Female on the Beach (1955)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Beautiful, moving film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Why was I drawn to this? I guess I felt like seeing something slightly out of my usual sphere and was intrigued at the coupling of Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler. As it turns out this is a pretty decent little melodrama with more edge than I would have expected. The play for the rich widow is fairly predictable and the ending unfortunate but in the middle somewhere there is a startling scene that seems to turn things all around. Looking good all the time this movie also has some cracking dialogue with the two leads on great form. Crawford makes a few odd gestures with her attire a couple of times that seem designed to show her legs more effectively and if this never really catches fire it gets fairly damn close. I gather that the film attracts a certain audience because of it's perceived 'camp' aspect and for being ' so bad its good' but I can ignore such clichés and see them as simply the way part of the fan base for such a film as this see things. Doesn't mean I have to. This is no classic but nor is a piece of trivial nonsense.

In Female On The Beach widow Joan Crawford inherits a nice Pacific Coast beach house from her late husband. Recently Judith Evelyn was renting the place and she also got dead by falling off her terrace. Detective Charles Drake isn't sure it was an accident and his prime suspect is Jeff Chandler.I noted that Female On The Beach was based on a play that according to the Internet Broadway Database did not make it on Broadway. So author Robert Hill got it sold to Universal and he helped adapt it for the screen. For some of the themes this play was exploring Tennessee Williams would have been ideal.Chandler is a guy without visible means of support. Courtesy of the late tenant Judith Evelyn he ties his boat on her dock. Whatever he's got every female in heat wants, Crawford, Evelyn, real estate broker Jan Sterling even Natalie Schaefer who is married to neighbor Cecil Kellaway. The two are a pair con artists, but you can Schaefer checking Chandler out.Chandler is part of a come on to get lonely women to gamble their life savings with Kellaway and Schaefer which is what he did with Evelyn. But he's starting to get pangs of conscience with Joan.Female On The Beach is the kind of film that is perfect for Joan Crawford. But it needed two things, Tennessee Williams to write it and it also is flawed in its ending. It has the same problem as the Alfred Hitchcock classic Suspicion and the ending that Hitchcock was forced to make there.

By the early to mid-1950s, Joan Crawford should have considered stopping playing the same roles she might have gotten away with earlier in her career. In other words, she was simply too old to be believable as the sexy leading lady she was portrayed as in several of these films. This soap opera-style movie was a prime example of this, as she was paired with a much younger-looking Jeff Chandler,...and when she appeared in gorgeous gowns and bathing suits, it just seemed very forced and unbelievable. She was 51 and Chandler was in his late 30s. This role should have been played by a woman at least 10 years younger. But, apart from that, the movie is a pretty pedestrian effort--nothing particularly outstanding one way or the other. Passable at best.

I have to say, Joan Crawford is THE queen of camp without a doubt. This trashy little gem showcases Joan at her campy best in this her midlife career.She plays Lynne Markham, a rich widow who moves to the beach house she has never seen that was owned by her late husband. She moves into a mess, the previous tenant, a lonely rich woman who couldn't handle her booze or the sleazy beach bum, Drummond played by iron jawed, steel haired Jeff Chandler, died under mysterious circumstances. Did she commit suicide or did she have a little help? Joan emotes shamelessly in this tawdry soap. She swoons, flares her nostrils, almost passes out as Drummond savagely paws her, this borders on rape and Joan's character absolutely LOVES IT!!!! She spits out such classic lines as "You're about as friendly as a suction pump" with a completely straight face. What a hoot!!!! The storyline is a camp classic, the rich, lonely widows who succumb to the wiles of Drummond and the con artist neighbors, played by Natalie Schaefer and Cecil Kellaway and the beautiful Realtor played by Jan Sterling all mix together for a movie to die for. It is a must see for all Crawford fans. At this stage of her career she had become a phenomenon, a steel rose, the makeup and hair becoming more surreal and harsh the older she got, amazing, transfixing. You have to see it to believe it.