Cubussoli
Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!
Listonixio
Fresh and Exciting
JasparLamarCrabb
If your idea of a good time is to watch a bunch of wealthy nitwits insult and back-stab each other then you're likely to enjoy this nonsense. Joan Crawford is the control freak matriarch of a southern mill owning family and Barry Sullivan is her alcoholic husband. The fact that Crawford is a northerner has made her feel like an outcast & she spends her time lashing out at everyone as a defense mechanism. All hell breaks loose when they're visited by Crawford's cousin (the very ineffectual Lucy Marlow). Sullivan's sister (Betsy Palmer) announces her engagement to John Ireland, who happens to be Crawford's ex and Marlow is soon smitten with Sullivan. It's all ridiculous with dull direction by Ranald MacDougall and lousy acting by most of the cast. Crawford, looking like a mannequin come not quite to life, is wooden and Sullivan, who dons a hideous scar on his face, is completely out of sync with the other players. Palmer, usually fairly effervescent, is instead grating in her role. There is a decidedly odd appearance by Fay Wray as a shell shocked jilted bride (you can guess who jilted her and for whom). The slick B&W photography is by Charles Lang.
mark.waltz
It started with Eve, and it will probably end with another female named Eve, but somewhere in the middle came Joan Crawford's Eva. The dominating figure of a Southern estate, she is a modern day Regina, the antagonist of Lillian Hellman's play "The Little Foxes". All sugar on the surface, she is a combination of Regina, Lady MacBeth and "I Claudius's" Livia underneath. When distant relative Lucy Marlowe arrives, she is instantly fooled but soon learns the nasty truth. Another relative (Betsy Palmer) suffers dearly at the hands of the Queen Bee, and Barry Sullivan, as Crawford's drunken husband, plots his wife's downfall with an unexpected conclusion. There are many interesting analizations along the way, but none more revealing than those by Crawford herself. Eva is not a one dimensional bitch, and Crawford makes the viewer see every side of this walking tragedy in heels. "There's a bit of me in every woman:, she admits in a particularly vulnerable moment, but is compelled by some force stronger than herself. Marlowe, Palmer, Sullivan and paramour John Ireland all offer their own observations about her but the simple truth is that Eva is as crazy as any other power hungry male or female who has had the desire or need to control others. While the temptation to compare this film to "Mommie Dearest" may become an obsession for some, it really calls into question the truth of Christina Crawford's claims (both in the book, as well as the fact that the movie version of her book was nothing more than "another Joan Crawford movie") and solidifies Joan's place as one of Hollywood's most legendary stars.
writers_reign
I remember stumbling on this several years ago and admiring Barry Sullivan's dialogue, both the dialogue itself and the way Sullivan delivered it. Although one line that stayed in my mind appears to be missing I still get a kick out of Sullivan's dialogue and even John Ireleand, a graduate of the Charlton Heston Redwood School Of Acting, weighs in with a half decent performance and handles a couple of Sullivan left-over zingers with something approaching style. They are, of course, merely the hors d'ouevres, setting up the palate for the caviar that is Joan Crawford and arguably the best example of late-blooming Crawford on celluloid. Although we're smack dab in the middle of decaying magnolia country no one makes much of a stab at a Southern accent but almost everyone makes a decent fist of this out-and-out meller.
RanchoTuVu
Joan Crawford's least likable character could be the one she played in this film, as a controlling and vindictive woman of wealth who runs and ruins (or nearly ruins) the lives of all those whom she has relationships with in her large southern plantation mansion. Apparently the relationships come out of her money and their lack of it, as well as the level of her misdirected intelligence and lack of empathy for others, none of which gets explained very fully. Even to her own children, the product of her marriage to heavy drinking philosophizing character played by Barry Sullivan, she shows a cold disregard, especially the choice of a nanny, who's even meaner than Joan. Into this dysfunction comes Jennifer Stewart as a young cousin from Chicago who upsets the strange family chemistry that has been developing over the years, befriending the poor kids, and catching a lot of eyes. John Ireland seems a natural as the one guy who can and does (in some well done scenes) stand up to Queen Bee Joan, presenting his usual suppressed aversion to injustice while also straddling the fence. It's worth sticking with for the ending.
