Love Has Many Faces/Female on the Beach Double Feature!

Perhaps J.Lo should do a remake of one of these beach operas instead of playing a bride for the billionth time?

What was Edith Head smokin' when she narrated this insane short about her "million dollar" wardrobe for Lana Turner in "Love Has Many Face Lifts?!"

[quote]cougars fighting loneliness with booze . . . while emoting up a storm in drag queen outfits and zingy dialogue.

You mean like, Datalounge?

And you just know they both fucked their co-stars.

Joan starred in very entertaining films,

Here's a nifty sum up of "Female on the Beach." Funny that Joan's lonely, late tenant was played by "Miss Lonelyhearts" in "Rear Window!"

I don't think Edith Head designed Hugh O'Brian's bikini! No sequins!

Hugh O’Brian was a hot piece. Funny how he remained unmarried until he became a senior citizen.

The first female woman named Joan on the beach.

Nicely done, OP. Fun to read and great photos.

Another campy one is The Female Animal, with Hedy Lamarr and Jan Sterling

R11 yes,

The Female Animal also features hot, gay George Nader

Female Trouble on the Beach

These two movies are basically utter shit.

We praise “classic” Hollywood and The Golden Age, but just like today, for every good film there was a pile of mediocre ones and then another pile of bad ones.

Making movies isn’t easy, or else everything released would be a masterpiece.

Jeff Chandler was so handsome

Especially in polka dots.

Thanks for the interesting and fun thread and blog post too, Rick.

Cliff was soooooooooo handsome.

By the way, I don't think a boy toy, as you name them, has to be a 20something. There were plenty of 40 year old men on the make for rich women. I had a super rich great aunt who wen through many such men over 40 years. Some of them were rather nice. All were decorative, useful gigolos one way or another.

Just so happens I did a piece on "The Female Animal" a while back. What amazed me was that, even after 20+ years in the biz, Hedy Lamarr seemed to be barely able to understand what she was saying in English! And Jane Powell in a dramatic role as a trashy spoiled Hollywood child is a hoot. Enjoy!

“Tired Old Queen” reviews Female on the Beach

“How do you like your coffee?”

“ALONE!”

Love Has Many Faves is like junk comfort food to me.

Jeff Chandler had a striking face, but was unfortunately saddled with old man butt. Him and Gary Cooper. Asses like ironing boards.

A lot of stars had flat asses back then. Pre-gym days, butt implants, and posting oneself on Social Media 24/7. Joan and Lana both had ironing board booties, too... just to name a few. Think Marilyn was an exception.

r14 I got somethin' for your face, motherfucker!

Lana Turner always looked like she had a yeast infection and a very limited intelligence apart from her pussy brain.

I was surprised to see Lana in a bathing suit. Her ass was flat and she was rather thick waisted. Her titties and a photogenic face got her to Hollywood.

Mr. and Mrs. Jeff Chandler at Ciro's...

Chandler always gave and gives me the creeps, and my response dates to before Esther Williams felt the need to publicly discuss his transvestitism, actually made him seem more understandable. But still creepy, physically. Size of head, body shape, weird softness and lumpiness, hair - just yuck.

I believe he was more CD than TV, r29.

R19, I like your review! That was a good read

Hedy Lamarr was a lousy actress. So exquisite to look at, but the acting ability of a stop sign.

Lana did have a flat rear and a bit short in the waist as did many petite stars: Judy, Liz, June, etc. Don't think it was uncommon in an era of shorter people, who didn't hit the gym. Always thought Ava had more of the modern ideal of a female body.

As for Hedy Lamarr, she was a beauty, may have been an inventor, but wasn't an inventive actress! Which is why her career went down the tubes after the mid/40's, with one last hurrah with Mr. DeMille!

[quote]R32 Hedy Lamarr was a lousy actress. So exquisite to look at, but the acting ability of a stop sign.

You are very kind. I myself wonder if she had the urgency of a stop sign.

Maybe she’s more like one printed “Slow” or “Detour” (?)

Nancy Wilson sings a classy theme song for "Love Has Many Faces" here...

She's the ONLY classy thing in that piece of shit

R5, was Queen Bee filmed at Tara?

I think Hedy looks awful in The Female Animal. Was she already fiddling around with the plastic surgery that totally ruined her face?

I remember reading an interview with Jane Powell where she talked about how much she hated making this film and how rude Hedy was to her. I can only imagine... I assumed that they were both still under contract to MGM but now see that the film was made by Universal in 1958. Yikes! Desperate times.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE QUEEN BEE. You have to suspend disbelief as Joan is supposed to be in her thirties when she was actually pushing fifty. And she's got that tight prison matron hairdo and as the guy above mentions, that kabuki like makeup. But it's a campy romp of a film

[quote]r38 I remember reading an interview with Jane Powell where she talked about how much she hated making this film and how rude Hedy was to her.

