Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Queen Bee, May 27, 2002
A dozen years after her M-G-M contemporaries had settled into their involuntary and disgruntled retirements, Joan Crawford was still in the game. Her "Queen Bee" is not the world's greatest movie, but it's not the worst either, not by a long shot.Crawford plays Eva Phillips, doyenne of an Atlanta mansion and married to a facially scarred husband she's nicknamed Beauty, which gives a glimmer of how twisted Eva is. Eva gets her kicks out of manipulating hubby, her old lover, her old lover's fiancee (who is Beauty's sister- this is a very close family, if you know what I mean, and I'm sure you do), and dear cousin Jennifer. Crawford also has two pre-adolescent kids, a biological coup for a fiftyish woman in 1955, when this movie was made. Much has been said and written about Crawford's scenery-chewing in this one, but it's interestingly done. La Suprema Joan uses the movie as a showcase for all the acting tricks she had so painfully acquired over thirty years in front of the camera. So polished had she become, she's able to convey menace simply by entering a room with a smile on her face. And when she gets mean, no one is meaner, as the rest of the cast finds out by slow degrees. Crawford causes one character to commit suicide, and she has a little tour-de-force moment when Eva learns what has happened. She's seated in front of her dressing table, creaming her face, and suddenly, chillingly, loses it when she hears the news. Both the script and the actress have the intelligence to refrain from explaining the reaction. Is she horrified by what she's done? Is she terrified that she has the capacity to do it? Is she just putting on an act expected of her? We don't know, and it's to Crawford's credit that she is able to communicate the ambiguity in the middle of a bit of Grand Guignol. Most other actors in the cast take their cues from Crawford, acting more floridly than they ever had before or ever would again. Barry Sullivan and John Ireland do well by the husband and the lover, respectively. Betsy Palmer attempts to stand up to Crawford's acting and to assume a Southern accent: both efforts were doomed to failure. The great and underutilised Fay Wray plays a Southern belle whom Eva bested in the race to see who could get Beauty to the altar first; she's lost her mind over it, and Wray's portrayal is touching, if overdrawn. The one cast member who comes out smelling like a rose is Lucy Marlow, whose arrival as a guest sets the movie's plot spinning; Marlow is the one natural and unaffected thing in the cast, and in the movie. The camp aspects of the film are many, not least of which is Crawford's appearance -- wigged, sporting Kabuki-like makeup, and corseted so sternly Playtex should have gotten screen credit. Her wardrobe's a delight, with one knockout Jean Louis strapless in black velvet with a white satin fishtail, and more jewellery than you could shake a stick at, much of it Crawford's own. The Southern mansion in which all the action takes place is more lavish than anything really found in 1955 Atlanta (I'm from there, and the Coca-Cola heirs don't live this well), but it's properly grand and creepy. Watch this for what it is- a camp classic. Appreciate it for something else, as well. Crawford was the one star of her generation to have the studio system figured out so well, she was able to survive and prosper during its demise. "Queen Bee" may just look like fun to us today, but it's also a document of how hard one actress fought to keep working in the years when the lights were going out on soundstage after soundstage, all over Hollywood. Crawford may be the most villainous villainess ever on-camera, but her performance also reminds us of how ruthlessly she kicked aside the wreckage that was 1950's Tinseltown, and rose above it to get the one thing she wanted above all else: to stay a star.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Oh, Joan...., October 19, 2003
Joan Crawford was many things. Underrated actress, major star, shrewd businesswoman and questionable mother, and it's in this 1955 homage to all things overstated, that we see her play each of these parts in turn.As the arch-manipulator Eva Philips, Joan excels for a number of reasons: She's clearly the only capable actor in this otherwise awful movie (although John Ireland's performance is very good), and looks absolutely spellbinding in all of her glorious costumes (custom-made by designer Jean-Louis). In fact, if it wasn't for the indomitable Miss Crawford's formulaic scenery-chewing this film would probably never have been converted to VHS, much less DVD. Anyway, trapped in a loveless marriage to a bitter alcoholic, Joan sets about destroying all happiness around her, craving power and attention as her only means of comfort. Her cousin Jennifer Stewart (played in the most woeful manner by the consummately irritating Lucy Marlow)comes to stay and all hell breaks loose as Joan tries her damndest to break up her sister-in-law's engagement to her ex-lover Judson Prentiss (Ireland). Memorable scenes are when Joan learns of their engagement ('Isn't it REVOLTING??!!?'), Joan getting out of a dinner party engagement (nobody does phone like Joan!), and Joan viciously slapping her idiot cousin Jennifer (clearly a real slap, and clearly in response to Marlow's woeful 'acting'). This is not a film for film-lovers. It's strictly for lovers of camp, Joan Crawford and gorgeous divadom. For comedy value it can't be beat.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
JOAN CRAWFORD IS THE QUEEN BEE..., December 3, 2001
This is a stagey drama in which Joan Crawford is cast as the villainess. She plays the role of Eva Phillips, a manipulative, rich witch, who thrives on making those around her as miserable as is possible. She is married to Avery, well played by a brooding and dour Barry Sullivan. Avery is a wealthy mill owner who is bitterly unhappy in his marriage and drowns his sorrows with alcohol. Eva is the queen bee and autocratically rules over her hive, and, boy, has she got some sting! Whatever Eva wants, Eva gets, and the hell with anybody else. She is the character that the viewer loves to hate.Betsy Palmer winsomely plays the role of Carol Lee, Avery's sister. She is engaged to marry her brother's right hand man, Judson Prentiss, played with appropriate melancholic angst by John Ireland. What Betsy is about to find out from Eva about Judson is calculated to hurt her. What Eva does not count on is the fallout that will ultimately encompass her own precious self with tragic results. Lucy Marlow plays the role of the ingenue, Eva's cousin who has come to stay with her. At first, she is fooled by Eva, but quickly realizes just what a piece of work Eva is. Avery and Eva's cousin fall in love, however, and end up having the last laugh on Eva. This is a well acted drama that will delight all Joan Crawford fans, as well as those who love classic films.
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