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Female
on the Beach
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Universal-International. 97 minutes.
US release: 8/20/55. Not available on VHS or DVD.
Cast: Joan
Crawford (as "Lynn Markham"), Jeff Chandler, Jan Sterling, Cecil Kellaway, Natalie Schafer, Charles
Drake, Judith Evelyn, Stuart Randall, Marjorie Bennett, Romo Vincent.
Credits: Based
on the play "The Besieged Heart" by Robert Hill. Screenplay: Robert
Hill, Richard Alan Simmons. Producer: Albert Zugsmith. Director:
Joseph Pevney. Camera: Charles Lang. Art Director: Alexander Golitzen.
Music: Joseph Gershenson. Wardrobe: Sheila O'Brien. Editor:
Russell Schoengarth.
IMDb
page.
Critics' Reviews:
Bosley Crowther
in the New York Times (1955):
Miss
Crawford and Mr. Chandler labor grimly toward a storm-lashed climactic scene.
Their progress is rendered no more fetching by the inanities of a hackneyed
script and the artificiality and pretentiousness of Miss Crawford's acting style.
TV Guide online:
Sorely lacking in protagonists that the audience can either like or identify
with, Female on the Beach stars Crawford as the widow of a Las Vegas gambler who
comes to Balboa, California, to take up residence in a beach house she's never
seen....Everyone overacts in this film, with the exceptions of
Kellaway, Schafer, and Drake. Crawford is guiltiest in this respect; she not
only chewed up the scenery, but was probably starting on the camera equipment by
the time filming ended.
Kevin
John on neumu.net
Charles
Oakley on movieline.com
This
site's page for article by David Del Valle in Issue 53 of Scarlet Street.
Our Reviews:
If you've seen
Female on the Beach and would like to share your review
here, please e-mail
me. Feel
free to include a star-rating (with 5 stars the best) as well as your
favorite lines from the film.
Richie
Williamson (June 2007)
Rating:
of 5
In
this movie, Joan Crawford has finally transformed into the gay man
that she would eventually master in Johnny Guitar. Here we
see her in every gay man's fantasy of the irresistibly available
hunk at the beach: Her silly attempts at playing hard to get, get
her got and that scene on the boat where she serves drinks and other
one-liners -- we know what "going below deck" really means
here. Her paranoia over the diary in the fireplace adds reams to
the suspense and we culminate in a dramatic climax (and I use
that term loosely) where the hunk and the she-male live happily
ever after.
I
give it a 5 Star rating in the High Camp Genre -- you have to see
it to believe it!
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