Film of the Week: Torch Song, 1953

It’s Joan Crawford. It’s Joan Crawford in Technicolor. It’s a ginger Joan in Technicolor in blackface. It’s wrong. It’s campy. It’s a little scary, too. It’s Torch Song!

By 1953, the self-proclaimed “Queen of the Movies,” the “shop girl who made good” had already been dubbed as “Box Office Poison” and released from her contract at Metro. In 1943, she was recruited by Warner Brothers where she had basically been hired to annoy Bette Davis. She wasn’t really wanted at Warners either. Before her triumph in Mildred Pierce, director Michael Curtiz said, “She comes over here with her high-hat airs and her goddamn shoulder pads... why should I waste my time directing a has-been?" Still, Crawford proved herself with Mildred Pierce, winning the Academy Award for her performance and reestablishing her career. Once again “Hollywood Royalty,” Crawford seemed to be back at the top, but it wasn’t for long. For some reason, she never had the knack for getting the juicy parts that Davis was offered.

In 1952, Crawford asked to be released from her contract at Warner Brothers. For awhile, she acted as an independent performer. This didn’t prove to be too economically good for her. Luckily, by 1955, she had married Alfred Steele of Pepsi and was rolling in all of that soda money—until she bled him dry and he died, but that’s a different story.

One of the first films Crawford made during her freelance period was 1953’s Torch Song which brought her back to Metro Goldwyn Mayer. She must have felt somewhat triumphant coming back to MGM as a star. What a pity that it’s such a strange and jarring picture.

Largely publicized as Crawford’s first appearance in Technicolor, the studio made sure that Joan was as brightly-colored as possible in the film. Dressed in loud, sparkling costumes designed to match her newly hennaed (and peculiarly rigid) hair, Crawford swaggers her way through this odd musical which finds her, later in the picture, in blackface. Why? I’m not sure. By ’53, this was surely not a form of entertainment which was still in vogue or even, really, acceptable. The reasons for this seem to be purely visual. The shocking image of Crawford removing her dark wig to reveal her red hair curling from her painted brown face is bizarre, and, yet, artistically interesting.

The whole picture is, actually, artistically interesting, but simultaneously dreadful. Directed by Charles Walters, the film also stars Michael Wilding (who was married to Elizabeth Taylor at the time) with Harry Morgan (billed as "Henry Morgan"), Gig Young (who would soon marry Elizabeth Montgomery), Marjorie Rambeau, Dorothy Patrick, Eugene Loring, Maidie Norman and James Todd. It’s the story of an embittered, tough Broadway diva (Crawford at her masculine best) as she struggled with the fact that she’s aging as well as the fact that she’s never found true love. She has a complicated relationship with her blind pianist (Wilding) who is the only person who tells her the truth. Throughout all of this confusion, she sings quite a bit. To be sure, all of Crawford’s vocals were dubbed. The singing was supplied by India Adams.

It’s just odd. But, sometimes you want to see an odd Joan Crawford movie. It’s worth watching as a glimpse into the sort of campy pictures that were given to “Hollywood Royalty” in the mid-1950’s. Just don’t watch it if you have a fever. I don’t think that would be healthy.