Joan Crawford tough as nails star in camp fest "Torch Song"

Part I

We always called it "Torched Song."

Crawford had great legs.

Joan's voice...

Joan's voice didn't sustain much past a line or two at this point... And Joan's legs could crack coconuts!

Well, it certainly was an improvement over...

Joan's all '50s swanky... especially in her canary yellow onesie!

"Torch Song" is an inexplicable hot mess...I've seen it four or five times!

Who told her that the swell of hair on top of her forehead was attractive? It looks like razor wire.

I have Torch Song on DVD and watch it at least quarterly. Favorite line: "Your idea of art's the fruit in the slot machine."

I'm going to watch it tonight after making Greg's macaroni salad!

....

When do we get this one as a restored Blu-ray with a new 4K scan from the original camera negative, Warner Archive?

R10, so you’re trying to get fatter?

Eternal hair and eyebrow issues but made very entertaining films throughout her life

I always feel that the parallels between Joan and Tom Cruise in terms of career, drive, ambition, and ability are pretty uncanny. Watching both of them act is exhausting because you can just feel the effort they are putting into it. Sometimes this works because it fits the character, but sometimes it just makes me tired.

Who danced it better?

"You're paid to dance around that leg!"

Tom Cruise is indeed cut from the same cloth as Crawford. Tom had the same sorry upbringing and his drive was the same, to get away from the dire origins. Along the way, that energy turned to desperation, especially when the career began to falter.

[quote]Favorite line: "Your idea of art's the fruit in the slot machine."

Favorite line: "Lobster Newburg....and COFFEE!"

And Tom is similarly obsessed with presenting as -- and playing -- younger than his age.

Some wag wrote that India Adams did Miss Crawford's singing "in a voice so husky that it could pull a sled."

Is it true Michael wilding slept with men?

A passage to India...

Good man, R10!

Please report back.

Uhhh.... r23/Greg...did you notice r10's signature?

I did, R24–but only after I posted R23.

I’m sorry I said “good man.”

These are the times we live in.

[quote]These are the times we live in.

No, you just weren't being observant.

R10 reporting back. Greg, your macaroni salad recipe was perfection! Also easy on the wallet. Thank you for sharing!

Back to Torch Song!

I cannot believe anyone would voluntarily want to fuck Joan Crawford.

She had a delicious figure and a bawdy sensibility. I imagine behind closed doors she was a treat!

She just looks like a hard boy h. She doesn’t look like she enjoys men. Was she just a top with men?

No! I meant hard bitch!

Who decided Joan looked good with that hair and those harsh brows? Seriously great legs oddly juxtaposed by matronly helmet hair and harsh brown and lips.

It's lonely at the top!

I prefer Helen planting her own tree.

Apparently Joan loved the Mildred Fierce sketch, but she thought this one made fun of her.

What was the inspiration for the mostly terrible, short sexless hairstyles of the 1950s

She DID have nice legs. But I believe she looked better in her other 1950s films. Of course, this is the only one with blackface involved.

Fuck you, r36.

R28, it's my understanding that Joan would do anything in the bedroom. And I mean AN-Y-Th-I-NG...

Snip snip, R38

Joan started out in silent films, and built her career the hard way. At her peak, she was one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood.

Those weird later lips and the whole hard look...I can hardly believe she was kinda sultry.

It’s the heavy brows.

Something about “Torch Song” just makes it grow on me. All the elements are tawdry, but put together, they make something memorable. Too bad there was never a soundtrack release that I know of. (Maybe a 10 in. lp.)

And, it got a Best Supporting Oscar nomination for Marjorie Rambeau, who’s very touching as Crawford’s mother.

And I love the song, “Tenderly.”

And my favorite line: when the taxi driver asks Joan where she wants him to drop off the not so subtly gay Gig Young, she quips, “Any dark bar!”

And who did they think they were fooling , when Joan hosts an impromptu “party,” attended by only men! All in jackets and ties, but obviously caught up in each other. A rare glimpse of 50’s gay men on the DL.

See? “Torch Song”grows on you.

"Torch Song" is not a poorly produced film at all, it's just that it is a nice production of a very bad movie.

It's too bad the film isn't as good as its posters which are excellent!

[quote]Too bad there was never a soundtrack release that I know of. (Maybe a 10 in. lp.)

It was MGM, r44, of course there was...

Love when Joan makes her poor maid run lines with her, and at one point criticizes the maid's failure to recognize that "That's a broken speech."

That mask from "Strait Jacket" looks like it was first used in "Torch Song!"

[quote] [R10] reporting back. Greg, your macaroni salad recipe was perfection! Also easy on the wallet. Thank you for sharing!

Thank you, FatCubeFrau, I’m happy you liked it!

R1 that Carol Brunette clip truly is hilarious. Thanks for posting.

The eyebrow makeup back then was so weird. They used to paint Peter O Toole’s eyebrows the same way.

[R46]: I suspected something like that. Not a soundtrack recording, no underscore, and missing the notorious “Two Faced Woman.”

But probably all we can ever expect.

It is fun to note "Torch Song" director Chuck Walters also plays Joan's unlucky dance partner in the dance rehearsal scene.

What a sport!

She was so much prettier in her early years before the aging makeup and hair.

Joan was luminous in the '30s...

Joan was indeed striking in the '30s and through the mid-40s...

I have an original 1953 Torch Song movie poster as seen in r10 in my TV room (I’m looking at it right now). I looked through 100s of posters when decorating, and kept going back that one. I’d love to have a Bette Davis and a Barbara Stanwyck poster to complement it. Maybe one day.

"I cannot believe anyone would voluntarily want to fuck Joan Crawford."

You think straight men are picky or something? No, Crawford was a good-looking woman who kept her figure through middle age, and was an easy and experienced lay. And she'd move the pots to get any dirt that might be hiding in the house and claimed to be an excellent, what more could a straight man want?

Who knows, she may even have been attractive in real life during the 1950s and 60s, when she her screen persona became that of a campy dragon. If she'd ever taken off the Kabuki makeup and relaxed, she might have looked way, way better than the average woman of her age. I mean, this isn't a physically ugly woman, just a scary one.

"What was the inspiration for the mostly terrible, short sexless hairstyles of the 1950s"

Feminists have said that the 1950s zeitgeist for women was all about forcing women back into the kitchen, after they'd spent the 1940s holding good jobs and being independent, while all the younger men were conscripted or dead. 1940s women's fashion was slim-lined because of fabric shortages and mannish because of the aforementioned independence, while hairstyle were long and extravagantly waved, as hairstyles were about the only thing free of wartime restrictions and rationing.

So we all know about the post-war return of feminine "New Look" styles, but as clothes became more feminine, hair became less so, short and practical, suitable for a housewife who had to get on with mopping floors and wiping baby butts, and who didn't want her husband think she was trying to look attractive to other men. Because the ideal 1950s woman was a wife and not a lover, and definitely not some ball-buster who is taking a job away from some man because she thinks she's Rosie the Riveter. Matronly looks were popularized, because TPTB wanted women to stop being independent and become matrons.