The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
by Charles Walters, Clarence Brown, David Miller, Frank Borzage, Friz Freleng
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DVD details
Actor: Clark Gable, Gene Raymond, Joan Crawford, Michael Wilding, Zachary ScottDirector: Charles Walters, Clarence Brown, David Miller, Frank Borzage, Friz Freleng
Brand: CRAWFORD,JOAN
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Box set, DVD, NTSC, Restored, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 495 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-12
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- TORCH SONG (1953): Musical comedy legend Jenny Stewart, who has been hardened by the worst life has to offer, finds romance when blinded war- veteran Tye Graham becomes her new piano accompanist.STRANGE CARGO (1940): When eight prisoners escape from a New Guinea penal colony, they are picked up by another escapee named Verne and his girl friend Julie. Among the fugitives is Cambreau, a soft-spoken
DVD Reviews of The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
DVD Review: Great Films
Summary: 5 Stars
The Joan Crawford Collection Volume 2 is a terrific collection with some of the Great Movies: Flamingo Road with Sidney Greenstreet- "What do ya do with a dead elephant" puts the "C" in Classic; the surprising A Woman's Face- no sentiment in this one and what a cast; Sadie McKee a good melodrama and surprisingly entertaining; Torch Song is such fun; and Strange Cargo - This one is one of the best films ever done, and again has a fantastic cast- and it just doesn't stop moving for a moment. This is a fun collection. No regrets! DVD Review: a cliche: so bad it's mandatory
Summary: 1 Stars
All i really want to say is: BUY THIS SET!! It's worth the $35, roughly, for the (enter here the title of my review) "Torch Song." Anyone -- anyone with even a trace of campy-sense-of-humor about him/her (I have a hunch that both, at least on occasion, may apply in this particular case) -- will find "Torch Song" MANDATORY for his/her collection.
DVD Review: Surprise!
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this set because it was the only way to get the DVD STRANGE CARGO which was directed by Frank Borzage (7th HEAVEN, STREET ANGEL, etc.). I took a look at SADIE McKEE because it was directed by Clarence Brown and was pleasantly surprised. It's a fascinating little melodrama that never goes over the top. It's alway fun to discover unknown titles that turn out to very entertaining.DVD Review: "Another Great Crawford Boxset"
Summary: 5 Stars
After nearly 2 years since the last Joan Crawford boxset came out, comes this wonderful collection of Joan's films, which will more than satisfy those ardent Crawford fans, as well as the ordinary novie buff. In this set we get 5 classic Joan films; "A Woman's Face", "Sadie McKee", "Strange Cargo", "Flamingo Road", and my favorite "Torch Song". All the films come in full screen format, as that's the way they were filmed, except "Torch Song", which is in a beautiful widescreen edition. We get a good glimpse into the kind of actress Crawford was in these films. In "A Woman's Face", Joan should have received an Oscar for her role, as most critics agree her performance of a woman disfigured is one of her best. In "Strange Cargo" Joan is reunited with her former lover and co-star Clark Gable, and it's one of their best films together. I also love "Flamingo Road", where she plays Lane, a carnival girl trying to improve her status as a reputable lady in a small southern town. This film served as the basis for the TV primetime soap of the same name in the 1980's starring Morgan Fairchild. "Sadie McKee" is another one of Joan's early MGM films where she crosses the side of the tracks and becomes a society woman. Scenes from this film are also used in "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"; they are in scenes where Joan's character, Blanche, is watching herself on television at the beginning of the film. Finally, "Torch Song" is campy as hell, and Joan pulls off being a fantastic bitch. She plays Jenny, a Broadway star with a heart made of metal, but she finally changes when she meets a blind pianist and she falls passionately in love. The film is also in color. This is also one of Crawford's favorite movies that she ever appeared in; as she said, "...it was a field day for actess, especially one that reached a certain age...I had the chance to act, dance, and pretend to sing"( as her voice was overdubbed).
This is a splendid boxset at a great price. So far the only was to own any of these films is by purchasing the boxset, as the films themselves are not sold individually. The packaging is beautiful too; it opens up like a book with the 5 films impacted neatly in their jewel cases. The plastic that holds the DVD's are extemely strong, so we shouldn't have any problems with the dics becoming dislogged and scratched. Hopefully more Crawford boxsets will become available in the future too. If you haven't already bought the first Crawford boxset please buy it; it too covers a large area of Crawford's work, and it features her best movie, "Mildred Pierce", which won her the Oscar. Those 5 movies in that boxset are in their own individual cases.
DVD Review: Fantastic Set
Summary: 5 Stars
All of the films are very entertaining, Flamingo Road could almost singularly define 'potboiler' and Crawford's at her best, if a bit ridiculous early-on as a 50-ish carnival 'dancing girl', i guess that was the point. She's terrific in the film once you get beyond the first few minutes.
