Who payed the critics

Waste of time

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

I can appreciate both Joan Crawford's intense drive over a very long career and her messy personal life as being totally believable in one person. I love watching her 'act' in any movie, whether it's 'Mildred Pierce', 'Whatever Happened to Baby Jane', 'The Damned Don't Cry' or even 'Trog'. Her every move, every look, every word wasn't left to chance for her.She had something captivating although, except for some of her early 'looks' I didn't think she was as beautiful as she was portrayed in her films. She had a skinny, boyish figure, not at all feminine. Surprisingly, she became a handsome woman in her later years when the effects of alcohol weren't too apparent.One thing rarely, if ever mentioned, is Crawford's voice. She could sound witchy in one scene and lower it to sound worldly and wise in the next. And those eyes. You knew exactly what she was thinking. She was 'living' those parts she played.In her interview with the young British guy, I was impressed when she acknowledged that everything she learned in life she got from the movie business. She said that if she didn't know a word in a script, she would look it up. Surprising honesty for a 'big star'.To me, it was both sad and admittedly entertaining that her alcoholism affected her later years. She still had a hard work ethic and I couldn't understand why she couldn't find roles for an older actress as some others her age did, like Olivia de Haviland and Joan Fontaine, etc. I guess her problem was that she wanted to maintain that 'Joan Crawford' persona from an earlier time and it was the 1960s, after all.I would have loved meeting her and talking about 'her' and her career even though I can believe that she might have been a real horror as a mother. She was hard on herself and I assume just as hard on her children. After 'Mommie Dearest' came out, I was eating some weird dish made with tofu and said "I think this is the kind of stuff Joan Crawford ate". He deadpanned, "She probably made her kids eat it".

This is an engrossing and faultlessly researched documentary with excellent movie clips. (The montages are GREAT!) I especially liked seeing the bit where you can actually glimpse Crawford playing for a fleeting second with Norma Shearer as her double in LADY OF THE NIGHT in 1925, and the sound clip from her radio recording of Ibsen's classic drama A DOLL'S HOUSE. (It's intriguing that some of her contemporaries have said elsewhere she was surprisingly effective in the plays she mounted with husband Franchot Tone in their little home theater, making us wonder if she might have actually been able to pull off classic stage roles if she'd taken it further.) I do have to take issue with this comment from the review below, though: << I noticed Christina seemed all too eager to bring forth the darker side of Joan -- how she forced the children to do the cleaning, the wire hanger incident, taking over her role in "The Secret Storm" and all I sense from Christina is an incessant need to repeat to the public how nasty Crawford was. The damage has been done already with the book and MOMMIE DEAREST, isn't it time to move on?...It's the only headache in the entire documentary >> We don't know how much tape the producers shot with Christina Crawford or what else she was asked, all we know is what they finally chose to use. To say that Christina is "still" focusing on that aspect of Crawford's life and should "move on" is like saying that Cliff Robertson is "still" focusing on AUTUMN LEAVES and should do likewise.When the 20th Anniversary edition of her memoir MOMMIE DEAREST was released, Christina gave many interviews in which she praised her mother's career and effective performances. Those professional issues have never been in dispute, though, and what Crawford's daughter has to offer that's unique is insight into what the star's home life was like at specific periods of time.Again, this is an extremely well done documentary, giving an excellent overview of Joan Crawford's life.

Turner Classic Movies, the channel responsible of all films Classic, played this documentary on August 22, on their salute to Joan Crawford, and aptly sandwiched it between her worst movie at MGM, ABOVE SUSPICION, and her Oscar winning MILDRED PIERCE which has become to be regarded as a classic of soap-noir.The documentary, narrated by Anjelica Huston and with commentaries by numerous actors and directors who worked with Crawford as well as some darker tidbits by (who else) Christina Crawford, brings forth what is essentially the exact thing Joan played on-screen: a rags-to-riches life, a Cinderella story, the story of the ingénue who evolves from playing bit parts (and double to Norma Shearer at the very start of her career) to become one of the most powerful screen presences of last century regardless of the material offered to her. Suffice it be to say that her beginnings were humble. That she never met her father until much later in life. That eventually she became estranged from her brother Hal LeSueur. That despite every possible obstacle thrown upon her from feeling like an outsider amongst Hollywood royalty to pressure from MGM who pushed her out into the cold, she managed to stay in the game long after many top stars and "rivals" Greta Garbo and the aforementioned Shearer had passed on into early retirement by moving to Warners and assuring her resurgence as an actress and a well-deserved Oscar for MILDRED PIERCE. I find that the document in itself reveals quite a lot about Joan the person and from here on, Joan the Movie Star and Overall Big-Screen Persona. The comments from her co-stars and former directors are interestingly helpful in establishing how she faced acting in general while vary from pure praise (Cliff Robertson) to initial indifference turning into an apparent, reluctant admiration (Anita Louise), to open support (Diane Baker) when she was much older and alienated in a world/time which was much different than her early years in Hollywood. Everyone conceded that she brought something "intangible" to the table, an untouchable essence, even in her later years when it was clear that her career was long over and she was accepting parts in films like STRAIT-JACKET, I SAW WHAT YOU DID, BERSERK, and TROG. Co-workers from these films admit she played her parts as if she was still working on MILDRED PIERCE -- essentially saying she still had that which was considered "It;" the ability to transcend the mediocre (or at least, less than stellar) material. A shame Hollywood of the 60s stopped calling, but such were the times; while today many actresses keep busy, it's notable that these actresses start accepting smaller and smaller parts (one only has to see Anne Bancroft's career once the 90s came around: hardly a co-starring role in sight, all guest appearances, or the "small but pivotal role".). Joan, on the other hand, wouldn't have less than the title role, and sadly, parts aren't written with older women in mind.Now, I can't judge what transpired between her and Christina, but I noticed Christina seemed all too eager to bring forth the darker side of Joan -- how she forced the children to do the cleaning, the wire hanger incident, taking over her role in "The Secret Storm" and all I sense from Christina is an incessant need to repeat to the public how nasty Crawford was. The damage has been done already with the book and MOMMIE DEAREST, isn't it time to move on? Wouldn't it have been best to talk about all this while she was still alive? It's the only headache in the entire documentary.This one stumbling stone aside, JOAN CRAWFORD, THE ULTIMATE MOVIE STAR reveals a person who simply put, needed people, needed acceptance, and couldn't understand a life of quiet retirement. And while the sordid details of any actor/actress is public fodder, I find it better to focus on an objective source of information and put aside the sensationalism, and thankfully, this documentary is what MOMMIE DEAREST should have been and could not come at a better time, if it's twenty years too late, but late is better than never. It may not restore her name completely -- too much damage has been done and the scavenging of the monster MOMMIE DEAREST created has been lampooned to the death, most recently in Tyler Perry's DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN -- but at least it brings facts, not lurid details, to the forefront. And that's all that matters.

This is certainly one of the best documentaries I have seen on any movie star and on Joan Crawford to begin with. Not many have been done on her, especially one which includes a lot of detail about her life and interviews from many different people associated with her and her films (the best are Christina Crawford and OUR DANCING DAUGHTERS co-star Anita Page). Included are clips from nearly all of her films and many never before seen photographs. Check this out if you are a classic movie fan or a Crawford fan, for sure. TCM will likely re-air this in a few months.