LAST SUMMER 1969

The occasion of a recent TCM screening of this forgotten minor masterpiece from the late ‘60s jogged my memory back to when the film collaborations of the matrimonial/professional team of director Frank Perry and screenwriter Eleanor Perry represented the bright promise of the New Hollywood. Their films, David and Lisa (1962), The Swimmer (1968), and especially the excellent Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), felt almost European in their blending of arthouse aesthetics with exploitable, mainstream commercial themes.  

Goodbye, Gidget. Farewell, Frankie and Annette
An awful lot had changed since the release of the final Beach Party movie in 1966

I was 13 years old when Last Summer, and, in truth, I had no business seeing so adult a motion picture at such a young age. I may have had no business seeing it, but I wanted to see it like crazy. But thanks to having a much older sister who served as the accompanying “adult guardian” making possible my admission to a slew of age-inappropriate movie farein previous years—Barbarella, Rosemary’s Baby, Bonnie and Clyde, and Secret Ceremony, to name just a few—I had already convinced myself that I was far too mature an adolescent to waste time on the movies marketed to my age demographic. 

The MPAA movie rating system was in its infancy then (when G, M, R, and X were the designations), and I had self-seriously deemed that anything below an “M” was simply not worth my time. After all, I wasn't a child!

Of course, I know now that this attitude was as much born of fervid sexual curiosity (aka, adolescent horniness) as intellectual inquisitiveness, but when you’re that young, there really isn’t all that much of a difference between the two.

Last Summer premiered in New York with an X-rating. By the time it opened
in San Francisco two months later, it had been edited down to an R-rating

The release of Last Summer was on my radar because I had read that it was to be given an X-rating, and back then, to me, X-rated meant sophisticated. To my mind it was a rating that, in keeping with the critical and boxoffice success of the recent X-rated release Midnight Cowboy (1969), held the promise of being just the start of a whole slew of Hollywood movies made for grown-ups (and me, of course) that were free to tell important, contemporary stories unencumbered by the constraints of censorship or the worry of meeting the bland criteria of "wholesome family entertainment."

And indeed, for a time, that appeared to be the case. There came a string of films with intriguingly elevated themes that fell under the X-rating umbrella: Greetings! (1968), The Damned (1969), Medium Cool (1969), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Last Tango in Paris(1972). But soon the “X” rating was appropriated by the porn industry, and whatever chance an "X-rating" had of signifying hands-off censorship interference was short-lived.  

Barbara Hershey as Sandy

Richard Thomas as Peter

Bruce Davison as Dan

Catherine Burns as Rhoda

I saw both Midnight Cowboy and Last Summer within months of each other, and the reason I'm harping on the whole "X-rated" thing is that it became part of Last Summer's lore, and contributed to a lot of misremembering on my part. At the time, everyone was talking about these two high-profile, controversial, X-rated features. John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy maintained its X for the duration of its run, but Last Summer, after playing briefly in NYC with the "X" tag, Frank Perry agreed to delete a couple of swear words and a few frames from the film's harrowing climax to give his film an R-rating before going into wide release. 

What TCM screened a few weeks ago was said to be the R-rated theatrical release from 1969, and likely the same film I saw back then. But over the years, there have been so many edited versions of Last Summer in circulation (remarkably, I don't think it ever had a VHS or DVD release) that I have my doubts. This isn't helped by my having two bootleg versions of the film, one running about a minute and forty some seconds longer than the other. (The extended time seems due to longer shots in the final sequence. The longer version is recognizable by the inclusion of Bruce Davidson's line "She's gonna swallow her braces," after Barbara Hershey's remark "You look like you're gonna choke.")

This shot, part of an extended verbal exchange, was missing, along with several other brief cuts
to this sequence, from the version of  Last Summer broadcast on TCM 

So, despite what I do and don't remember about the version I saw back in 1970, at least we know there are at least two different cuts of Last Summer floating around. 

Both Midnight Cowboy and Last Summer received high praise from critics, Midnight Cowboy going on to make history as the first (and to date only) X-rated movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. But somehow, Last Summer, despite having garnered a Best Supporting Actress nod for newcomer Catherine Burns, and launching the long careers of its other young stars, managed to fall through the cracks. All but forgotten due to the film's unavailability. 