Lamarr was one of the only actresses the usually discrete Edith Head ever wrote she didn’t like working with. (The others were Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and the young Mary Martin.) Head said that Lamarr was lazy and just wanted to lie on the floor when they were fitting her costumes.

Incidentally, Head wrote it was tricky making Lamar look like a bombshell in the Samson & Delilah clothes, as she didn’t have much of a bust. That’s why there’s a lot of 1-shoulder designs and bare midriff for the character. They had to show skin impact without reverting to the customary cleavage.

Female on the Beach was filmed at Balboa Beach.

I absolutely love Female on the Beach, it's a lot of fun. I have never seen the Lana film and really want to, now!

Jane Powell always seemed level-headed and normal. Hedy missed MGM doing everything for her and couldn't deal with loss of fame and aging. I thought Hedy already looked rough in "Female Animal" and it seemed like barely understood her dialouge! Jan Sterling as a former child star turned lush is a hoot as Hedy's frenemy...

The *ever* dependable Jan Sterling!

The actress who plays poor old lonely Eloise Crandall is the best drunk ever. Just before she gets pushed through the deck railing, she stumbles out of the bedroom and swigs brandy, wipes her mouth on her sleeve and slurs “Drummy? drummy! H’eh?” with a pitch perfect drunken “squeaky” tone in her voice. It’s amazing.

Jan Sterling also steals a few scenes from Joan. Big no-no.

Judith Evelyn plays Eloise. She played Harriet Craig in the 1947 Broadway revival of "Craig's Wife," which Crawford filmed in 1950 as "Harriet Craig."

The Tingler

There was no way Joan was going to come in contact in any way with the sand and the beach with those big bullet boobies sticking out from her in any direction or position!

Judith Evelyn also played "Miss Lonelyhearts" in "Rear Window," a dress rehearsal for this role! She also played Elizabeth Taylor's mother in "Giant."

Hedy aged horribly, far worse than Joan Crawford.

Speaking of how well the actress playing drunken Eloise Crandall... both Joan and Lana have drunk scenes in their beach epics and they're played very badly. Which is amusing, considering both gals were known to get into the drink every now and again!

[quote]both gals were known to get into the drink every now and again and again!

fixed it for you, r52

I always thought Judith Evelyn looked like Martha Mason.

Martha?

EXCUSE me??

Martha Mason, r55...

So difficult to choose Joan's most unintentionally hilarious picture--so many to choose from: "Torch Song," "Berserk," "Female on the Beach," "Queen Bee," "Strait-Jacket," "I Saw What You Did," "Trog," etc.

Don't forget Harriet Craig, R57!

[quote]the usually discrete Edith Head

Oh, dear.

Is Twitter even more broken than usual or is your Twitter account gone, OP?

For me, THE STORY OF ESTHER COSTELLO should also be included in the list of Joan’s unintentionally funny movies.

Joan’s bitchcraft in these corny old films is masterful. Critics noted that she was at the very “peak of her frank insincerity”

Some of these lines were so perfect: “you’re so quiet, we’ll have to put a bell on you” “there’s a little bit of me in every woman”, “any man’s mine if I want it that way”.

I think there was more than a little bit of the real Joan in these later vehicles! In "Shemale on the Beach," when Joan acts "hurt," with her overdrawn lips pursed, and Groucho eyebrows furrowed, the sight is alternately horrifying and hilarious...

And you can also add Miss Joan Crawford's fabulous cameo as Paperback Publishing Powerhouse Amanda Farrow in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING.

R64 “…oh, really? That’s very ‘bright’ of you.”

You mean Craig's Wife, r58?

Judith in Craig's Wife...

Love Harriet Craig, couldn't get through Craig's Wife.

Joan is a pleasure to watch in almost everything, including the ghoulish, menacing “head bitch in charge” of the 1950’s. I was crazy about her performance as Vienna in Johnny Guitar, and the menacing tramp Eva in Queen Bee. in Craig’s Wife, her character is such a skanky liar and chews up all the others, like that maid portrayed by Ellen Corby when she drops a teacup.

There is also a great scene in The Damned Don’t Cry where she sorts out a friend who ripped her off. When that gal rushes after her protesting, Joan’s character growls over her shoulder “ehhhh shadup!”. Delicious.

I'm watching [italic]Trog[/italic] now. You have to admire ol' gal's commitment, despite the indignity of having to wear her own clothes.

