Product Details

• Actors: Joan Crawford, Michael Wilding, Gig Young, Marjorie Rambeau, Harry Morgan
• Directors: Charles Walters
• Writers: I.A.R. Wylie, Jan Lustig, John Michael Hayes
• Producers: Charles Schnee, Henry Berman, Sidney Franklin
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301976177
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #166,315 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

MGM released this Joan Crawford film in 1953, it was her return to the screen after a 10-year layoff and what a comeback it is. Crawford plays America's sweetheart, Jenny Stewart, to her fans she's a song-and-dance legend with sensational gams and a sparkling personality and a heart of gold. But to the Broadway insiders that really know Jenny, she is disagreeable, hard-hearted, mean-spirited, domineering star, who won't let anything or anyone sidetrack her career. Crawford plays this role to perfection and is chillingly convincing. This is one of the great forgotten movies, a musial-filled melodrama about a domineering star who finds love and learns humility in the arms of a blind pianist. A glossy production that only Hollywood could do in the 1940s/50s, highlighted by dazzling costumes and splashy production numbers with some really good tunes, this role fits the leading lady's bigger-than-life persona like fishnet hose. And Crawford proves her footwork hadn't slowed down since she broke into movies back in the 1920s as a Charleston dancers. Great supporting cast with Michael Wilding as the blind pianist, Gig Young as her agent, and Marjorie Rambeau, who was nominated for an Oscar as Joan's mother in the film. Director Charles Walters appeared briefly as Joan's dance partner and the subject of Joan's fiery wrath. Entertaining film with good music & good drama, a very convincing, likeable film.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Joan Crawford's Return "Home" To MGM After 10 Years, June 8, 2004

By 

Simon Davis (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Torch Song [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The less flattering views on Joan Crawford would be that the role of hard as nails musical star Jenny Stewart was a role that was no stretch for her, so closely did it resemble the real actress. While certainly the character of Jenny has few redeeming qualities, it is hardly typical of Joan Crawford's working relationship with her own crews and a large proportion of her costars in countless films over the decades. Here she has a role which has gone down into "camp" folklore because of its over the top viciousness and neurotic perfectionism. Jenny Stewart indeed is one of the harder and meaner roles that Joan Crawford took on in her later years and ironically came by at a very happy time in her professional life as it marked her return with great fanfare to MGM which had been her "home", for 18 glorious and mainly happy years in the 1920's and 30's.

Joan Crawford plays this forceful star as a cold and hard woman who believes in perfectionism in all things. The opening sequence finds Jenny in the middle of rehearsals for a new show. Her dancing partner ironically is played by the real life director of "Torch Song", dance legend Charles Walters. He misses one of the steps which sends Jenny into a rage and she shoots off a threat that unless the steps are perfected Ralph, (Walters), will be out of the show. The cast and crew alike live in constant terror of Jenny with the exception of stage assistant Joe Dennar (Harry Morgan) who has learnt to turn the other cheek to Jenny's manical quest for perfection. When her resident pianist has had enough of Jenny's controlling nature and quits Jenny finds herself with an unexpected replacement in the form of reserved blind pianist Tye Graham (Michael Wilding). Tye is not afraid of Jenny and very soon the pair are clashing as he is not slow in pointing out her wrong singing tempo or when she has over stepped the mark in her treatment of her cast and crew. Jenny finds herself perplexed by Tye's manner as she is used to getting her way in all things. She attempts to have him replaced but underneath her confident and ruthless exterior beats the heart of a woman who is alone and desperately in need of love. Her current relationship with vapid stagedoor leech Cliff Willard (Gig Young) is unfulfilling and slowly Jenny begins to realise that Tye's honest straight talk is what she is actually looking for in life. Visiting her mother (Marjorie Rambeau), Jenny happens to look through one of the old scrap books her mother has compiled about her career and in it she sees an old review written by Tye when he was a second string music reviewer. He writes in a glowing manner about Jenny's talent and likens her to a "gypsy madonna". After her cruel dismissal of his musical judgement and her action in getting Tye fired Jenny begins to realise how much she now misses him. She visits his apartment and finds that she has a rival for Tye's affections in Martha(Dorothy Patrick). Unbeknown to Jenny however Tye cannot commit to Martha as he has never actually seen her whereas he will always love Jenny as he saw her perform before he lost his sight in the war. Finding out that Tye still carries a torch for her Jenny finally realises that she has found someone to love her for the person she actually is and she goes to him and in a touching scene Dorothy exits the apartment with Jenny taking her place in the room as Tye is playing the piano. When he discovers who his audience actually is he takes Jenny in his arms and she confesses her total need for him in her otherwise empty life.