And the price! At this writing (11/21/08) it is DEEPLY discounted at 52% off list- i paid way more than that last year, and it was worth it. Anyone reading, SNAP THIS UP at 23 bucks! Christmas stocking stuffer for the classic film enthusiastic, female impersonator or great-grandmother on your shopping list. And at this price, buy one for yourself- Very nicely packaged, good extras- it's been out for a year, so read the earlier reviews for all of the details ( i was most partial, again, to Flamingo Road, Strange Cargo and Torch Song, but as in all things, its only a subjective opinion), and to be less glib, i meant no disrespect to female impersonators or great-grandmothers.
This is a really nice collection and a great bookend to Volume 1, also worthy of 5 stars :)
Description of The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 (A Woman's Face / Flamingo Road / Sadie McKee / Strange Cargo / Torch Song)
TORCH SONG (1953): Musical comedy legend Jenny Stewart, who has been hardened by the worst life has to offer, finds romance when blinded war- veteran Tye Graham becomes her new piano accompanist. STRANGE CARGO (1940): When eight prisoners escape from a New Guinea penal colony, they are picked up by another escapee named Verne and his girl friend Julie. Among the fugitives is Cambreau, a soft-spoken, messianic character who has a profound effect on his comrades. SADIE MCKEE (1934): As working girl Sadie McKee, Joan Crawford wears a maid's uniform. And as any Crawford fan knows, she'll shortly swap her white apron for black sable - even (or especially) if it means heartbreak along the way. In this rags-to-riches tale, Sadie wins the affections of the singer (Gene Raymond) she loves, the tycoon (Edward Arnold) she marries and the lawyer (Franchot Tone) she grew up with. That's a lot of on-screen romantic fire, not all of it may be due to acting ability alone: The year after Sadie McKee was filmed, Crawford became Mrs. Franchot Tone. FLAMINGO ROAD (1949): Life in a small Southern town heats up when a sexy, savvy dancer is stranded there by a traveling carnival. She wins the hearts of two men and gets a taste of local politics when she butts heads with a corrupt sheriff. Apparently Crawford only accepted the role after Jack Warner ordered rewrites and spruced up the production. A WOMAN'S FACE (1941): Anna Holm is scheming con woman and blackmailer, a bitter woman shut off from society because of a disfiguring scar. The opportunity to undergo an operation to remove her scars presents her with a choice: open herself up to a whole new life or return to her old ways and the only life she's ever known.Those looking for heavy doses of melodrama, good old-fashioned storytelling, and--of course--more Joan, look no further. The Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 offers up a fine assortment of some of Crawford's popular second-tier titles that helped secure this unstoppable actress' well-deserved seat in the court of Hollywood royalty. Spanning from 1934 to 1954, the five films take viewers on a journey over peaks and valleys of Miss Crawford's tumultuous but often spectacular career and permits a glimpse into the star's adeptness to the changing times of movie making. The first film, 1934's Sadie McKee, captures a radiant Crawford, still riding high as the queen of MGM, playing the eponymous poor cook's daughter who struggles to keep her principles intact through her rocky romances and unexpected rise to riches. Nobody plays an unlikely do-gooder like Crawford, and this splendidly entertaining film is one of her finest. 1940's Strange Cargo features Crawford as a dive-bar singer and frequent co-star Clark Gable as a gritty prison escapee joining forces to flee a remote island. A religious parable, jungle adventure, and prison escape movie in one, Strange Cargo maintains suspense and action surprisingly well. A Woman Face (1941) is beautifully directed by one of cinema's best, George Cukor, who provides Crawford with one of her most accomplished dramatic roles: Anna Holm, a woman whose face is horribly disfigured as a child. Anna's physical appearance drastically alters her destiny, and becoming full of spite and bitterness, she turns to a life of crime. When the opportunity to correct her scars presents itself, the story takes a sharp turn into suspense-thriller and courtroom drama territory, eventually making its way to a totally improbable and predictable but equally exciting finale. Flamingo Road (1949), which went on to become a nighttime television soap opera in the '80s, sees Crawford as Lane, a hardened carnival dancer who finds herself stranded in a small town facing crooked men and parochial hypocrisy. Lane's a tough cookie and unsurprisingly manages to cross the bridge from rags to riches while triumphing over her foes in a delicious reversal of fortune. The story may be hackneyed, but Crawford's histrionics provide a juicy good time. This was her first foray into playing roles that are clearly too young for her, yet her portrayal is so earnest one simply doesn't dare question the rather enormous leap in realism. Like pieced-together leftovers from much finer musicals, 1953's Torch Song is the weakest movie of the bunch but still worth a gander. Here, Crawford plays an embittered and aging musical stage star whose unlikely romance with a blind pianist might turn around her lifetime of heartache. The film probably isn't one of her career highlights but offers up some surprisingly poignant, all-too-real moments.
Joan Crawford Collection, Vol. 2 comes with an abundance of extras including several interesting featurettes covering her career at Warner Brothers and her work with Clark Gable as well as several entertaining old-fashioned cartoons. There's also some amusing Torch Song outtakes of Crawford aspiring to sing. (Once you've heard them you may understand why her voice was dubbed.) Many of Crawford's characters have been described as being only slight manipulations of the real Joan; a tough woman looking for a little respect and trying to make it in a man's world. This collection should help vindicate her efforts. -- Matt Wold
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