Affluent teens vacationing on Fire Island with their disinterested parents 

bond after saving the life of an injured seagull

With its title a darkly ironic harkening back to the innocent, sun-and-sand Gidget movies of the sixties, or those sexually innocuous Frankie & Annette Beach Party romps, Last Summer is perhaps one of the harshest eviscerations of adolescent social dynamics I've ever seen. Neither a youth-pandering idealization of the Pepsi Generation of the sort typified by late-'60s films like The Graduate and Easy Rider, nor one of those nostalgically sentimental coming-of-age films that would later flourish in the '70s (The Summer of ’42, The Last Picture Show, American Graffiti), Last Summer is adolescence presented as a state of proto-barbarism. Where the youthful cry for "freedom" is met with the notion that, if left to their own devices, would the Love Generation be any less savage than the Over-30 set?

In a scene emphasizing Sandy's sexual acquisitiveness and dominance over the boys' relative sexual hesitancy, Sandy and Dan come across two lovers making out on a remote stretch of beach. When it's discovered that the lovers are men, Dan wants to leave, but Sandy insists they stay and watch. 

A trio of teens vacationing with their parents on Fire Island strike up an intimate friendship when callow, future fratboy Dan (Davison), and sensitive go-alonger Peter (Thomas) come upon sexually precocious brainiac, Sandy, tending to a wounded seagull on the beach (Sandy: Well you asked me, so don’t think I’m boasting, but my IQ is 157.”) Bonding over their shared isolation, sexual restlessness, and an overweening, heretofore unplumbed disdain for the feelings of others, the threesome find the dynamics of their tightly-knit group challenged with the appearance of Rhoda, a bright but shy and awkward outsider who insinuates herself into the fold.

The vulnerable don't stand much of a chance with this crowd. Rhoda is introduced committing a simple act of deceny (which already makes her a misfit): she tries to get the trio to stop tormenting the seagull they're attempting to turn into a pet.  

Plump and pale to their tall and tawny; braces-wearing and happy to act her age to the trio’s fevered acceleration into adulthood; it’s fairly obvious from the start that Rhoda’s emotional self-assurance and killjoy, sober decency is a wrong mix for this crowd. Yet the point is keenly made by the film that in adolescence, the pain of loneliness can be so acute that even the belittling company of those who fail to see your value is sometimes preferable to being alone.

In Rhoda, Sandy finds another "project" ...like the seagull. 

Here, Rhoda models the update from her "old lady" bathing suit 

Last Summer's poignancy is derived from the realization that, what with all four teens coming from broken or troubled homes, they could have been helpful to one another, and that the summer would wind up being memorable to them for a lot of good reasons. But, being at its heart an existential parable on power, hurt people hurting others, and the question of whether cruelty is a choice or an instinct, Last Summer leaves our young protagonists irrevocably changed, and unlikely for the better. 

"You have an unmapped face. It doesn't come right out
and say what's going to become of it."

The gentle connection that Rhoda and Peter begin to develop stands to threaten the dynamic of "the trio." 

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

 Like so many of my favorite films from this era: They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, Midnight Cowboy, Puzzle of a Downfall Child, even Rosemary's Baby; Last Summer is for me a marvelous example of how fascinating American movies were becoming in the late-60's, early-'70s when they began to venture into realms of storytelling that were not overtly tethered to their commercial potential. 

Sure, there's always the marketable angle of sensationalism, and films like Last Summer were more than willing to make their boldness and daring a part of their marketing. 

But what made the films of this era different from those released even a few years earlier (and, sadly, just a decade later) was their willingness to go to the darker places of the American myth and challenge our concepts of ourselves and the world we live in. 

So often, I find movies today tend to feed us comforting images of ourselves and set out to reinforce tissue-thin myths we harbor about everything from gender politics to racism. Although I don't require it in every film I see, I must say I enjoy it when movies hold up a mirror to American culture that reveals the decay behind the gloss, proposing, in the exposure, that we have the potential to do and be better.  

Again, the vulnerable are seen as targets, not subjects of empathy

Last Summer doesn't shy away from the exposing the privileged arrogance of the of these blond teens who, sheltered in their all-white enclaves make comic/idiotic jokes in the contrived slave dialect of Gone With the Wind, or, in this painful scene, make blantantly racist jokes at the expense of Anibal Gomez (Ernesto Gonzalez), a sweet and lonely Puerto Rican computer date set-up for the reluctant Rhoda.