"Torch Song", gives Joan Crawford a very meaty role to sink her teeth into and it was her first full technicolour production. She dominates the proceedings from start to finish and Crawford handles the demands of playing a dancing star very well. The rehearsal scenes show an agile and capable Crawford keeping right up with veteran Charles Walters in the dance steps. With her flattering dance costumes created by MGM designer Helen Rose it can be seen that Crawford still possessed some of the best legs in the business. For her singing numbers Joan was dubbed by India Adams who performed the same service for numerous non singing actresses in musical roles. Her big production number "Two faced Woman", done in black face is amazing and in its garish colour and dated musical compostion is perfect as one of the highlights earning the film its "camp", appeal. The other performances pale into the background in front of the Crawford onslaught but Michael Wilding does a good job in the quite difficult role of Jenny's blind pianist. His handling of the characters blind status is convincing and his even playing beside the much more frantic Jenny makes a nice contrast. Also pleasing is the great chemistry between Jenny and the two characters of her mother and her black personal assistant respectively. Crawford displays an easy rapport with both actresses and in those scenes you can almost see a little extra dimension revealed in Jenny's character. The production has a handsome if slightly gaudy look to it with the bright Metro colour but the backstage atmosphere is recreated well with one very autobiographical scene inserted when Jenny greets her young fans at the stage door enquiring about their families etc. It is almost a snap shot of how Crawford related to her own real life fans on such occasions.

Campy, hilariously awful, and great nostaglia value are all labels that have a place in describing this film. It is overall great fun and shows Joan Crawford still in total command of the screen in the type of glamourous and no holds barred role that suited her to perfection. Not a great success at the time of it's release despite the publicity of Crawford returning to MGM after 10 years, it now seems to have a whole second life as a "camp", curio piece . Sit back and enjoy as Joan Crawford dominates the screen as the ruthless, domineering star of stars who finds love in the most unexpected place in MGM's "Torch Song".

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A MUST FOR DVD......, September 14, 2002

By 

Mark Norvell (HOUSTON) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Torch Song [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is not the great movie it was intended to be but Crawford (as in Joan) camps it up in questionable taste and the viewer is not disappointed. As usual, she plays a tough dame (not her fault) who's misunderstood (not her fault) who learns the hard way (her fault) the true meaning of love. Whew! And do we roll with the punches! Her costumes are DELUXE 50's to-die-for and her makeup so thick you'd have to crack it with an icepick. Allegedly, she had a face and breast lift before starting this picture and maybe that's why she looks so tight. But her hair color is what's really odd---ORANGE! As stage star Jenny, she cuts everyone down to chopped meat but stays loyal to her fans because they truly "love" her unconditionally. But a blind pianist ( a cowed Michael Wilding) crosses her orbit and -BOOM!- she enters a state of confusion over "is it love?" and it takes her alcoholic money-grubbing mother ( a splendid Marjorie Rambeau) to wake her up. Whew! Are we there yet? Almost. The musical numbers are WAY out there---esp. the "Two-Faced Woman" number ----in brownface!...(she was supposed to be mulatto) but dear God, what was she or anyone else THINKING? This movie is a must see and/or have for Crawford buffs. A major camp masterpiece in color and Crawford-vision. PUT THIS ON DVD NOW!...

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jenny Dearest.... !!!NOW IN (lots of) GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR!!!, November 2, 2006

By 

Review Lover "ReviewLover" (At a place...) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Torch Song [VHS] (VHS Tape)

If ever proof positive of the genius talent of Joan Crawford were needed to, say, save children from a burning building, all the fire department need do is look no further than this horrifying shambles of a movie. Yes, boys and girls, such is the strength of Crawford's performance as heartless tuneless theatre virago Jenny Stewart, that it propels this dull little movie from the lowly ranks of Pointlessness, right into the glorious lap of You Have Got To See This Right Now.

