The Sheila Variations

"Sudden Fear"

I love people who say "I declare this week to be Gloria Grahame Week!" Really interesting blog there, by the way. Also the fact that he (she?) chose to illustrate the post with a photo from In a Lonely Place - a movie which contains, I believe, Bogart's best performance (I wrote about it here - in a series I need to revive again - my under-rated movies series)

It's just interesting that Gloria Grahame - with her wonderfully human and squishy face - seems to be everywhere these days - because 2 nights ago I saw (for the first time) Sudden Fear - one of Joan Crawford's comebacks (she was nominated for her 3rd Oscar, I believe) - and an example of Jack Palance's brilliant and very MODERN kind of acting. He smoulders. He doesn't look like a typical romantic lead. And yet ... you're drawn to him. He pre-figures the anti-hero of the late 50s and 60s. There he is, in 1952. He's wonderful. And Gloria Grahame is fantastic in this movie - really a nasty slutty little manipulator - watch how she smokes cigarettes as opposed to how Joan smokes. Joan makes it a bit - like all great movie stars did then. Smoking was behavior, rather than addiction. But Grahame? Sitting in bed in her pajamas, talking to Palance on the phone, smoking? She looks completely modern, sucking the smoke into her lungs in the least glamorous and most naturalistic way possible. She, too, is a precursor to acting styles that would come a decade later.

But stalking through the middle of that movie - with the "old" style of acting - is Joan Crawford - and when I say she gives a spectacular performance, what I mean by that is: the morning after I saw it I fired off a feverishly excited email to Alex to tell her I FINALLY had seen it and that I had to talk about it with her!!! I knew Joan from the later camp classics - and also as a kind of mythological image of an early glamourous movie star. Alex (to put it mildly) has given me QUITE a Joan Crawford education ... and so to see Sudden Fear - and to see Crawford at the top of her game ...

It was something else. It's a great movie all around - and everybody (Palance, Grahame, et al) is a revelation in it - but it's Joan, Joan who kinda makes everybody else before or since look like pallid amateurs. She doesn't chew the scenery. She's not Gloria Swanson. She definitely has the old-school style of acting - but every single moment ... literally: every single moment ... is immaculately acted. And she has some tough freakin' scenes to pull off.

She has an entire silent scene (Alex brought this up in her fevered reply to my email) when she is stalking around her study, listening to a tape play - and on the tape is very upsetting news. Upsetting? How about shattering. That's more appropriate. It would be like overhearing a conversation where you realize that one of the things you totally rely on ... has turned out to be an utter lie. It's like realizing that your lovely next door neighbor who has always been so sweet to you actually is an axe murderer. Only this has a level of personal devastation and betrayal and Crawford has no lines ... she just has to listen to this tape ... and react. Not ONE moment is "over"-acted. Not ONE moment is ... chewed up ... as one might expect. I actually got tears in my eyes watching her disintegrate. She modulated her performance so perfectly. Something changes in her posture - when she gets the first intimation of betrayal - it's just a slight collapse ... and the scene ends with her pacing around like a caged animal, wringing her hands, with tears streaming down her face. She's phenomenal. And the tears (and all the tears she sheds in the film) don't have that "Movie Actress Crying" feel to them. They aren't glycerine tears. There aren't closeups, lingering over: Look at Crawford Crying. They feel modern. Crawford herself seems unconcerned with "tears" - she is more concerned with trying to think her way, desperately, out of the mess she is in.

There are scenes with no dialogue - where Crawford sits at a desk - writing, and hiding keys, and wrapping things up in handkerchiefs, and burning evidence ... and much of it is done in one take - and you are so not aware of Crawford the Big Star Acting ... What you are aware of is: Holy shit, how will this woman get out of this??

Marvelous. I was truly amazed and moved by her work.

