Queen Bee

Rating:
Summary: Joan Crawford is the only "Queen Bee"
Review: It is said roles like this one were what Joan loved best! It is evident, from her performance, this is true. There is only one way to stop her manipulative and destructive path. A film well worth watching again and again. Crawford at her best!!

Rating:
Summary: Godzilla in a Jean Louis Gown
Review: Joan Crawford appears to have a field day in this silly, but extraordinarily engrossing, overheated family melodrama. Ranald MacDougall's script is like Tennessee Williams without the poetry or the subtext. And it's like Douglas Sirk without the sumptuous color or the inner turmoil those autumnal hues disguise.

Eva Philips is possessive, controlling, and self-absorbed, and Crawford plays her to the hilt. What more could any fan ask?

A monument of selfishness, Eva fascinates like a cobra about to strike. In one memorable scene, her cousin asks what the doctor said (about Eva's troubled child). "Such extravagant things!" responds Eva. She continues: "Did you see how the doctor trembled as he spoke to me? You'd think he'd never seen a beautiful woman before!"

Moments like these are pure gold (or should it be 'honey'?) in this wondrous opera-without-singing.

The rest of the cast consists of some more than adequate talent: Barry Sullivan (Eva's booze-soaked, trampled husband), John Ireland (a former lover, still caught by her stinger. He gets one of the best lines: "Whatever you are Eva, you're on wheels!"), Betsy Palmer (the deer in Eva's lethal headlights). Lucy Marlow (another deer, that starlet from the opening sequence of A STAR IS BORN, 1954) is passable. (In a TCM documentary, it is revealed that Crawford really slapped the younger actress with all her might.). Fay Wray makes a brief, but noteworthy appearance early on, a past casualty of Eva's rampaging ego.

The DVD is pretty bare-bones. But the transfer is luminous.

If you enjoy watching a 5' Godzilla in a Jean Louis gown, don't miss QUEEN BEE.

Rating:
Summary: Shocking !
Review: Joan Crawford is at her campiest in this nightmarish cult classic. I think she could have played the witch in "The Wizard of Oz" with ease... I'm a fan of most of her films and would compare this to "Straight Jacket" in terms of attitude, campiness and shock value. The film is available on DVD but more difficult to get on VHS....

Rating:
Summary: Oh, Joan....
Review: Joan Crawford was many things. Underrated actress, major star, shrewd businesswoman and questionable mother, and it's in this 1955 homage to all things overstated, that we see her play each of these parts in turn.

As the arch-manipulator Eva Philips, Joan excels for a number of reasons: She's clearly the only capable actor in this otherwise awful movie (although John Ireland's performance is very good), and looks absolutely spellbinding in all of her glorious costumes (custom-made by designer Jean-Louis). In fact, if it wasn't for the indomitable Miss Crawford's formulaic scenery-chewing this film would probably never have been converted to VHS, much less DVD.

Anyway, trapped in a loveless marriage to a bitter alcoholic, Joan sets about destroying all happiness around her, craving power and attention as her only means of comfort. Her cousin Jennifer Stewart (played in the most woeful manner by the consummately irritating Lucy Marlow)comes to stay and all hell breaks loose as Joan tries her damndest to break up her sister-in-law's engagement to her ex-lover Judson Prentiss (Ireland).

Memorable scenes are when Joan learns of their engagement ('Isn't it REVOLTING??!!?'), Joan getting out of a dinner party engagement (nobody does phone like Joan!), and Joan viciously slapping her idiot cousin Jennifer (clearly a real slap, and clearly in response to Marlow's woeful 'acting').

This is not a film for film-lovers. It's strictly for lovers of camp, Joan Crawford and gorgeous divadom. For comedy value it can't be beat.

Rating:
Summary: Can you say over-the-top?
Review: Joan is at her delectable best, as she steamrolls her way over the supporting cast, totally stealing every scene with her over-the-top style.
This is one dame who's not going to blend into the scenery. If you are a Crawford fan, and if your reading the reviews of this film, you must be, you simply must add this film to your collection. Joan plays Eva Phillips, a conniving southern socialite, with a taste for the finer things, only matched by her taste for other women's men. Eva's the queen bee, and there's no doubt that she's the one running the hive. Joan delivers some wonderful lines in the film, for instance, "Any man's my man if I want it that way". Joan looks wonderful slinking around in drop dead gowns designed by Jean Louis. Whether she's verbally abusing her alcoholic husband or driving the poor unfortunates who dare cross her to suicide, Joan can do no wrong. Of course in the end, Eva gets what she deserves.
Add this film to your Joan collection, it's really a keeper.