Speaking of The Damned Don’t Cry, it’s getting released on Blu-ray on 6/27!

R24 Doris Day didn't had a great ass.

R24 I meant to write: Doris Day had a great ass.

“ When local gigolo Drummy wakes up Joan’s Lynn early in the a.m, I half expected her to yowl, "Christopher, Tina, dammmm-it!" Jeff Chandler’s Drummy soon finds out that Lynn prefers her morning deep brewed flay-vah alone!”

Love your reviews, Rick!

“You’re very thoughtful, but I don’t care for orchids in the afternoon”.

Reply 74, Thank you!

[quote]"...Joan acts "hurt," with her overdrawn lips pursed, and Groucho eyebrows furrowed..."

"...Joan acts "hurt," with her overdrawn lips pursed, and Francho eyebrows furrowed", you IDIOT!

It was Franchot, you IDIOT!

R70 Trog is a pretty nonsense plot and some cheesy special effects, but watching a good, clear print of it is like looking through a Time Machine at the UK for that period’s design and technology (I love the cars).

Joan looks pretty good in her colored separates and personal jewelry. I think she changed outfits in a car.

In the early scenes, the young actors portraying the cave explorers who encounter Trog are really fit. I notice that in films of that era.

The acting is pretty bad overall. I love Michael Gough a the irascible skeptic, creeping about, practically twirling a mustache behind a column. He was so campy, cool, fun to watch. He tried to steal scenes from Joan, big “no, no”.

[quote]The acting is pretty bad overall.

Well that's a shock.

Rick here! I'm always amazed & amused how those MGM gals (Joan, Lana, also Judy & Liz) played parts that mirrored their off-camera lives. In Lana's "Love Has Many Faces," Turner plays a jaded tramp who likes to play with the beach boys in Mexico, Lana's mid-life playground. And in "She-male on the Beach," Joan plays a hard as nails "specialty dancer...the Charleston?" who has a weakness for boy toys... just as Crawford had her '50s mid-life crisis, working through male starlets half her age!

[quote] The others were Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and the young Mary Martin.

So, three of Paramount's biggest stars of the 40s.

Wasn’t Jeff Chandler basically a rent boy in “Female on the Beach”?

Trog! Trog! Trog! Trog!

R83 yes, like Hugh O’Brien in Love Has Many Faces

Hugh O'Brian was one sexy guy back in his youth.

I'm so glad Joan wasn't in From Here To Eternity.

I think Joan would have swell in the Burt Lancaster part!

All the women have man shoulders. Were they doing casting calls at the local swimming meet?

R84”Trog STOP IT!”

The scenes where Joan “relates” to Trog are the most fun to watch. I always liked how she tried to soothe and cajole him with her voice and “mannered” acting. Also her instructional tone when teaching Trog colors (“Blue, Trog…BLLLUE…”)

Trog was on trend with his brown sneakers, clearly visible in many scenes.

Joan flirts with a British accent “are you still at Uni-vuh-city?” but that trails off. Someone simply said fuck it.

There is nothing better than spending a lazy Sunday afternoon watching Ross Hunter and other assorted melodramas such as Love Has Many Faces, Portrait in Black, Where Love Has Gone, etc. I find these movies to be so watchable, despite the other cinematic qualities they're lacking!

Joan really demonstrates her parenting skills in "Trog!" As for "Female on the Beach," I love how JC constantly touches herself, as if to assure herself that her bod's still rockin'...

Hugh O'Brian's entire wardrobe consists of a tight bathing suit. I'm serious, he only puts on some clothes towards the end, after his scene wearing a small towel.

This is worth the price of admission.

When I was a child in the 1950s I wasn't too aware of who Joan was, except I do remember being brought to a Saturday matinee of The Best Of Everything by my older cousins. But I fell in love with young Diane Baker, not Joan.

Then around 1963, I think, Carol Burnett did a TV special for CBS and announced that Robert Preston would be her guest star and she said something like: "And he has bigger shoulders than Joan Crawford!" I didn't really get it back then as she just seemed like some old faded lady. It wasn't until years later in college in the 70s when I started watching a lot of classic old b&w Hollywood movies, that I got the joke.

Now I'm not sure why I'm telling this little anecdote. But there it is.

"Their progress is rendered no more fetching by the inanities of a hackneyed script and the artificiality and pretentiousness of Miss Crawford's acting style. At the end, the guilty party is revealed in a ridiculous way. Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway and Natalie Schafer are the supporting players you may remotely suspect."

(Bosley Crowther, NYT)

I've never been much of a Crawford fan and I like how Crowther succinctly summed up her acting style. Even at her best she could *almost* be real and down to earth, but not 100%. Anyway, she usually wasn't boring, But dig that poster!

