A Disappointing Continuation

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The immortal Joan Crawford is Lynn Markham, a widow who longs to be left alone at her beach house, where previous tenant, Eloise Crandall (Judith Evelyn) had fallen to her death.Lynn's neighbor turns out to be the gorgeous male specimen in the form of Jeff Chandler, playing Drummond Hall (Drummy), who might have had something to do with Eloise's fatal fall off the porch. Of course Drummy starts to move in on Lynn. Along for the ride are the marvelous duo of Natalie Schafer and Cecil Kellaway who play Drummy's crafty aunt and uncle, Osbert and Queenie Sorenson. And then there is the frequent visitations by realtor Amy Rawlinson played by the always effervescent Jan Sterling who is of course gaga over Drummy, the slick and sleazy gigolo with a rough past.Directed by Joseph Pevney (prolific in great television series' spanning the 1960s-80s, not to mention THE STRANGE DOOR 1951,and PLAYGIRL 1956 starring Shelley Winters.)The film is filled with the right amount of 50s kitch and camp and delicious vulgarity under the sensationalized surface. An obscure Crawford goodie that enthusiasts of the actress and genre should add to their 'must see' list!

This is Crawford camp at its best. As her star waned, she began to appear in films that will forever be treasured by those who adore the trash and flash of 50's soapers with Joan in the spotlight.In this outing, she is a former "specialty dancer" (read what you will into that appellation)who moves into a beach house next to hunky gigolo Jeff Chandler. He takes one look at her and decides that she is a target for his con game of fleecing defenseless women although Crawford can hardly be categorized as defenseless. Joan reads the diary of the former (and mysteriously dead) beach house tenant, a slave to love of Chandler who was bleeding her dry and Joan still doesn't get it. Needless to say, Crawford marries Chandler anyway and we spend the rest of the film wondering if, how, or when he will murder her.Crawford was years too old for the part and she swans around like a twenty year old in the fashions of the time, including many shots in a dazzling variety of negligees. But remember, this is Joan Crawford and during this phase of her career it was exactly what we expected. Nobody did this better than she did. It epitomizes the term "camp" and you can't help but love it. Whew!!!!

I'm not really sure if the target audience for "Female on the Beach" was middle-aged women or gay men, since by the mid-50 Joan Crawford was one of the former and looked like one of the latter. Further elevating this goofy B-movie into the camp stratosphere is the presence of Natalie Schafer, the once and future Lovey Howell, as a villainous bridge hustler serving as pimp to aging pretty boy Jeff Chandler, a gigolo who seems allergic to wearing shirts. One regrets that the producers didn't wait a couple of decades and make "Female on the Beach" in the 1970s, when John Waters could have cast Divine in the Crawford role opposite Troy Donahue, kept Lovey, had Tennessee Williams doctor the script and made a fun trashterpiece. As is, you're stuck enjoying an unintentionally hysterical low-rent thriller starring a Hollywood legend who got stuck in films like this one because she kept plugging away decades after her star faded. (And why not? Was it her fault that Hollywood couldn't offer better roles to women her age?) The eponymous tootsie is not Crawford but Judith Evelyn, who gets drunk and falls to her death on the eponymous beach in the film's opening. Joan, as gambler's widow and world's oldest Vegas showgirl Lynn Markham, buys the late stiff's Newport Beach mansion so she can have some privacy. Invading her solitude is Chandler, the world's oldest "charm boy," who at the behest of Schafer and co-conspirator Cecil Kellaway keeps dropping in on Crawford uninvited and trying to seduce her. She rebuffs him repeatedly, which is kind of understandable since he doesn't have much to offer aside from his manly physique and cheesy pick-up lines like "you're cold -- let me warm you." But there wouldn't be much of a movie if Crawford continued to act sensibly so she decides she's attracted to the big lug, who has a sensitive, caring heart under all that chest hair and the two team up against Schafer and Kellaway. Prepare to marvel at the scene in which Joan disses the social-climbing parasites with the intended-to-be-deathless line "I'd invite you to dinner, but I'm too afraid you'd accept." If that was all their was to the film, it might be a decent screwball comedy, but there's the little matter of the dead Miss Evelyn. Did she jump or was she . . . pushed? Who should Joan trust, the over-the-hill male model she's hooked up with or the nosy cop who keeps barging in? And why can't she get rid of that ditzy real estate agent, played by the forgettable Jan Sterling, after she's already paid for the damn house? These are not compelling dramatic questions, but they're mildly diverting and it's hard not to feel a little sympathy for Crawford as she plays out the string. Keep her some company, watch her in "Female on the Beach."

JOAN CRAWFORD was still playing babes who fall for much younger men when she did FEMALE ON THE BEACH, another one of her Miss Lonelyhearts roles where she, against her own better judgment, lets herself fall for a studly beach bum (JEFF CHANDLER, all brawn and gleaming smile) who invites himself into her kitchen with such familiarity that when he asks "How do you like your coffee?" she naturally snaps back, "Alone!" From then on, she's getting fast moves from him and a bunch of other predators who look at her as a Miss Moneybags whom they think would make a soft touch despite her tough shell. Well, she stays tough (who wouldn't, with these piranhas trying to fleece her out of everything?), and the movie goes on and on in typical Joan Crawford style, playing up the suspense as to how and when she will discover who murdered the previous occupant of her beach rental.Crawford looks swanky throughout and even dons a bathing suit to show off her still svelte figure--and, of course, JEFF CHANDLER gives the ladies a chance to ogle his own brand of masculinity, although he's a bit overage as a boy toy.It's a ton of fun for Crawford fans, but everyone else will have a hard time swallowing the story's resolution to the mystery of who the killer is. JAN STERLING, NATALIE SCHAEFER, CHARLES EVANS, JUDITH EVELYN and CECIL KELLAWAY do very nicely in assorted supporting roles.