Movies in the '60s/'70s were comfortable with revealing the darker shades of human nature. In fact, one of my strongest memories from this period in filmmaking was the distinct impression I was never going to see a movie with a happy ending again. I enjoyed seeing movies that made me think, made me feel...but at times it seemed as if every movie released during my teens ended in some devastating tragedy. Even the musicals were downers: Sweet Charity!

PERFORMANCES

Relying perhaps on type-casting and using his young cast's relative acting inexperience to their benefit (Last Summer is the film debut of all but Barbara Hershey, who appeared in Doris Day's last film, With Six You Get Eggroll, just the year before), Frank Perry gets natural and surprisingly complex performances out of everyone, particularly Catherine Burns. Although lacking in the sort of easy, obvious camaraderie Peter Bogdanovich was able to achieve with his cast in The Last Picture Show--most apparent in a visibly forced, "beer as truth serum" sequence that gives credence to Hershey's claim years later that despite the intimacy required of their roles, the cast didn't become close during the making of the film--each actor achieves a kind of heroic bravery in allowing themselves to be presented so honestly and unpleasantly.

When Last Summer was released, the entire cast was applauded for their performances, but it was Catherine Burns who emerged as the breakout “star,” garnering the lion's share of the film's best reviews and Last Summer's sole Academy Award nomination. Though reunited with Richard Thomas in 1971's Red Sky at Morning (a film I haven’t seen), Hollywood didn't seem to know what to do with her, and so after being wasted in a few TV movies and disposable roles in episodics, she bowed out of the industry for good, becoming a published author. She passed away in 2019.

The role of Mr. Caudell, Sandy's sexual assaulter dubbed "Snow White" due to his inability to tan, is played by character actor Peter Turgeon. Recognizable to fans of Airport (1970) as the annoying passenger who eventually gets slapped by a priest. 

Barbara Hershey's assured and dynamic performance as the dreamgirl sociopath is one that has really stayed with me over the years. Carnal, conniving, straightforward, and deeply troubled, I think her characterization is so genuinely terrifying because she is just such a recognizable brand of emotional/intellectual bully. Long a favorite of mine and a definite object of a boyhood crush, Hershey's impressive and enduring career includes BAFTA and Oscar nominations. 

Barbara Hershey (born Barbara Hertzstein) briefly changed her name to Barbara Seagull out of guilt surrounding the death of the seagull that was accidentally killed during the filming (the scenes involving the bird are another reason why Last Summer is a very unsettling affair).

Poster for the 1975 heist film Diamonds, featuring Barbara Hershey with her "Seagull" billing

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Perhaps the parallel symbolism is all too heavy-handed for some, but what I loved about this film in 1969 and what still stands up marvelously in 2013 are the parallels drawn between the film's early sequences involving the attempt to rehabilitate and then train the wounded seagull, and the introduction of the character of Rhoda into the group. The foreshadowing of the film's agonizing denouement is as clear-cut and unalterable as a self-fulfilling prophecy, but what grips me is what lies behind why it happens at all.

To see this film now is to understand what occurs inside any group or individual in power when threatened with the loss of that power. Whether it be the behavior of the GOP in the last election or the reluctance of certain states to grasp the inevitability of marriage equality, it all fits and paints an ugly portrait of cowardice cloaked in entitled domination. To find all of this within a teenage coming-of-age film is just brilliant, and provides one more reason why it's such a shame this film is so hard to track down. 

That Sandy would most likely be happiest were Dan and Pete to be somehow merged into one person feeds the already heady homoerotic sexual tension that exists within this tripartite friendship.

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

For years on the internet, there have been reports of Last Summer finally getting a DVD release. Its reemergence on cable TV and a recent American Cinematheque screening of a long-lost, uncut 16mm print hint that perhaps one day soon this might very well be the case. I certainly hope so. 

Not only is it one of Frank and Eleanor Perry's best films (and Frank Perry doesn't deserve to be remembered in perpetuity for being the man who gave us Mommie Dearest and Monsignor,  does he?), but I also think it's one of the more important and representative films of a significant era in American film.  