R95 Reviewers also considered this period of Joan’s career the peak of her “frank insincerity”, in roles like Queen Bee, Harriet Craig, The Best of Everything.

For some reason there is something pleasurable about watching her dispatch other flawed, weaker characters. in Female on the Beach, she basically pisses on Jan Sterling’s head to show dominance. Sterling’s chirpy delivery reminds me of a songbird perching naively on a crocodile. Joan’s dismissive responses almost deflate Sterling (“Miss Rawlinson, I don’t think I’d care for that…”). I also really liked “ oh…so this is wear the loser tells the winner she’s making a big mistake..”

When Jeff Chandler’s Drummond Hall offers up his friendly, greasy “how do you like coffee?”, Joan growls “alone”. I also liked her character’s disclosure “I have a lonnnng list of dislikes. It’s getting longer.”

^^ “where”, not “wear”, d’oh.

Hugh O’Brien, for all his hottie hottiness looks middle aged in the clip.

Cliff Robertson was a hot hottie in Autumn Leaves with our Joan

R96 I did like her a lot in The Best Of Everything. Especially at the beginning, when she gives Hope Lange contradictory orders. Later on, she's not too self-piying, which is good because I hated it when Joan wallowed in self-pity.

I don't think anyone has mentioned Sudden Fear - that's a terrific film and one of my favorites of hers.

[quote]For some reason there is something pleasurable about watching her dispatch other flawed, weaker characters.

Yes!

PS A great moment in The Damned Don't Cry is when she's staying with her parents near the end and the camera just focuses on her lying in bed listening to a conversation outside the room, and you actually can on her face what her subtle thoughts are - and you can see when one thought replaces another thought. I felt that was really good screen acting.

I can't believe there's not yet been any mention of one of Joan's better - or at least, more memorable - lines.

"Darling, a party is to women what a battlefield is to men. Oh, I forgot, you weren't in the army, were you? Something about drinking, wasn't it...?"

R102, With DL fave Betsy Palmer.

Hugh was 40 when "Love" was released in '65. Still hot, but at 40, not exactly a beach BOY...

R104, I can recall Hugh appearing on PASSWORD and telling Allen Ludden that he was about to leave for Acapulco to make a movie with Lana Turner.

Yes, I’m old.

I'd take a 40 year old Hugh O'Brian over ANYONE half that age.

R102 That film is packed with good ones. “Any man’s mine if I want it that way”, “There’s a little bit of me in every woman”, “Carol, you’re so quiet, we’ll have to put a bell on you”.

I also enjoyed nurse Breen: “Breensy will SLAP LAZY HANDS!”

R107 I also love John Ireland's response to Joan's seduction technique:

"You're like some kind of fancy disease. I had you once... now I'm immune!"

I love how in Joan's '50s films, you could play the drinking game everytime somebody refers to her as beautiful!

I woulda wore a swimsuit but they couldn't disguise the cameltoe.

^ Or young. Someone in Female on the Beach calls her "young lady"

R105, here's Hugh at 1:29.

Silly me

(Reply 111) Yes, I snorted at the "young lady" line in "Shemale on the Beach," too. Which reminds me of 1953's "Torch Song," when Michael Wilding's blind pianist remembers her when she was a sweet young thing, starting out during the war... I'm like, "World War I?"

Does anyone actually know Joan's real birth date? Wikipedia lists it as "March 23, 190?".

TCM alert! They will be showing Lana's "Love Has Many Faces" at midnight. Sadly, it will not be followed up by "Female on the Beach." Instead it will be followed by Joan's other insane '50s epic, "Queen Bee!" Here's Lana's co-star, Hugh O'Brien's speedo, in a "Faces" scene!

My neighbor is two-faced

R115, I believe census data proved she was born in 1904

[quote]TCM alert! They will be showing Lana's "Love Has Many Faces" at midnight. Sadly, it will not be followed up by "Female on the Beach." Instead it will be followed by Joan's other insane '50s epic, "Queen Bee!" Here's Lana's co-star, Hugh O'Brien's speedo, in a "Faces" scene!

Yes, but it's PRECEDED by "Written on the Wind" and "Valley of the Dolls." This is all part of "Friday Summer 'Camp'" on TCM.

So TCM is treating Douglas Sirk’s Written on the Wind like it’s camp, now?

Written on the Wind is camp. It's not JUST camp, but it's camp.

Written on the Wind has always been high camp, are you serious? Dorothy Malone's insane dancing that kills her father? Robert Stack being informed that he has "A WEAKNESS?!?" It's delicious.