Rating: 
Summary: Mommie Dearest
Review: Faye has done a great job as Joan Crawford. She really was scary. The original twisted sister. I couldn't stop watching or flinching during this movie. I can never watch Joan Crawford without thinking about this movie. Creepy Joan
Rating: 
Summary: Cannot Miss!!
Review: Alright, I won't babble about how Joan Crawford is portrayed like a blah-de-dah abusive mother, etc etc. I'm not one to judge the morality of the content but the performance of the actress.And Faye Dunawaye has surely captured the intended persnality that Christina Crawford wanted to address in both movie and the book.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of the time in the movie, so the book was reduced down heavily. But that didn't prevent the thread of the story, with all the yelling and the persistence of Joan Crawford unwillingness to give up her crown.
great movie, not to miss. you'll love the performance, but you'll shame at the content, depending on which side you believe or not.
frankly, the movie/book itself was artistically satisfying. and I don't give a 'Wire's Hanger' about the reality of it either.
Rating: 
Summary: So much for glitz and glamour!
Review: "No wire hangers!" forced its way into the American lexion by way of this film treatment of Christina Crawford's best-selling expose about her mother, screen icon Joan Crawford. In what turned out to be a near fatal career move, Faye Dunaway took on the role of the neurotic and self-absorbed Crawford and her never-ending quest to retain her youth and arguable glamour. With that and her own dirt-poor childhood as fodder for insecurity searching for something to have absolute control over, Crawford unleashed her frustration on two of her four adopted children, though this film gives us the low-down between mother and daughter Christina. She and brother Christopher (essentially absent in the film) endure such abuses as after-midnight physicial batterings, being forced to surrender birthday and holiday presents, being sent away and, in a final insult, exclucion from their mother's will. On far too many levels, this film simply doesn't work, and we don't get any real sense of what really haunted the real Crawford. It is only Dunaway's hyper performance and ability to change Crawford from a glamour queen in public to the mother from hell in private that makes the film worth watching. As the adult Christina, actress Diana Scarwid has her moments, but a script that seems to focus on Crawford's demons sacrifices the daughter's own sense of desparation and isolation. In the end, hers comes off as something of a clash between a child of want and a child of privilege. But Dunaway carries this film despite its flaws, and her Crawford makes viewers think of the word matricide. For a truer sense of reality, read Christina Crawford's book of the same title. In it, she is able to capture the souls of both women and which eludes the film.
Rating:
Summary: Joan got the raw deal
Review: From what I've seen in this movie, Christina Crawford has to be the most mealy-mouthed, whiny, and self-centered person in the world. Joan had to have had the patience of a saint not to have killed her. Everything was always about Christina, as if Joan was there to serve her and have no life of her own. Christina should have been raised without all the amenities if she wanted to know what real life was all about. All Christina had to do was keep her mouth shut and do what she was told, but no, Christina had to be impertinent, ungrateful and belligerant. Gee, where is SHE today? Back to being the nobody she was born as, before she was rescued by Joan. Where are the scathing books from the other children Joan adopted, or is Christina the only ignoramus in the bunch?
Rating: 
Summary: Pure BS
Review: This is a very cold and calculated film with one purpose in mind; to destroy Joan Crawford. Dunaway is awful. Crawford was a woman who was very tough but also had great humility and heart. Dunaway plays the role very coldly...she never warms up and shows hr humanity, implying Crawford was some kind of psycho zombie. So untrue. Anyone who accepts this as the "real" Joan Crawford should read a few books about her by people who knew her. A good one is The Last Years by Carl Johnes or Joan Crawford by Bob Thomas. Those books offer a less-biased point of view. Joan Crawford was a troubled woman, there is no doubt. And she had her flaws. Most of her problems (and the alcoholism) resulted from a very unhappy life. Joan Crawford was a dreamer looking for love and affection among those who could offer her none. I think it's safe to say no one ever loved her. All she had was her career and fans which she had to fight to keep. Ask yourself, before you judge Joan, who would you be if nobody loved you?
Rating:
Summary: drama, not just comedy
Review: The standard line on this flick is that it's "unintentional camp", that Faye Dunaway's acting is "over the top", and that the critical scenes of confrontation between mother and daughter are laughable. The standard line is wrong -- this is a truly dramatic portrait of a ego-crazed woman and delicately depicts the subtle shadings of her daughter's reactions. Of course the presentation Dunaway gives is outsized and explosive! She's portraying an demon-possessed character -- how else would one do it? But it's not a one-note performance and Dunaway is up to the task of embodying all of the various moods and ages of the part -- as complete a job of acting as anything by DeNiro. Perhaps Diana Scarwid doesn't come off as well, but her acting is at least competent and at best fairly good. Mara Hobel is marvelous as the young Christina. These two (and the script) create a solid character that is baffled, proud, crushed, hemmed-in, devoted, and vengeful. By the time Christina confronts her mother's corpse, the scene creates pathos rather than schmaltz through of our awareness of the daughter's multiple layers of feeling. It may at first glance resemble a cheap horror movie (I'll allow that perhaps it was an unfortunate step to have Dunaway wearing beauty cream in the "no wire-hangers!" scene), but in fact it is a tragedy -- as the movie's creators intended. (The above evaluation has been about the movie and has left to one side the controversies about the story's accuracy, which come in two flavors: Crawford-wasn't-really-like-that, or the-movie-doesn't-follow-the-book. These might be compelling issues for some people, but for me it is enough simply to enjoy a well-made, well-acted movie.)
Rating:
Summary: No Wire Hangers!
Review: ive been wanting this on dvd so i got it its one of my favs i bet the wire hanger sene was hard to do a must have
Rating:
Summary: I really enjoyed this!
Review: I liked this movie when it came out twenty years ago, and I still like it to this day. Of course, the motives of Cristina Crawford are very obvious: roast her dead mother's memory on a spit for a few bucks. The main thing here is not to take this film as truth. The movie leaves out huge chunks of details about Miss Crawford's life and strains for credibility at times. There are even times you find yourself admiring the lead character played by Faye Dunaway. After all, you have to hand it to Joan Crawford (if even a small fraction of this movie is true)for being a true survivor with a hearty work-ethic who made it in a town notoriously famous for chewing people up and spitting them out. Once you understand the real-life daughter's motives for writing such a book and making such a movie, then you can sit back and enjoy Faye Dunaway and her over the top, but wonderfully acted part. If you are wanting a true look at Joan Crawford, then buy the book, "Joan Crawford: The Essential Biography" by Lawrence J. Quirk and William Schoell.
Rating:
Summary: More realistic than you might think...
Review: Just read some of the reviews about this movie and I had to add my two cents. Not many people have ever heard of Borderline Personality Disorder, but Joan Crawford had it, and that's why she acted the way she did. The movie seems over-the-top because that's what BPD is all about -- being overly emotional and over-the-top. To anyone who hasn't experienced it personally, I'm sure the movie does seem ludicrous and overdone; however, the sad thing is that it actually happened, and continues to happen to millions of unfortunate children. I oughta know, my mother is Borderline. How ironic that she used to hate this movie -- she pulled a Joan Crawford whenever I jokingly called her "Mommie Dearest"! *sigh* Yeah, it's really not funny at all if you've lived it.
Rating:
Summary: Hello, I'm Joan Crawford and I have various assorted Issues
Review: If you don't love this movie you're dead. It made me uneasy when I first saw it as a young teenager. Now it's so horrible that it soars on every level. It's a train wreck, and you'll love it.
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