Scene from "Last Summer" (1969)

BONUS MATERIAL

I read Evan Hunter’s 1968 novel Last Summer not long after seeing the film. Eleanor Perry’s screenplay is surprisingly faithful to the source material, and it's every bit as disturbing as the film. The novel provides a bit more backstory to the characters and is told in the form of a flashback memory recounted by an emotionally shattered Peter to his psychiatrist. In 1973, Evan Hunter wrote a sequel to Last Summer titled Come Winter. I don't know if any significance should be placed on the fact that while I read it much more recently than Last Summer, I nevertheless can't recall a thing about it. 

A deleted scene from Last Summer featuring Ralph Waite as Pete's father. Waite and Thomas would go on to appear on TV as father and son for five seasons of The Waltons.

The Manor (2021)
Bruce Davison and Barbara Hershey were reunited as co-stars for this Gothic horror film set in a retirement home. Oh, if only some clever writer had thought to make this an extended sequel to Last Summer. Would Dan and Sandy have changed?  Would that summer have scarred them for life? 

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009- 2013

MOMMIE DEAREST 1981

“After Michael Redgrave played the insane ventriloquist in Dead of Night, bits of the character’s paranoia kept turning up in his other performances; it would be hair-raising if Faye Dunaway were to have trouble shaking off the gorgon Joan.”
Pauline Kael - The New Yorker  Oct.1981

I grew up at a time when it was common practice for parents to apply everything from hairbrushes, belts, flip-flop sandals, and sturdy switches (a thin branch from a tree or a stalk from a root or plant) to the backsides of children in the name of instilling "discipline." Back then, kids knew that a likely consequence of disobedience or backtalk was to get “a whipping” (spanked), or, if in public, a pluck to the ears or smack to the back of the head (seriously!). Misdeeds failing to warrant physical punishment were met with verbal reprimands ("Shut up back there!”), violent threats (“Mouth off to me again and I’ll slap you clear into next week!”), or other colorful forms of what we now know to be verbal/psychological abuse ("What are you, stupid?”). 

Welcome to Parenting 101: The Pre Dr. Spock years. Whether it be corporal punishment, harsh insults, or psychological intimidation (“Wait ‘til your father gets home!”), our parents did it to us because their parents did it to them. No one bothered to question such behavior, for the administration of strict parental discipline was widely held at the time to be the single defining ingredient marking the difference between the raising of a worthless juvenile delinquent or a useful member of society.

This hurts me more than it does you

This is the main reason why, when I first read Mommie Dearest—Christina Crawford’s bestselling memoir detailing the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her adoptive mother, screen legend Joan Crawford—I was among those who had no problem believing the allegations made against Crawford to be true. For those of us who grew up in the "spare the rod, spoil the child” era, the behavior described in Mommie Dearest was considerably less shocking than who was engaging in it: Mildred Pierce herself, Joan Crawford.

If ever there was an individual who epitomized the words “movie star,” it was Joan Crawford. Everything about her finely burnished image fed the public perception of her as a hardworking, glamorous star of ladylike hauteur and refinement. While other stars were battling studio heads, suffering public meltdowns (would Mommie Dearest have caused such a sensation had its subject been one of Hollywood’s more famously unstable stars like Judy Garland?), and living flashy lives of decadent excess, Joan always conducted herself as though she were Hollywood’s unofficial  Goodwill Ambassador.  

I'm waitin' for ya.

Published in 1978 (only one year after Crawford’s death), Mommie Dearest caused quite a sensation. Not only was it one of the earliest examples of the tell-all celebrity memoir, but it was one of the first popular books to shed light on the hidden-in-plain-sight problem of child abuse. These days, it might come as a welcome change of pace for a public figure not to feel compelled to publicly air their abuses, addictions, and mental illnesses, but in 1978, it was a rare thing indeed to publish such an incendiary airing of personal dirty laundry about a movie star. Especially one with an image as scrupulously manicured and maintained as that of Joan Crawford.

Perino's is MY place!

Thanks to female impersonators like Charles Pierce and those spot-on Crawford movie parodies on The carol Burnett Show, to a great many people, Joan Crawford was a figure of camp long before Faye Dunaway and director Frank Perry got their hooks into her (can you believe Mommie Dearest was made by the same man responsible for the seminal New Hollywood films Last Summer and Diary of a Mad Housewife?)

