp, lowbrow expose of the actress as melodramatic stage villain, and Dunaway chews the scenery like a raptor in heat. Highlights include the 50-ish Crawford substituting for her own daughter on a popular soap opera late in her career, and a hilarious sequence where she tells it like it is to the Pepsi Cola board of directors (“Don’t fuck with me, fellas!”).
This is one terrible movie – so God-awful it transcends its own trashiness to become something bordering on the subversively sublime. A clean sweep winner of the Golden Raspberry Awards in 1981, including Worst Picture, Worst Actress, Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Screenplay. Enjoy.
Click here to see the trailer . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjRaU8hRVJs
And scrub yourself up afterward.
1 comment:
I found the movie to alternate between hilarious and sad. Then, sometimes, it was both, simultaneously (such as in the "wire hangers" scene).
I thought that the visual at the beginning said it all: her face plunging into the bowl of ice water, shot from the vantage point of the bowl's bottom, with us looking up at her face. It was as though she got sustinance for her cold heartedness from the ice water (to go with what was in her veins?). That was enough for me not to want even to know her, let alone consider her as someone's parent.
Post a Comment