Rating:
Summary: Rhymes with Witch
Review: Joan is magnificent in this potrait of a Witch.... (Well at least they got the first letter right in the title.) Sef centered anbd intolerable Christina staed in her 1977 book, Mommie Dearest, that her Mother was not acting in this movie as this is the way she was at home. A must see for yourself...was she really like this at home? You watch this movie and then decide for yourself

Rating:
Summary: Wickedly Cruel
Review: Joan really rhymes with WITCH in this movie....and I loved every minute of it! It is classic Crawford every step of the way...Miss Crawford sets the tone of her character from her entrance where she verbally exhibits her cruelty on her son from then on she "strikes" like a scorpion injecting her deadly venom into the souls of those around her....Certainly the woman is a control [person] who rules those around her with fear, but she wouldn't be Joan Crawford if she came off like Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm now would she? The movie is excellent in explaining the reasons why Joan is so miserable let alone destructive to the women around her....and her poor husband..trapped in a loveless marriage....See this one for sure!

Rating:
Summary: That's Acting?!!
Review: Oh, Lord! The makers of this film were obviously taking their turgid little melodrama quite seriously, but this camp howler can only be viewed today as an overblown relic of the "star system". Joan Crawford, in make-up that makes her look like The Joker (calling Caesar Romero), acts up a storm but, sadly, the cinema tyro is not at her best here. Crawford was always an underrated actress, primarily because her posturing could easily override everything in its path until you got just "too much Joan". But when she threw all that away and applied a smaller, more natural approach, the results could be stunning (she's the only reason to see "Baby Jane"). Well, don't expect any of the latter in this potboiler. Oh, brother! From the opening scene, when the memorable Fay Wray does an unmemorable (and overdone) turn as a mad Soulthern belle, you know your in for hard knocks. Then Betsy Palmer starts her usual projecting to the rear mezzanine and your just waiting for Joan to come in and spice up the proceedings with a little camp fun. This she does in classic Crawford style...and the laughs keep coming. The dour John Ireland and the dourer Barry Nelson are no match for the corsetted Miss Shoulder Pads, and some of Crawford's posturings are a real hoot. This may be damning with faint praise, but it's the only way to take this movie. However, 90+ minutes of the diva begins to wear you down, and there simply isn't enough left to enjoy in what's left in the wreckage. Only little Lucy Marlow (whom Crawford reportedly detested) resembles anything close to a human being, and there's so much scenery chewing you expect the final scene to be played on a bare soundstage (now that would really be a howl). No such luck, though, and in the end "Queen Bee" is much ado about drivel. For Joan watchers only...but they'll love it.

Rating:
Summary: Drama---- or documentary ?!?!?
Review: Oh, what fun this is... Aside from "Strait-jacket", which, in fact, made Joan Crawford seem more sympathetic as an axe-murder(!), this film, "Queen Bee" most portrays the movie legend as she apparently really was. Even daughter Christina said this was the one film of her mom's that she couldn't bring herself to watch again, because Mommie Dearest WASN'T ACTING...
You can tell--- all the outargeous neuroses are in full-swing.

"Mildred Pierce" showed Joan in a light she'd like, but "Queen Bee" rings the most true...

Good potboiler, with occasionally saucy lines to (and from) Crawford, like, "whatever you are, it's on wheels!"

Rating:
Summary: Camp Crawford
Review: pretty darn funny. a camp classic. joan playing the vindictive Jenny, holding her southern in-laws hostage to alot of bitchiness and wardrobe changes. if you cross Tennessee Williams with Aaron Spelling together you MIGHT have an idea of how good-bad this is. the laffs are mostly unintentional & joan is at her best. its easy to see how Lypsinka saw this film & got inspired.

Another thing, did Joan really slap the actress who played her neice across her face w/ such force? I've rewound that scene over & over again & that slap looked very real & very painful. I feel sorry for the poor actress in this movie!