Stars:  Two and a half out of five stars (five for "bad film" fans)

 

Just as "That Touch of Mink" is perhaps single-handedly to blame for Doris Day being inaccurately dubbed a "professional virgin," "Torch Song" deserves top honors for advancing the largely unfair "mannish gorgon" caricature of 1950's Joan Crawford.  In this case, it bears some weight, although as with all stereotypes, it's not the whole story.  Though petite and ultra feminine in garb, in this evidently emotional return to her old alma mate MGM, Crawford comes off as so ironclad that she resembles the drag queens who impersonate her.  Yet the fear beneath the abrasive posturing is touching.  Bios reveal that she was frightened to be dancing again after so many years.  Crawford spent the first twenty years of her career at MGM and even if his business interests came first, Louis Mayer was one of her deferred-to "father figures."  As tacky as "Torch Song" is, even in later years, she continued to overrate it.   In his book describing their friendship, Carl Johnes recalled how hurt she was when Carol Burnett lampooned it.  "I did more in that picture than just show off my legs, for God's sake," she snapped, to which he added as an aside, "although, frankly, that's the only thing I could remember."  MGM rolled out the red carpet for Joan, but "Torch Song" is no homage with, as one viewer put it, "retina-scorching colors," a plot out of bad dinner theater, and clunky musical numbers.  What more could a bad film lover want?

 

Yes, this is one of Crawford's rare color films -- full blown Technicolor.  God, how I miss it!  The star even has her hair dyed red, since one must make full use of the color wheel.  Some laugh at the surreal hues, but I love them, even if, in this case, sunglasses with high UV protection are recommended -- completely opaque ones for the "Two-Faced Woman" number.

 

Our titian-haired gal is Jenny Stewart, a tyrannical musical star who is secretly lonely -- what else? -- and vulnerable -- what else? -- beneath the alligator hide.   She cries herself to sleep at night as you learn in one scene where she is swathed in a day-glo lemon robe that billows around her like a swirling dervish.  When one piano player quits, having earlier given her an opportunity for a great line -- (as they ride in a taxi and the driver asks his address, Jenny cracks, "Any dark bar") -- she inherits another, Tye Graham (Michael Wilding).  The problem is he's blind.  She bristles at him and is shortly ready to give him the heave-ho when he dares to give her musical advice ("Why don't you find yourself a nice seeing-eye girl?"), but soon she is fumbling about with her eyes closed to understand what his life is all about.  Like a great soap opera twist, Tye has actually loved Jenny since reviewing her in one of her first performances back when he could see, and he's still carrying the "torch."  Her earlier sweet image is implanted on his mental retina.  Yeah, right.

 

Jenny is one Crawford character who is not successfully softened and perpetuates the common negative stereotype of the star which tends to obscure the considerable charms that brought her popularity in the first place.  Crawford, in fact, was blessed with many natural assets that ensured her ascent.  Aside from a face that photographed well from any angle and those eyes and her vitality and charisma, she had a beautiful, trim body  -- voluptuous without being huge-breasted, toned and sleek like a dancer, with especially shapely legs.  She wore clothes like a model and knew how to hold herself and move.  Besides which, she had talent and a committed work ethic.  Unfortunately, like so many women who are judged by their looks and deemed worthless as they age, apparently she felt she "needed work" pre-MGM comeback to compete with youth and that meant augmentation.  In "Torch Song," she thrusts out torpedo breasts that could puncture an eye like the protruding collars on her old Adrian gowns.  They overpower her slim hips and add to the drag queen illusion particularly when she's lip synching.  Her natural body and her own singing voice (opposed to the dubbing by India Adams) would have been preferable.  A scene where she actually does sing over her own supposed early recording of "Tenderly" is much better than the big phony, dubbed production numbers.

 

It's not that you can't see that Crawford's a real woman, mind, that I say she resembles a drag queen; it's that she's strait-jacketed (excuse the Joan pun) into this rigid parody of womanhood that the 1950s imposed on all women as a backlash against their successful takeover of male-dominated jobs during the war.  She's overblown and playing a tough barracuda on top of it.  Any "naturalness" doesn't stand a chance because of the strident musical numbers with stiff, though competently executed, choreography (as bad as any Susan Hayward was forced to do in the 50's).  I don't feel it's all her fault that she comes off as campy and in the same position with those peculiar pressures, many of us might have eaten crow to stay on top.  I don't fault (as some do), but applaud Crawford's (and Bette Davis') desire and efforts to prevail and hang on in an industry that sought to discard them when they were no longer youthful.  I'm grateful to them.  Apparently Crawford disliked lousy roles as much as anyone, although her judgment remained clouded on "Torch Song" due to sentiment.

 

Still, many scenes are responsible for the bitchy caricature that persists today of Crawford, although, in reality, she enjoyed a good working relationship with the majority of her co-workers and certainly her crew.  In one instance, she requests a party and snaps, "Get the usual gang."  We see that the "usual gang" is all male leaving her the lone -- er -- Queen Bee in their midst as if to disallow any female competition.  At this gathering, however, with her harsh countenance, striding around irritably, she seems to exude as much testosterone as the rest of them -- her frilly cocktail dress incongruous, although she has those same dreamy, sensual eyes that seduced audiences in countless films like "Our Blushing Brides."

 

The best scenes are the ones between Jenny and her mother (Marjorie Rambeau).  They lend Jenny and the film some dimension, as does the easy rapport she displays with her maid Ann (Maidie Norman).  (Interestingly, Rambeau was her co-star in an earlier film “Laughing Sinners” which was based on a play called “Torch Song.”)  Another scene, in particular, which moved me is when Tye is upbraiding a tear-stained Jenny for the tough hide she developed in an industry that is going to throw her out as she gets older.  I'm sure that whole speech hit home for Crawford and it shows on her face.   More biographical/"in jokes" are present.  Tye's seeing eye dog is named Duchess (a nod, I suspect, to Crawford's nickname in her biggest MGM musical, "Dancing Lady"); and Jenny's warm interaction with her fans mirrors Crawford's own cherished relationship with her public to whom she, like Jenny, believed she owed her all and gave it accordingly.  I also genuinely adore the line by Jenny's parasitic boyfriend Cliff Willard (Gig Young):  "I'll curl up in front of the fire with a good book or a bad girl."

 

In any case, "Torch Song" is trash, but that's not necessarily a negative.  My dance teacher once said, "As a performer, it's your job to fascinate."  And Crawford in color in quintessential self parody delivering lines with deadpan in the way only she can is something to behold.  Besides, I'd rather curl up with a bad girl any day! -- D. Nowak