Lady Madonna
Carol  Burnett couldn't have done it any better

Like many other gay men in 1981, I was practically chomping at the bit to see how Mommie Dearest would play on the big screen. Anticipating a two-hour drag show, but genuinely hoping that Dunaway (an actress I liked a great deal) & Co. would surprise us all and pull it off, I was there the day it opened at Hollywood's Mann's Chinese Theater. By this time the bestseller had become something of a cause célèbre, galvanizing public opinion into three distinct camps: 1) Those who accepted the portrayal of Joan Crawford as a child-abusing, alcoholic, germaphobe; 2) Those who thought Christina’s allegations were greatly exaggerated and motivated by greed and vindictiveness; and, 3) Those who reveled in the memoir’s voyeuristic sensationalism and camp-tastic portrayal of a headstrong diva thoroughly out of control.  

Mommie Dearest opened in Los Angeles on Friday, September 25, 1981, with the classy, Oscar-bait ad on the left. To give you an idea of just how swiftly word-of-mouth turned Paramount's prestige jewel into a laughingstock, the ad on the right appeared in papers just one week later, on Friday, October 2, 1981.

To this latter group, the events of Mommie Dearest somehow bypassed being looked upon with sympathy for the child or as an important expose of a severe social problem, and instead barreled headlong into being a book enjoyed as a Jacqueline Susann-esque hybrid of old Joan Crawford movies--specifically Queen Bee, Harriet Craig, and Mildred Pierce-- crossed with The Bad Seed. 

I always wondered if the public's less-than-focused reaction was due to its inability to wrap its collective mind around the image incongruity: child abuse in a setting of wealth, fame, and glamour. It didn't gel for a society weaned on the idea that beauty, money, and fame make people happy. Would Christina's allegations been believed had her experiences been written by a poor, non-white woman? 

As it was, thinking of THE Joan Crawford beating her child was like trying to imagine June Cleaver going postal on the Beaver. 

Pathos Undermined
Being screamed at by your mother - Traumatic. Being screamed at by your mother
while she's decked out in a sleep mask, chin strap, and night gloves - Priceless

No matter how many different ways Christina Crawford's memoir was received, the one thing everybody agreed upon was that Mommie Dearest had wreaked irreparable damage to Joan Crawford’s hard-fought-for image. Virtually overnight, the name of Joan Crawford had become an instant punch line (no pun intended, but see how easy that was?).

Faye Dunaway IS Joan Crawford

Diana Scarwid as Christina (adult)

Mara Hobel as Christina (child)

Rutanya Alda as Carol Ann

Steve Forrest as Greg Savitt

Mommie Dearest, a film that anticipated Academy Award attention for Dunaway and, most certainly, costume and set design, held press screenings so far in advance that in Los Angeles, LA Times critic Kevin Thomas posted his review a good five days before the movie's opening day. A great way to build buzz and public interest if the review is a rave. But Thomas had branded the film "campy," said the film's theatrically literal-minded take on Crawford's behavior made for "ludicrousness," and that audiences were more apt to laugh than cringe at the explosive acts of abuse.

Small wonder, then, that the (largely male) evening-show audience I saw Mommie Dearest with that opening Friday was so excited that there was practically a hum in the air. Everybody (myself included) was already abuzz with that rare anticipation born of knowing you were about to see a film that promised a rollicking good time, whether it was a triumph or a travesty. 

On Pins and Needles 

Much in the manner that the incredibly stylish cubist/art deco title sequence for Lucille Ball’s Mame (1974) proffered hopes (quickly dashed) of a classy entertainment that never materialized, Mommie Dearest got off to a very promising start with a dramatically evocative, cinematically economical montage detailing the pre-dawn preparations going into the creation of Joan Crawford, the movie star.

It’s a marvelous sequence of compulsive self-discipline and dues-paying professionalism that turns a morning shower into a near-religious purging ritual built upon the duty and sacrifice of stardom. 

I particularly like how Crawford, autographing photos in the back seat of her limo as she’s driven to the studio, never allows for a moment of idleness. 

