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(More customer reviews)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".
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