Put simply, Joan's an Atlas, carrying the combined weight of a pointless screenplay and an even more uninspiring supporting cast on her bullish, fabulous shoulders, and before God, she makes this otherwise-awful mess into an enjoyable laugh-a-minute tale of hate, love and redemption.

Swaddled in !!!GLORIOUS TECHNICOLOR!!! (honestly, there's a peignoir so !!!YELLOW!!! draped around Ms. Crawford in one of the earlier scenes that it's wont to give you shingles), Jenny Stewart begins to fall in love with her new blind piano accompanist Tye Graham (artless Michael Wilding, delivering his lines with about as much passion as a dead rock), but, since the teensy little pinprick of despair that used to be her heart won't let her have any feelings, Jenny tries her hand at reverse psychology, and does her level best to make Tye think that she, in fact, HATES him. Trotting out every single cliche from insulting his education to inferring bestiality (with his seeing-eye dog, a BULLDOG, yet! Metaphorical, perhaps?), Tye Graham, that brave little soldier, remains undeterred, and dauntlessly marches on, secure in the knowlege that one day the shrieking, glowering, generally hateful Ms. Stewart will belong to him. Brave man...

Okay, so firstly, there's nothing to write home about as regards the performances of the supporting cast, screenplay or direction. Bog-standard post-Busby-Berkley fare, and quite disjointed in places. This, lest ye be mistook, was ONLY ever going to be Joan's show, and, rather than simply chew the scenery, La Crawford merely parts her VERY BRIGHT RED LIPS and points to her mouth, and the scenery jumps down her throat all of its own accord. It's THRILLED to be along for the ride!

As should we all be.

Secondly, I can't really put into words how very wrong the use of colour is in this picture. The whole production seems to be deliberately designed in shades of off-grey and drab sludge, with the express purpose of throwing Joan Crawford's hair, makeup and de rigeur preposterous wardrobe into even higher relief. The !!!YELLOW!!! nightie is but one offender: other Gowns Of Note (And Mistake) include the Two-Faced Woman blue spangled extraveganza, and the tie-on flouncy skirt (with bejewelled waist-spikes, attached). Joan's hair colour deserves a special mention here, too: whatever Sidney Guilaroff mixed to create that flaming crown of doom, he obviously had to wear protective lens. It's not just orange, it's !!!HUGE BIG ORANGE!!! and by God, Joan's got the moxy to wear it, see?!?

However, nowhere in this all-singing, all-dancing, all-laughing catastrophe is the use of colour more pronounced (and inappropriate!!) than in the 'Two-Faced Woman' musical number. Joan does it, and she does it in blackface. When she tears off her black pageboy wig at the number's end, the shocking contrast between her chocolate-brown face paint, !!!HUGE BIG ORANGE!!! hair, bleeding red lips and (and this is my favourite part) blue forhead-sequins (no, I am not making this up!) is not just shocking: it IS how it feels when doves cry.

And finally, just to add to the despair/comedy value of the picture, India Adams' voice (Joan was dubbed: watch that clip of her "singing" a song called 'Got a feelin' for you' in the documentary on the flipside of the 'Mildred Pierce' DVD and you'll understand why this was necessary) is a hoot. Literally. Actually, not so much a Hoot as a Primal Bellow. Watch Joan !!!EMOTE!!! during the plainly dubbed rehearsal scenes and I promise you, even the Almighty Faye Dunaway screeching about wire and hatchets and box-office poison in 'Mommie Dearest' will lose some of its sparkle.

Joan Crawford is my favourite actress of all time. In 'Humoresque', 'Rain', 'Mildred Pierce', 'Possessed 1947', 'The Women', 'Grand Hotel', 'Baby Jane' and so, so many others, she's a luminous, magnetic, enthralling powerhouse of talent, and a genuine delight to watch.

In 'Torch Song', she's better than she's ever been before, but sadly, for all the wrong reasons.

And if nothing else, you HAVE to give the woman credit for beating seven shades of merry hell out of this dreadful, dreadful film.

Watch it, and laugh every ounce of water out of your body. But for heaven's sake, do it with protective goggles on.