A combination of badly curated, poorly made camp and drama that's actually quite decent (considering how bad I thought it was going to be), Torch Song is at times a good film and at times a terrible one. It's filled with problems that could have easily been solved. It turned Joan Crawford into Joan Caricature, but it also showed that she was in control of her screen image. Most of the camp lies in the musical numbers, which if they had been cut would have made this quite a decent film. It's far from Joan's worst film, but certainly not her best. At least it's only an hour and a half.
Jenny Stewart (Joan Crawford) is a Broadway hellion- uh, star- who terrorizes everyone except for her (teenage?) fans. She's tough, jaded, and lonely, but she'd never admit the last one, with a much younger boyfriend (Gig Young), who basically puts up with her temper tantrums and violent outbursts.
When a blind pianist named Ty Graham (Michael Wilding) comes into her life, Jenny is not amused, and almost instantly has him fired, but then un-fires him after going to his apartment, and it turns out that he wants her. What? After one odd scene of boredom where she pretends to be blind (why), Jenny's mom comes to visit, and Jenny has a party where everyone there is male (ego?), which disbands quickly when people start asking her questions about Ty.
When Jenny eventually does meet up with Ty, he tells her that he feels sorry for her, and she roars at him that he //must// go to Philadelphia with her, and there's a big ol' argument. He tells her that she will end up a drunken, lonely alcoholic (foreshadowing for the real Joan?), and Jenny goes back to her mother again. It turns out that Ty wrote a glowing article about Jenny in a show many years before, and Jenny reminisces. What happens next? You can guess.
Joan Crawford is maybe acting, maybe not as Jenny Stewart- it depends on what details you believe about her life-- but whatever you believe or not, it's amazing how she managed to utter all of this dialogue with a straight face--- sober. She doesn't look as much like a drag queen here as she did in some other films of this period (Johnny Guitar, Female On The Beach), and while her singing and dancing aren't what they used to be, she should not have been dubbed by India Adams. Crawford was never a singer to begin with, but it's common sense that a forty-eight-year-old alcoholic and smoker would not sound like India Adams, who was the dubber for Cyd Charisse (who was in her mid twenties).
Also, why at around 40:12 does she have an earring in her hair? No one explains this, she doesn't notice it, and she goes to Ty's apartment with that earring still stuck in her hair- you can tell Michael Wilding looks like he really wants to yank it out so that she doesn't make a fool of herself.
Michael Wilding is a rather bland leading man in a rather bland role, and that's made even more evident by the fact that he has zero chemistry with his leading lady. Gig Young has zero chemistry with Joan as well- in fact, Joan has better chemistry with the actress who plays her mother (Marjorie Rambeau) than she does with either of her leading men. Nice to see Maidie Normand as Jenny's secretary, although I'm not sure how she deserved a role in this production.
The set design is very campy (read: very fifties), and so are most of Joan's costumes. In spite of all of its flaws, the film is well directed, but of course there's that infamous one number where everyone decides to wear blackface for no reason, and yeah, it's worse than they say it is. Don't watch the screen about 62-67 minutes in, or that image will be burned into your brain forever. I know that I'll have to wash my head out after seeing it. Yikes. 😬 Just yikes. It practically exemplifies why I think all of the musical numbers should have been cut- I'm honestly surprised that Joan wasn't tanked when this number was filmed. Although it was the sparkles in her eyebrows that did it for me. 😑
This isn't really a film that one recommends- rather, it's a film that one stumbles on by accident. A box set I owned had this film, so I had to watch it, and I'm not saying I'm glad that I did, but it wasn't unwatchable. Just strange viewing.
Jenny Stewart (Joan Crawford) is a Broadway hellion- uh, star- who terrorizes everyone except for her (teenage?) fans. She's tough, jaded, and lonely, but she'd never admit the last one, with a much younger boyfriend (Gig Young), who basically puts up with her temper tantrums and violent outbursts.
When a blind pianist named Ty Graham (Michael Wilding) comes into her life, Jenny is not amused, and almost instantly has him fired, but then un-fires him after going to his apartment, and it turns out that he wants her. What? After one odd scene of boredom where she pretends to be blind (why), Jenny's mom comes to visit, and Jenny has a party where everyone there is male (ego?), which disbands quickly when people start asking her questions about Ty.
When Jenny eventually does meet up with Ty, he tells her that he feels sorry for her, and she roars at him that he //must// go to Philadelphia with her, and there's a big ol' argument. He tells her that she will end up a drunken, lonely alcoholic (foreshadowing for the real Joan?), and Jenny goes back to her mother again. It turns out that Ty wrote a glowing article about Jenny in a show many years before, and Jenny reminisces. What happens next? You can guess.
Joan Crawford is maybe acting, maybe not as Jenny Stewart- it depends on what details you believe about her life-- but whatever you believe or not, it's amazing how she managed to utter all of this dialogue with a straight face--- sober. She doesn't look as much like a drag queen here as she did in some other films of this period (Johnny Guitar, Female On The Beach), and while her singing and dancing aren't what they used to be, she should not have been dubbed by India Adams. Crawford was never a singer to begin with, but it's common sense that a forty-eight-year-old alcoholic and smoker would not sound like India Adams, who was the dubber for Cyd Charisse (who was in her mid twenties).
Also, why at around 40:12 does she have an earring in her hair? No one explains this, she doesn't notice it, and she goes to Ty's apartment with that earring still stuck in her hair- you can tell Michael Wilding looks like he really wants to yank it out so that she doesn't make a fool of herself.
Michael Wilding is a rather bland leading man in a rather bland role, and that's made even more evident by the fact that he has zero chemistry with his leading lady. Gig Young has zero chemistry with Joan as well- in fact, Joan has better chemistry with the actress who plays her mother (Marjorie Rambeau) than she does with either of her leading men. Nice to see Maidie Normand as Jenny's secretary, although I'm not sure how she deserved a role in this production.
The set design is very campy (read: very fifties), and so are most of Joan's costumes. In spite of all of its flaws, the film is well directed, but of course there's that infamous one number where everyone decides to wear blackface for no reason, and yeah, it's worse than they say it is. Don't watch the screen about 62-67 minutes in, or that image will be burned into your brain forever. I know that I'll have to wash my head out after seeing it. Yikes. 😬 Just yikes. It practically exemplifies why I think all of the musical numbers should have been cut- I'm honestly surprised that Joan wasn't tanked when this number was filmed. Although it was the sparkles in her eyebrows that did it for me. 😑
This isn't really a film that one recommends- rather, it's a film that one stumbles on by accident. A box set I owned had this film, so I had to watch it, and I'm not saying I'm glad that I did, but it wasn't unwatchable. Just strange viewing.