There's one scene (a famous one) where she hides in a closet. Classic film noir scene - she has a white scarf on her head, a black fur coat, a silver gun in the pocket ... and she is hiding in a shadowy apartment, terrified. The shadows from the Venetian blinds fall on the wall - and Crawford huddles in the closet. The way it is filmed is that a shaft of thin light falls across only part of Crawford's face - and she acts her entire scene from one spot. No language. Someone is walking around in the apartment, and needless to say - it will be BAD if Crawford is discovered. Sweat is beading up on Crawford's forehead - and she is so freaked out that she clamps her white-gloved hand over her mouth - so nothing, no breathing, or sighs will be heard. And all we have left to read her thoughts are her eyes - enormous, glimmering in the dark, filled with the fear of a trapped animal, flitting up, down, widening, tears glimmering, sometimes falling, sometimes not ... and every single second of this scene is a Joan Crawford tour de force.

Frankly, I was blown away by her. This wasn't just a good performance in a certain kind of style, or a good performance by an actress making a comeback. I wouldn't put any qualifications on it. I would call it a good performance period - and also one of the most effective performances I've ever seen. I forgot what I was doing, who I was watching, I forgot everything except the story.

Think of how many movies you see with stars as huge as Joan Crawford and how difficult and rare it is to forget you are watching a movie star. It is no small feat. This is why people like Johnny Depp or others sometimes might seem prickly to the press or the celeb-hungry (and yet industry-and-art ignorant) public ... they don't want to dilute their persona too much. They want to be able to slip into a role without TOO much paparazzi baggage. So it's very very hard to forget sometimes ... and especially with someone like Joan Crawford, whose legend has moved on into posterity, and yet whose image has been tainted by Faye Dunaway's (albeit brilliant) performance. THAT is who we see when we think of Crawford now - and it does her a great disservice because she is truly extraordinary and I'd put her up against any modern-era actress any day of the week. Show me an actress who could do that scene in the closet as well as Crawford did. I'd say that there are probably only a handful who could pull it off. She's that damn good.

Watch the transition she goes through in this film - her kind of cold and self-satisfied persona at the beginning - to the heartwarming loved woman in the middle - to the feverish woman trying to survive and outwit those who want to kill her - at the end.

I found a really nice review of this movie on the Joan Crawford Encyclopedia site. (SPOIILER ALERT. I actually had no idea what was going to happen in this movie - which really enhanced the suspense - so if you want to see it - don't read that review.)

A couple of excerpts which really resonated with me follow - they resonate with me because I love it when a reviewer can pull out a specific small moment, discuss it, and talk about why it is so effective. I very much agree with the assessments expressed here (some of which I already covered above):

The scene where Myra first listens to the recording and discovers Lester's perfidy is both fascinating and painful to watch because we're given no respite from the emotions that Myra's experiencing. Whole minutes go by in silence as we see Myra, often in close-up, reacting first in disbelief, then confusion, then sadness, then literal nausea, as she finally runs to the bathroom to throw up. The pure acting ability, and acting bravery, required to pull off such an uncomfortable scene is enormous, and I've never seen anything quite like it. Ever. Even in silent films, where similarly claustrophobic camera attention was necessarily paid to the actors' every expression.

Absolutely. Brave indeed.

Joan's acting skills are also evident in an earlier scene, when Lester hasn't shown up for a party in his honor and Myra goes to his apartment to find him---her awkwardly smiling look of utter love and submission and fear of rejection as she climbs the stairs and says to him "Without you I have nothing" is intimately and painfully nuanced.

Yes. There is a desperation and a submission in her that puts that gleam of NEED in Crawford's eyes. You ache for her, because you sense she is headed for a fall.

And the following moment gave me goose bumps - and I'm so glad to read this description of it, because it kind of broke it down - broke the moment down into its elements, showing why it is such a great moment:

Watching the two skilled actors maneuver through the duplicitous, lovingly inane "good morning" conversation is fascinating, culminating with Lester's "Aren't you going to kiss me?" Myra complies, her still-existing feelings for her husband battling with her repulsion for what she now knows about him. "I was just wondering what I'd done to deserve you, " she smiles and purrs. Then, as she turns and walks toward the camera, away from Lester's view, her smile fades oh-so-briefly into regret for what she's lost, then slowly transforms into grim disgust and equally grim determination to exact her revenge. It's a classic moment in the Crawford Canon, as well as a classic moment in film.

Absolutely. A truly GREAT movie-watching experience.

She was such a stunner.

Posted by sheila