In "Torch Song," which arrived yesterday at Loew's State, Joan Crawford's obvious charms are enhanced by Technicolor, and she wears a profusion of gowns and accessories likely to dazzle designers and debutantes while singing and dancing the numbers of a bulging musical comedy book. Miss Crawford, it is only fair to state, never looked lovelier, and it might be indicated also that "Torch Song" is not precisely a bright new kind of story. Miss Crawford's desperate need for love is the essence of the drama here, a film problem, it would appear, that she has encountered before.

The lady is, in this case, a Broadway star who arrived at her zenith the hard way and is ruthless in maintaining that position during rehearsals of a new show to the extent of giving her associates, backstage and elsewhere, assorted megrims.

At this point, however, Michael Wilding, a blind pianist, arrives on the scene as her arranger-accompanist to replace a predecessor who has been forced to flee her tantrums. The versatile Mr. Wilding, a drama critics before the war in which he lost his sight, also is secretly in love with Miss Crawford and, as a philosopher and psychologist of sorts, is a great hand at needling his lady fair. She finally responds by recognizing that she not only loves but needs him.

It should be pointed out that the aforementioned essentials do not include some sparkling, contemporary lines contributed by John Michael Hayes and Jan Lustig, the scenarists, as well as good renditions of the Jack Lawrence-Walter Gross tune, "Tenderly"; the Kermit Goell-Fred Spielman number titled "You Won't Forget Me" and a production song and dance scene featuring "Two Faced Woman" by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz.

Michael Wilding is restrained but fairly effective as the pianist; Gig Young, Marjorie Rambeau, Henry Morgan and Dorothy Patrick are competent as Miss Crawford's boy friend, mother, stage manager and rival, respectively. But it is Miss Crawford's show and she plays it to the hilt justifiably, displaying her legs in a turn or two and a respectable amount of emotion to project both her tough but beautiful exterior and the essentially soft lovesick woman underneath it. However, despite its glitter and polish, her "Torch Song" is strangely familiar.

Otis L. Guernsey, Jr., in the New York Herald Tribune (1952):

    Joan Crawford has another of her star-sized roles....Playing a musical comedy actress in the throes of rehearsal and in love with a blind pianist, she is vivid and irritable, volcanic and feminine. She dances; she pretends to sing; she graciously permits her wide mouth and snappish eyes to be photographed in Technicolor....Here is Joan Crawford all over the screen, in command, in love and in color, a real movie star in what amounts to a carefully produced one-woman show. Miss Crawford's acting is sheer and colorful as a painted arrow, aimed straight at the sensibilities of her particular fans.

MonsterHunter.com (2004):

    [Here you have] the distinct pleasure of Joan overacting in each and every scene, her giant eyes and big snarling lips competing with her day-glo hair to see which would be more annoying to the viewer. She also like[s] to show her forty-something year old legs off at every opportunity. Thanks for that....[T]his movie really makes you wonder what MGM was thinking when they brought back her from her exile at Warner Brothers to do this movie. It is as unpleasant and gaudy as the make up Joan wore (even to bed) in this film. I know that she's supposed to be set up as this self-centered jerk and that she supposedly learns to be a better person from a blind guy, but her conversion to loving person was so fast and unexplained it just rang as false as the wigs Joan periodically donned....[T]he movie is in color and in 1953 that meant showing off by having everything you can imagine in gaudy colors, from Joan's lemon yellow robe, to green walls, to these weird blue suits the guys wore. It just added to the entire artificial and tacky flavor of the proceedings. Artificial and tacky. Hmmm. Not a bad way to sum up the movie and Crawford's "performance."  Complete review.

Scott (June 2005)

Rating: of 5

This was the first Joan Crawford movie I remember seeing.  It came on cable when Mommie Dearest first aired.  After I saw Mommie Dearest, I scanned the cable guide to see when this movie would air next.  I had to see what this Joan Crawford person was really like (at least, on film).  Since I was still a youngster, I didn't have full control of the television and I wasn't able to watch the whole thing, but I was amazed at how tough this woman was.  She seemed almost frightening.