Joan Crawford, world-class multitasker

For about five minutes, Mommie Dearest really looked like it was going to work... and then the audience got its first look at Faye Dunaway in her Joan Crawford makeup. Although the transformation is impressive, the uncanny effect was startling in all the wrong ways. Maybe it was because it too much recalled the "big reveal" scene in Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera, but the first glimpse of Dunaway as Crawford drew a collective gasp from the crowd, morphing into scattered giggles that only grew in frequency and volume as the film progressed.  

Priscilla Pointer as "I think you're underreacting!" Mrs. Chadwick

Jocelyn Brando as Barbara "Please! Please, Barbara!" Bennett

Which is really too bad, because Dunaway, who works her ass off, is really rather good (at least in that dicey, Al Pacino in Scarface / Jack Nicholson in The Shining way: where a ridiculous performance can be made to work under the right circumstances). But she deserved a script that didn't call upon her to deliver one unforgettable howler after another ("I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the dirt!"); a production that wasn't lit as though it were a musical (the interiors are as bright as stadiums); and she needed a director who knew when to rein her in when she went over top. Which, alas, is pretty often.

Perhaps it was misguided to even attempt to make a motion picture of a book as episodic as Mommie Dearest without first coming up with a dramatically viable means of adapting the material.

For starters, the film can't really decide whose story it is. Are we seeing Joan as Christina sees her (in which case Christina's perspective on her life gets incredibly short shrift)? Or is Joan Crawford the story’s focus, and everything we’re seeing is designed to make her more sympathetic? If it's the latter, I can understand the desire to make the film more balanced than the book, but under the circumstances (Christina was a kid...she had ZERO options for escape or recourse), I can't imagine what the screenwriters hoped would be the audience's ultimate takeaway from a "both sides" approach.

Were folks supposed to walk out of the theater talking amongst themselves, saying, "Sure, Christina was brutalized, but Joan didn’t have it so easy, either. Poor thing…she had to take it out on somebody." 

Seeing that one of the biggest boxoffice hits of 1981 was the "aren't drunks hilarious?" comedy, 

Arthur, it's clear that the country was still years away from seriously addressing the issues of parental abuse, alcoholism, and possible bipolar disorder. Which may explain why the mother-daughter conflicts in Mommie Dearest…scenes of familial dysfunction worthy of William Inge…consistently fall short of tapping into the pain and trauma at their source.

Mommie Dearest, like its titular subject, gets bogged down in the superficial. Scenes dramatizing the devastatingly tragic events detailed in the book feel as though they were approached from all sides for their sensational value rather than their emotional authenticity. Lacking in depth, the dialogue, costuming, and performances work in concert to turn each dramatic episode into some kind of Grand Guignol horror setpiece. 

I would have liked to see more moments like those brief, human-scale minutes in the scene screencapped above, when Crawford first catches sight of Christina at her dressing table. Getting an unhappy glimpse of how her daughter perceives her (she leapfrogs right over admiration), Dunaway lets many small, hurtful emotions play across Crawford's face, and the complexities of the Christina/Joan conflict feel real. 

Of course, in seconds, Dunaway is allowed to go full histrionic, and the scene transforms into a spectacle I watch, but no longer feel anything about. 

From that brief intro to the scene, I could tell Dunaway had it in her to play things less cartoonishly. I only wish Frank Perry had thought less about delivering every atrocity in the book in broad strokes and tried to get to what was emotionally true about these people.

Diana Scarwid's understated, more natural performance is effective in establishing how very different Crawford was from her adopted daughter, but it also has the occasional effect of making it seem as if she and Dunaway are appearing in different films.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

I’m guilty of whatever human frailty it is that causes people to rejoice when cracks are found in the façade of public figures who insist on portraying themselves and their lives as perfect. I was one of those so shocked by Mommie Dearest’s unmasking of little-miss-perfect Joan Crawford as a bit of a nutjob that I failed to pay much attention to the not-so-funny issue of child abuse, which should have been my focus from the start. In my weak defense, the current climate of mass public oversharing was not as common back then, so getting any kind of look at the real tinsel behind the fake tinsel of Hollywood, especially something as exploitive as Mommie Dearest, was a real sit-up-and-take-notice event.

Viewing Mommie Dearest today, so many years after its release, I wonder if the film is not guilty of the same thing. It comes across as almost over-excited about Crawford's outbursts and hysterics, paying scant attention to other parts of her life. In the end, it's clear the focus should have been on Christina's character, not Joan's. It’s her story after all. Since even the most world-famous parent is likely to be just plain old “mom” or “dad” to a child, the resultant, less sensationalized shift in focus might have offered a less traditional take on Crawford and saved Mommie Dearest from becoming what it frequently feels like: the world’s longest drag act.

