Autumn Leaves (1956)

Absolutely Fantastic

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Joan Crawford was a great screen actress and her performance in this otherwise routine melodrama is terrific. But her eyebrows are yikes- in at least one scene they are not smooth across but spiked, the result is unintentionally frightening. Oh well, thats just Joan being Joan.Usually Anthony Perkins would have played the confused ex-soldier part, but I guess he was busy. So we fortunately have Cliff Robertson in the role. Robertson was at that time a virile and vibrant young New York stage actor who is perfect for this role. Crawford and Robertson work well together.While the actual character emotions are intense, the methods and practice of psychiatry is rather shallow and obviously just there to up the melodrama quotient. Shallow, skimmed-over psychiatry in a melodrama that is at the same time so definitely intense with Robertson's fine portrayal of suffering is a dichotomy I find detrimental to the film. And in a desperate attempt by the film-makers to enhance the melodrama effect, they actually carry the May/December angle into Mommie territory, emphasizing Crawford's motherly qualities (to the extent she had any). If you view "Autumn Leaves" strictly for its performances and dramatic attributes while ignoring its implausibility and unnecessary references to May/December Mommie relationships you will certainly enjoy this highly dramatic film. Look for Lorne Green and Vera Miles in excellent portrayals of an unhealthy relationship- and wow does Crawford verbally chew them out in a magnificently acted scene by Ms.Crawford.Overall "Autumn Leaves" is a noteworthy accomplishment by Aldrich and a great example of his ability and skill.

This film starts out extremely interestingly as we get to know sex-starved "spinster" Millicent Wetherby, a sensitive writer who never had a real relationship because she spent her good years attending to a sickly father.The movie creates genuine interest and suspense as we try to figure out what motivates Burt (a 33-year-old Cliff Robertson) to pursue Milly, played by Joan Crawford when she was 52.The film takes a garish turn when we realize that Burt has been driven mad by his philandering wife (a slimy Vera Miles) and lascivious father (Lorne Greene), and the film's best moment pits Millicent against this incestuous pair: "Your filthy souls are too evil for hell itself!" Crawford, wearing a strikingly unflattering bob, is nevertheless the heart of this film. She plays prim and prissy well and comes up with a number of memorable zingers, i.e., "The only trouble with the future is it comes so much sooner than it used to"..."There's something unladylike about a black eye on a woman." Though an asylum psychiatrist does a creditable job of normalizing the option of mental-health treatment, I found Burt's symptoms to be overdone and over-the-top.Crawford's unwavering sympathy for her mate strained credulity at times. For example, when he smashes a leaden typewriter onto her hand she doesn't seem to mind at all! The final scene, in which Burt gains his "walking papers," is interesting, although a bit facile. Can six months in an asylum cure pathological lying? The happy ending would have us believe as much.

Joan Crawford aged like fine wine, and even at 51 she is quite believable as the romantic lead here. She plays Millicent Wetherby, a lonely 40ish woman who has sacrificed her youth taking care of her invalid father. Now he is gone and she feels like life has passed her by until Burt Hanson (Cliff Robertson in only his second film appearance) interrupts her chicken salad one night at a diner. He practically pries open her life, and they begin dating even though he is over ten years younger than she. She tries to be practical, but he sweeps her off her feet and the two elope to Mexico. Then she starts to notice little things...he has told her he was from Racine, now he says he is from Chicago. Burt meets Joan's employer and talks about all of the battles he saw in the military when he has told her previously that he was a supply clerk and never saw action during his time in the service, but the final straw is when an ex-wife she didn't even know about shows up at her door.This is a hard film to characterize. It's definitely not a soaper, but it has aspects of that. It has romance, dealing with mental illness, and even elements of a thriller to it. It deals with the self-doubt we all have about the choices we have made in life. No high-camp Johnny Guitar is this film. Although, don't get me wrong, I love Joan in her campy 50's films too.Cliff Robertson is almost at the bottom of the bill on this one, even though he really is the male lead. This is only his second film, yet he pulls off the part of the child-like Burt like a pro. It's also good to see Ruth Donnelly as Milly's ever-supportive older neighbor twenty years after she was a contract player over at Warner Brothers. I highly recommend this film for anyone who even remotely enjoys Joan Crawford's films. You don't have to be a big fan to appreciate this one.

(There are Spoilers) Five handkerchief plus soap opera With the legendary queen of that movie genre Joan Crawford really outdoing herself as the forty some year-old spinster Millcent "Milly" Wetherby who just about gave up on romance until her knight in shinning armor young sensitive and taking no for an answer Burt Hanson, Cliff Robertson, walked into her life.At first not at all impressed with Burt, who gentlemanly offered to share a chicken salad with her, Milly just couldn't keep him out of her hair, or booth at the restaurant, with Burt refusing to sit somewhere else! In no time at all the two lovebirds were passionately smooching in front of Milly's condo apartment not at all caring who saw them.Milly's life changed for the worse some thirty years ago when she was saddled with caring for her ailing father, Selmer Jackson, who eventually died on her. This act of unselfish kindness caused Milly to lose the person whom she was planning to marry Paul, Robert Sherman. Paul just got sick and tired of waiting for Milly to accept his proposal of marriage and just walked out of her life. Now after all these long and lonely years Milly finally found the man that she was willing to spend the rest of her life with handsome young and extremely sensitive Burt Hanson. As things soon turned out Burt was a lot more sensitive then even Milly could have hoped for in a husband. He was far more sensitive in the head then in the heart! Where for Milly is where, in having a loving and successful marriage, it really counted!As soon as the couple were married Milly started to find things out about Burt that greatly disturbed her. Burt in fact was not the manager of the department store that he work in but a tie salesman who was stealing merchandise from the store to impress Milly! Milly was also shocked to find out that Burt originally came from Chicago not Wisconsin like he always told her. And the biggest surprise of all that Milly got about her now deceitful husband is that he was already married to the young, some 20 years her Junior, and pretty Virginia Hudson, Vera Miles, making her marriage to Burt not only illegal but Burt a bigamist!With his shady past exposed Burt suddenly became both violent and schizophrenic going off the handle and becoming not only a danger to Milly but himself as well. We, as well as Milly, soon find out the reason for Burt's mental instability. That's when Milly spots Burt's estrange wife Virginia and his swinger dad Mr. Hudson, Loren Green, acting like two star struck young lovers or newlyweds at the hotel pool that Mr. Hanson was staying at!***SPOILER ALERT*** One of Joan Crawford's best later films, when she was too old to play romantic parts, "Authumn Leaves" leaves you almost in tears in how Joan, as Milly Wetherby, had to suffer and put up with her mentally unstable husband throughout the entire movie. Never giving up on Burt, even after he belted her a couple of times, Milly finally had to have her very sick in the head husband institutionalized for his own good as well as safety. Burt who in his confused and unbalanced mind thought that Milly was trying to get back on him, in the pain and suffering he caused her, in having him committed in a sanitarium for the rest of his life found out in the end that she did it to help not to punish him.More then anything else it was Burt who was to cure himself of the mental aberrations that he was suffering from more then the psychiatrists and shock treatment that he was getting at the sanitarium. But by far most of all Burt had to finally realize that Milly was not only his wife but good and caring friend as well in her helping him to cure himself on his severe mental illness. And in that Burt passed with flying colors!