Kim Morgan on Joan Crawford in Strait Jacket – which, if you haven’t seen, all I can say is: do yourself a favor … But Kim covers the weirdness and brilliance of it perfectly. I adored this part of Kim’s piece:
We also get a nice little glimpse into the talented, vizard charisma that is Joan in the disc’s other special feature, with her costume and makeup tests. She’s in full character, smoking sexily, and she believes she’s the hottest thing in high heels, jangling her charm bracelet around all come-hither-boys. Crawford the star and Crawford the woman never wandered far from each other, making her alternately brilliant and terrifying. Stare at these tests and you’ll think she just may be one of the most fascinating self-inventions ever to grace, or rather, claw her way across the silver screen. If you watch it more than three times, you just can’t help but adore how wonderfully insane she seems. Whatever happened to actresses like Joan? They died away — torn down like the old hat resting atop the Brown Derby restaurant.
Wow.
The screenshot Kim chose to start her piece with – Joan with the Bettie Page bangs and the lit match – is a moment that has to be seen to be believed. She, in a fit of insouciant rebellion, lights her match off of a record turning on the turntable. It’s such a weird moment and she plays it with 100% conviction – and the first time I saw it (with Alex) – we laughed so loudly that we got in trouble. We watched it REPEATEDLY. Over and over and over …. I cannot describe why it struck us as so funny. The sound the match makes against the record, the record screeching to a halt – that was part of it … we KEPT making that screeching sound, and poor Chrisanne had to get up in like 3 hours to go to work, and her house-guest and her wife were HOWLING with laughter for, God, what was it, 40 minutes?
Kim really “gets” Crawford, in a way that I totally appreciate – and I’m glad to see that weirdo ax-murderer movie highlighted.
Also, please notice: Joan Crawford was at the height of her Pepsi endorsement career at that point – so there’s one scene in a kitchen, a completely undecorated kitchen – and sitting on the counter, in between the two characters, for no apparent reason, is a huge box of Pepsi, label carefully turned toward the camera.
Crawford was no dummy.