Joan Crawford's palatial Bel-Air home (top) first appeared as the mansion of gangster J. Sinister Hulk (Jesse White, bottom photo, left) in the 1964 Annette Funicello musical, Pajama Party

PERFORMANCES

In spite of the many hours of enjoyment I've had at Faye Dunaway’s expense (tears running down my cheeks, cramped stomach muscles, desperate gasps for air between full-throated howls of joyous laughter), as I've stated, I really think she does an amazing job in Mommie Dearest. It’s not so much that she’s good, although she does have her moments, so much as she’s incredibly brave and frighteningly committed. She throws herself into the role so wholeheartedly that I don’t know that she can be completely faulted for failing to land right on the mark.

I’m of the opinion that much of what is accepted as funny about her portrayal of Joan Crawford is only partially her fault. No insult intended to the Joan Crawford fans out there, but the real Joan Crawford in full “Joan-mode” is pretty hilarious. Dunaway’s impersonation is so spot-on that the laughs she gets can’t really be attributed completely to her performance/impersonation. I mean, those are Joan’s eyebrows and pinched-constipated smile; that is Crawford’s butch, bitch-queen bossiness; and anyone who’s ever seen the level of overwrought emotionalism she’s capable of bringing to even the most easy-going scenes (check out Trog, sometime), knows that even a lot of Faye's overacting belongs to Crawford herself.

Dunaway makes some odd choices (the cross-eyed bit during the wire hangers scene is just asking for it, and who exactly thought the whole “Don’t fuck with me, fellas!” line was going to work?), but within the confines of a rather choppy script, there is an attempt on Dunaway’s part to add some dimension to the at-times cartoonish monster Mommie Dearest would have us believe is Joan Crawford.

And this might be where things fall apart for me in spite of the obvious energy and effort behind Dunaway's performance. It's just. It never feels like anything BUT a performance, there's so much theatricality in every scene and interaction. And for my money, a story full of extremes as Mommie Dearest desperately needed to be tethered to something real. 

Joan Crawford (center) flanked by the contenders to the throne. Oscar winner Anne Bancroft (r.) was Christina Crawford's personal choice for the role of Joan. When Bancroft declined, Faye Dunaway (who, ironically enough, was a favorite of Joan Crawford's) took over the reins. A critic I once read argued that Marsha Mason would have been the best choice. He might have had something there!

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

Due to its endless watchability, I’ve concluded that Mommie Dearest isn’t a bad film so much as a series of gross miscalculations all around. Here are just a few things the makers of Mommie Dearest failed to take into account:

a) 40s era Joan Crawford looks disconcertingly like Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

b) Power plays between curly-haired brats and mannish glamour stars are inherently funny.

c) Extreme wealth undercuts tragedy.

e) Casting a legendarily temperamental actress in the role of a legendarily temperamental actress encourages the audience to wonder if they're watching Dunaway being Dunaway, or Dunaway being Crawford. 

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

There was a time when I really couldn’t get sufficiently past Joan Crawford’s extreme look and affected style of acting to see her as anything other than a comically camp timepiece. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate her skill and talent, and today she’s one of my favorite actresses. Mommie Dearest is too flawed a film for even nostalgic revisionism to one day convert into a misunderstood classic, but I think there stands a good chance that time will be kinder to Faye Dunaway’s performance. Like many of the under-appreciated performances of Marlon Brando that have come to light as among his best (Reflections in a Golden Eye), Dunaway’s Joan Crawford may be a bit “out there” at times, but it is a fascinating, almost athletic performance. Perhaps far more layered and intelligent than the film deserves.

Understatement of the Year Dept:
"Today, Faye sees herself as 'starting on a second phase of my professional life,
just as Joan Crawford did...' "
                                                                                               People Magazine, Oct. 1981
Little did she know just how true those words would prove to be. 

Clip from "Mommie Dearest" (1981)

BONUS MATERIAL

Mommie Dearest First Draft Screenplay (Anne Bancroft version)

Mommie Dearest shooting script (Faye Dunaway version)

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